There were plenty of things that Reagan trimmed on. Had he not done so, he would have probably come closer to having a Goldwater result. As it was, he trailed Carter (!) in the polls until the last week of the campaign. Hard as it may be to believe, looking back on it, at the time I was sweating bullets that Reagan wasn’t going to be able to pull it out.
There was no talk radio back then, Reagan had to help the Fairness Doctrine die first. And I think that we expect quite a lot more of our politicians now precisely because they do have talk radio behind them. But as we see from Benghazi - or rather, as we painfully realize that most of the country still does not see - it still isn’t enough. And I should know how difficult it is to persuade people of the obvious truth - there are things that I see as plain as day, that I can’t even get a consensus of FReepers to see.
Ann hides the important fact, that in 1980 the famously known right winger Reagan, was trying to convince America that he was safe to vote for, he had to soften his image to get into the presidency.
Romney was famous as a lefty, the anti-Reagan, whose place in political history will be as a failed one term governor who gave the nation Romneycare and gay marriage.
Reagan was like Hercules trying to hide his muscles to not scare the voters, Romney was like PeeWee Herman wearing a blow up suit, to pretend that he had them.
After 20 years of campaigning, spending 55 million of his own dollars, breaking spending records in all of his races, and a single victory, and a single term in office which he left with 34% approval.
To this day, no one really knows what his core beliefs are or why Romney was obsessed with being president.
The thinking people will go back to the 59 years before he started his presidential campaign, to find out who he was, and that is a very ugly political life to look at.