Could Reagan beat Obama? How popular would he be today?

[renard_ruse]

Assuming Ronald Reagan, in his 1980 (pre-Alzheimer's) health, was running for President this year, could he get elected and if he did manage to get elected would he be as popular as he was in the 1980s. In particular, would young people like him the way they did in the 80s?

On the surface, I would say certainly not, he would be considered waaaay too far right in the current hysterically anti-conservative climate, and today's young people would probably hate his guts as much as they did President Bush, maybe more. On the other hand, the guy was a master bullsh*ter who knew how to give a good speech and most of all how to work a hostile media to his advantage. He could also reposition himself a little I suppose. So, I really don't know.

Reagan vs. Obama? How do you think it would play out (not who you'd prefer to win, just how you think it would go down in today's society)?

 

[semen4her]

Still drinking?

 

[Sean Renaud]

Assuming Ronald Reagan, in his 1980 (pre-Alzheimer's) health, was running for President this year, could he get elected and if he did manage to get elected would he be as popular as he was in the 1980s. In particular, would young people like him the way they did in the 80s?

On the surface, I would say certainly not, he would be considered waaaay too far right in the current hysterically anti-conservative climate, and today's young people would probably hate his guts as much as they did President Bush, maybe more. On the other hand, the guy was a master bullsh*ter who knew how to give a good speech and most of all how to work a hostile media to his advantage. He could also reposition himself a little I suppose. So, I really don't know.

Reagan vs. Obama? How do you think it would play out (not who you'd prefer to win, just how you think it would go down in today's society)?

You're an idiot.

Reagan would lose to Obama but only because of looks everything else would be equal.

 

[renard_ruse]

You're an idiot.

Reagan would lose to Obama but only because of looks everything else would be equal.

Reagan would be the wrong color?

 

[CHNOPS]

You mean the race would be between Obama and the ex-governor of a liberal state with movie-star looks and not a brain cell in his head?

Wow, tough to wrap one's mind around that little thought-experiment.

 

[semen4her]

This thread took a turn for the gay awfully quick.

 

[CHNOPS]

This thread took a turn for the gay awfully quick.

I noticed that, but no one said you had to post so soon.

 

[JohnnySavage]

One renard calling the other renard an idiot is funny.

 

[CHNOPS]

One renard calling the other renard an idiot is funny.

Never go full renard.

 

[semen4her]

I noticed that, but no one said you had to post so soon.

It's because I don't have movie-star looks, isn't it?

 

[CHNOPS]

It's because I don't have movie-star looks, isn't it?

I thought you were pretty good with Clint Eastwood in Every Which Way But Loose.

 

[semen4her]

jizz.

 

[KingOrfeo]

On the surface, I would say certainly not, he would be considered waaaay too far right in the current hysterically anti-conservative climate . . .

He would be considered waaaay too far left to be a contender for the GOP nomination.

 

[crazychemgirl]

imo, yes.

 

[TorontoBoyWest]

Assuming Ronald Reagan, in his 1980 (pre-Alzheimer's) health, was running for President this year, could he get elected and if he did manage to get elected would he be as popular as he was in the 1980s. In particular, would young people like him the way they did in the 80s?

On the surface, I would say certainly not, he would be considered waaaay too far right in the current hysterically anti-conservative climate, and today's young people would probably hate his guts as much as they did President Bush, maybe more. On the other hand, the guy was a master bullsh*ter who knew how to give a good speech and most of all how to work a hostile media to his advantage. He could also reposition himself a little I suppose. So, I really don't know.

Reagan vs. Obama? How do you think it would play out (not who you'd prefer to win, just how you think it would go down in today's society)?

Who would be on Reagan's President By Committee this time around?

 

[coachdb18]

The average liberal now, in 2012, takes economic health of the country about as seriously as they take their own well being, in that they don't even care about themselves once they contract AIDS. It's all a big joke, and even when it's deadly serious, and death is the result, they still joke and fail till they die. It's just how they're wired.

 

[TorontoBoyWest]

The average liberal now, in 2012, takes economic health of the country about as seriously as they take their own well being, in that they don't even care about themselves once they contract AIDS. It's all a big joke, and even when it's deadly serious, and death is the result, they still joke and fail till they die. It's just how they're wired.

Can you confine your dumbass to your own stupid threads?

This is renard ruse's dumbass thread.

That much dumbass could cause issues.

 

[renard_ruse]

He would be considered waaaay too far left to be a contender for the GOP nomination.

BULLF*CKING SH*T. STOP THE REVISIONISM AND LIES. PERIOD.

This is BIGGEST lie that the liberal LIE machine EVER concocted. Name me ONE WAY in which Reagan is more liberal than any major mainstream national Republican today. I'm waiting.

 

[renard_ruse]

Can you confine your dumbass to your own stupid threads?

