Reagan ... with eight years as the chief executive of what amounts to one of the world’s largest countries.That's a good point. And a tough one for Fred. It's not a deal-breaker, by any means, but it does make it hard to say: Fred is the new Reagan.
Great men like Reagan are sui genus (pardon my Latin). We are just learning that intellectually there was a lot more there than anyone guessed. But the secret of his success was not his experience but the fact that he was the man for the times. Back during the Civil War, someone was regretting that Andrew Jackson was not President. Someone else, however, said. “No, not the times for a Jackson but for a Lincoln. “ There was nothing imperious about Lincoln. Someone who met him described him as looking like a New England farmer. He did not impress most as a natural leader of men. But he was the man for the times, who would bend but not break. Reagan made a very different appearance, that of the aging movie star, but he was also made of steel.