Reagan won in two historic landslide victories and didn't have to wait around for votes to be counted multiple times to see if he was the winner. Reagan knew how to lead and govern. The American people loved Reagan and showed it on election day.
Bush just announced the largest budget in US history, spending 66.1% on welfare and entitlements, and only 16.9% on national defense. 20 years ago, Reagan's budget spent 48.6% on welfare and entitlements and 27.6% on national defense. That's roughly 17% LESS spending on welfare/entitlements and 10% MORE spending on national defense, Reagan versus Bush43.
Bush hasn't behaved like a fiscal conservative. Creating a massive prescription drug benefit, increasing funds for the NEA and NPR, nationalizing airport security, signing the anti-free speech McCain-Feingold CFR into law, signing off on McCain's torture bill, advancing backdoor amnesty for illegals, supporting affirmative action before the Supreme Court, signing off on huge farm, energy, and transportation bills and doubling the Education budget. These aren't signs of a conservative POTUS at work.
When Bush took office in 2001, he was handed an economy entering a mild recession, with inflation and interest rates at historic lows. Unemployment was going up, but Bush`s supply side tax cuts did spark the economy following 9-11 and job creation has been good.
In 1981 Reagan was faced with the worst economic times since the Great Depression. Once Reagan's economic recovery tax plan took effect in 1983, inflation, interest rates and unemployment all came tumbling down. While spending, investment and savings took off on a 17 year economic growth boom.
Reagan ran deficits and won the Cold War, rebuilt the military, dismantled the USSR and the communist Eastern Bloc, freeing 500 million people from totalitarianism in the process. Those 1980`s dificits were well worth it. Right now Bush is running an historic $400 billion deficit. But not all those funds are earmarked for the WOT. Two-thirds to three-quarters of that deficit is paying for America's welfare state and the new Bush trillion dollar Medicare Prescription Drug Program.