Break given. I honestly was young once, although it becomes harder to remember every year. Keep your passion for what you believe in. One day we might even agree on a candidate you're passionate about. We just don't agree about this one. For what it's worth, I admire your sacrifice for your daughters. I stayed home with my children for almost 14 years while my wife worked. I occasionally caught flak for it, as you will too, but it was a matter of simple economics. We firmly believed that they needed a parent at home, and she had a much more established career. So peace. I like the ideals that Palin represents to you. My argument is that I don't think she can deliver, not that I doubt her intentions. If I'm wrong, and there is more behind those eyes than I can see, then fantastic, I'll be glad to be wrong. I just don't see it. Since you've been forthright,honest and man enough to admit your own short comings, I think it's important that you know that I don't oppose her out of malice. Brices Crossroads actually got me thinking a week or so ago. Would I have supported Reagan in 1980, if I'd have been of age to care? Would I have dismissed him as a pretty boy actor with no depth? I don't know. I never had the opportunity.
“Would I have supported Reagan in 1980, if I’d have been of age to care? Would I have dismissed him as a pretty boy actor with no depth? I don’t know. I never had the opportunity.”
Those are some of the “what ifs?” we all ask ourselves from time to time. I know many people my age who did not support Reagan in 1976 or 1980 who either thought he was unelectable or too shallow (the acting thing) and they are, and were, just as conservative as I. History had to have its say before we knew. And there were many points at which Reagan could have chosen another path:
I often wonder, and Craig Shirley speculates in his book, that had Ford been more solicitous of Reagan during 1974 and 1975 if Reagan would have even run in 1976. If Ford had taken a few minor steps like meeting with Solzhenitsyn and choosing a more conservative VP, it is quite probable that Reagan’s disinclination to attack his own Party and its President would have prevailed. If he had not run in 1976, there would have been no 1980 campaign. A first time candidate at 69? Not likely.
Similarly, if Reagan (who had been beaten in five straight primaries in 1976) had lost the sixth in North Carolina, he would have withdrawn, a miserably failed candidate who would not have had the credibility to run in 1980.
If these (or a multitude of other “what ifs?”)had occurred, Reagan would never have been President. He would still be a fine man, who had great potential, but it would be impossible for me or countless others, who had real faith in him from 1968 on, to prove that he would have been a great President. It would have been just as plausible to contend that he was a former actor who had an uneventful two terms in Sacramento and then disappeared. Not much different from his friend George Murphy.
Watching politics for a number of years has had the paradoxical effect of increasing my faith that God is actually directing these events.
SEYC: Your passion is commendable. I sometimes go overboard myself, even at my advanced age. I hope no one takes great offense LOL. I remember being so furious in 1976 when Ford took the nomination away from Reagan by what I considered to be underhanded means(withholding $2 million in federal matching funds to Reagan’s campaign during the primaries that cost him delegates in New Jersey, Michigan, Kentucky and Wisconsin that probably would have given him the nomination)that I switched my registration to independent for a brief period (although I wound up voting for Ford)