Having worked on the campaign trail you know what I mean by "sell Reagan like a good politician". Inference, intended or not, is a political tool thats used...
along with mentioning every possible answer to a question, hoping everyone will hear the one they want and ignore the rest of what you said. Hilary was/is very good at this technique. Bush talked about Reagan hoping that "inference" would connect the dots and it did.
Call it subliminal advertising if it you want, I call it, in this instance, "selling Reagan".
At the time, I remember hearing Rush call W “Reaganesque”. Rush was relaying that he spent a good deal of time with W, playing golf, and came away with that impression.
At the time, having disliked GHWB, I was not enthusiastic about W. But back then, Rush did influence me. Because he said that, it regretfully swayed me to grudgingly give W the benefit of my doubt. I wonder what Rush thinks about those Bushes now.
What probably helped instill that misled thinking, more than W's speeches, was Rush shilling for him...constantly and patting himself on the back, for having actually meeting "privately" with W; unlike his listener peons.
Bush 41 played the same dumb game, but nobody who was paying attention believed him., since it was common knowledge that Poppy had been foisted on Reagan with an "or else" backroom threat.