I respectfully disagree.
I actually remember Ronald Reagan's successful campaign quite well, without any rose colored glasses. Truth is Reagan didn't run a perfect campaign and made some stupid statements along the way (remember the killer trees?). Yet, he still won in a landslide even against an antagonistic media which did their best to label him a warmonger and a Republican party establishment that actually disliked Conservatives, even back then.
Granted, the media in the late 70's wasn't as committed to their cause as they are today. But they were still bad enough.
At the time I was working on a Democrat campaign as a consultant. I was far less ideologically driven back then, more driven by the money (the Democrats in my area paid a lot more then the Republicans). Still, I remember how surprised I was by the number of folks working on this Democrats' campaign who told me in confidence they had voted for Reagan. The underlying reason seemed to be Reagan was someone of conviction. He conveyed certain values which he wasn't ashamed of or intimidated away from by the media. In other words, even though a number of these Democrat campaign workers disagreed with him on policy, they still voted for him (for the record, so did I). A side note, I remember a now mainly forgotten Carter concession speech occurring at 6 pm west coast time. Carter was a typical Liberal who blamed his own party for his loss and decided to get even by sabotaging elections in numerous locations where the polls were still open.
I've thought a lot about that period of time and have come to believe that the reason Reagan won in such a fashion was that he was seen as a leader, not someone who chased focus group findings or public opinion. He was an unapologetic male candidate. He wasn't one to campaign for the women's vote or the Hispanic vote. Instead, he campaigned to all voters as Americans.
Fast forward to his death in 2004. The outpouring of sympathy from supporters was astounding. This nation was in mourning over a President who was a Conservative. Didn't appear Conservatives were a minority then.
I agree with you about our media today and I wish we had an actual Conservative network. Maybe in time we will. While I concede that Free Republic could be viewed as an echo chamber, I still maintain that the values we hold are the same values held by a majority. It will take the right candidate to tap that support, believing that an unafraid Conservative with half the communication skills that Reagan possessed would be successful in 2016.
In contrast to Reagan, most of the potential candidates for 2016 are laughable. They seemingly are of the same mold as the losing Republican candidates before, faux-Conservatives campaigning for media approval (good luck with that), not campaigning for the approval of the electorate. Such a candidate isn't a leader and given the number of dumb as rock voters, even they know a fraud.
No secret that I'm quite high on Ted Cruz. Thus far, he seems to be the unafraid potential Conservative candidate. Perhaps there will be others.
That was before boys were girls, Girls were men and the sheep were running scared. Ronnie did not deal with this massive scale of voter fraud…in his day , it was only 25 % b.s.
My FRiend, we are in a far different country than the one that existed in the 1980’s...
The nation has turned dramatically to big government and nanny statism. I won’t even call it Socialism or Communism, because I think those terms are just political rather than cultural. We have changed culturally.
Consider how far the Atheists and Gays have come in forcing themselves and their lifestyles on us. Keep in mind that all of this is foretold in the Bible at the End Times.
AND most importantly, there is NO Reagan waiting in the wings.