Reagan ran for president in 1968 and 1976 failing BOTH times to capture the Republican nomination. He won both the Republican nomination and the presidency during his THIRD bid for the presidency in 1980.
You keep skipping over important facts, Reagan was a famous conservative leader and spokesman, a 9 year military man, a true leader and thinker of the conservative movement. Romney was anti Reagan and a liberal, that only spent 150,000,000 dollars in the last three years to repackage himself. Reagan lived it, breathed it, and even became a historical figure of creating it.
You can study all of Reagan’s decades of video and never see him taking passionate, strong stands like these, well you can, but from the opposite position.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_w9pquznG4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI