Ronald Reagan, FDR, Huey Long, Park Chung-Hee, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Ghandi, Winston Churchill and Andrew Jackson, off the top of my head. Pretty good company, for the most part.
Ronald Reagan was the one I was trying to put the spotlight on. I remember attending a dinner (probably 100 people)when I was 18 that one speaker after another extolling Reagan’s virtues. I was young, so it was only after the Reagan legacy was in the history books that I realized the importance of grassroots functions like that. I was not a Reagan fan at 18, or even 30. But now... Jeez, I miss the Gipper.
Add Nixon to that list. He spent his “wilderness years” building a massive ground game that got him the Presidency.