[SoConPubbie]

Reagan was running behind both Carter and Anderson at the time. Revisionist history serves no one when it is so easily disproved.

What does his standing in the polls have to do with the Grassroots?

This is YOUR fallacy that you are presenting.

He won over Carter precisely because he had a base of Grassroots supporters. He was not relying on the normal Moderate approach, but had already lined up the grassroot support exactly as I stated in my earlier approach. Because he had done the groundwork criss-crossing the country and talking to every conservative mom-and-pop organization he could speaking up his limited government, conservative social policy, and strong military agenda.

Don't believe me, try looking up what his son Michael has said about this. He's the one that has publically made this point.

Your stated position is the Revisionist history.

[research99]

Post-election studies show that the uncommitted vote moved to Reagan on the weekend before the election, more as an anti-Carter vote than a pro-Reagan endorsement, and that’s what made up the landslide margin in 1980.

Reagan was also very unpopular in his first term due to a stagnant economy and foreign policy tragedies throughout 1983 (remember, Beirut?), and as late as after the first debate he was running even with Mondale in 1984. Those who cite economic recovery as the basis of his support in 1984 are implicitly endorsing the same federal reserve policies which are being criticized today, as they opened the M2 spigot in Spring 1984.