There is only one Reagan.
Also Reagan wasn’t Reagan until after he became Reagan.
In other words, he wasn’t perfect either, he certainly wasn’t a shoe in against Carter. Carter and his boys WANTED to run against Reagan. He was a zealot, a divorced actor. Someone who was an old dunce from a nowhere college. A push over.
Reagan was trailing Carter by 20 points up to four weeks away from the 1980 election, yet he won a massive landslide victory.
Yes, I know that too. I voted for him four times. Primaries of ‘76, Primaries of ‘80, and Generals of ‘80 and ‘84. But Reagan was mostly Reagan before ‘76. I remember.