E.g., Goldwater. Especially in his senile, yammering, pro-gay activist days.
So Reagan comes on the scene and he is laughing AT their foibles....and they really hated that.
Reagan did have a fine sense of humor. A wonderful and charming man who is routinely condemned by the fun-loving, wisecracking, loosey-goosey libertarians here as a "socialist."
A lot of the old line conservatives don't even realize how clueless they are. Many of them probably condemned Sam Kinison for foul language without actually LISTENING to what he said.
I listened to Kinison. I only thought he was funny when I still had liberal leanings. Then I discovered he was an unfunny, obscene, screaming ass.
Unfortunately, Peter Pan, that's the perspective that one tends to acquire when one grows up.
I still listen to Kinison's routines and I still find them hilarious. Obscene, perhaps but soooo true. I remember one routine he did about when he was unhappily married and his wife was yakking away next to him in the car at a red light and all he wanted to do was just open the door and leave his wife with the keys still in the car. You have to hear that one to appreciate it but it sure rang true as did a lot of his other routines.
Andrew Dice Clay, OTOH, just did a lot of foul language without any real point. Also he was a lame Sam Kinison ripoff.