This is renard ruse's dumbass thread.

That much dumbass could cause issues.

And with you in it, we've got a tidal wave of dumbass. Pretty sad.

 

[TexasWife25]

Can you confine your dumbass to your own stupid threads?

This is renard ruse's dumbass thread.

That much dumbass could cause issues.

Lmao!

So true

 

[renard_ruse]

Lmao!

So true

Talking to your alts again?

 

[KingOrfeo]

BULLF*CKING SH*T. STOP THE REVISIONISM AND LIES. PERIOD.

This is BIGGEST lie that the liberal LIE machine EVER concocted. Name me ONE WAY in which Reagan is more liberal than any major mainstream national Republican today. I'm waiting.

He would've failed the "purity test".

Reagan Would Fail "Purity Test" Proposed for GOP

John Nichols on November 24, 2009 - 2:19 PM ET

The most rigidly conservatives members of the Republican National Committee are circulating a proposal to establish a purity test for the party's candidates.

If adopted, the party would withhold money from any contender who disagreed with conservative principles on more than two of 10 essential issues identified by the right-wingers.

"The problem is that conservatives have lost trust in the Republican Party that we will govern as conservatives," argues James Bopp Jr., an RNC member from Indiana who has spearheaded the purity-test push. "I think that loss of trust is warranted to a certain extent because of the fact that we in the final several years of the Bush administration were supporting increased government, earmarks and, ultimately, bailouts."

Earlier this year, Bopp and his compatriots pressured RNC chair Michael Steele to declare President Obama to be a "socialist." The conservative crusaders were rebuffed then, but if they win approval for their purity test at the committee's winter meeting in January, the party will officially express: "Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama's socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life."

With Orwellian irony, Bopp and his buddies have labeled their proposal: "Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates."The relevant portion of the resolution reads:

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee shares President Ronald Reagan's belief that the Republican Party should espouse conservative principles and public policies and welcome persons of diverse views; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee desires to implement President Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates; and

WHEREAS, in addition to supporting candidates, the Republican National Committee provides financial support for Republican state and local parties for party building and federal election activities, which benefits all candidates and is not affected by this resolution; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy positions of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee; and be further

RESOLVED, that upon the approval of this resolution the Republican National Committee shall deliver a copy of this resolution to each of Republican members of Congress, all Republican candidates for Congress, as they become known, and to each Republican state and territorial party office.

Fair enough.

So here's a question: Applying the standard established in the resolution – review of the candidate's official record, public statements and answers to questions – would Ronald Reagan pass the purity test?

Let's see:

(1) Deficit spending soared during Reagan's presidency. Strike one.

(2) As governor of California, Reagan oversaw the development of Medi-Cal, the nation's largest Medicaid program – expanding it to cover long-term care and developed massive new managed care systems. Strike two.

(3) As governor of California, Reagan Reagan established the Air Resources Board to battle California's smog problems and supported aggressive government intervention where the market had failed to protect the environment. As president, Reagan signed more wilderness protections laws – which restrict private-sector exploitation of natural resources – than any president in history. Strike three.

(4) Reagan was a former union president who campaigned against the Taft-Hartley Act and other restrictions of the right of unions to organize. Strike four.

(5) Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which granted amnesty to most undocumented workers who could prove they had been in the country continuously for the previous five years. After he finished his presidency, Reagan continues to speak out forcefully for immigration rights. Strike five.

(6) After the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut, Reagan was urged by some to surge more troops into the region. Instead, he ordered the Marines to begin withdrawal from Lebanon. Strike six.

(7) Reagan acknowledged that during his presidency the U.S. sold weapons to Iran. Strike seven.

(8) Reagan was the first president to invite an openly gay couple to spend the night in the White House and he famously argued that gays and lesbians should not be discriminated against in a 1978 television advertising campaign. Strike eight.

(9) Shortly after his inauguration as governor of California, Reagan signed into law the most liberal abortion statute of its day". Strike nine.

(10) Here's Reagan, in 1991, on gun control: "I support the Brady Bill, and I urge the Congress to enact it without further delay." Strike ten.

Of course it is true that Reagan, like John Kerry, was for some ideas before he was against them.

Reasonable people might debate the proper point at which to try and pin Reagan down.

But no reasonable person can suggest that Ronald Reagan would have met the eight out ten test the RNC right-wingers seek to apply – especially on hot-button issues such as gun control, gay rights and immigration

Indeed, one of the favorites of the RNC's extreme conservatives, Florida U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio, recently declared that Reagan was wrong to support amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

And it is probably worth noting that, when Reagan was seeking the Republican nomination in 1980, conservatives Phil Crane and John Connolly suggested that "the Gipper" was an amiable fellow but just not pure enough. Crane positioned himself that year as as a pure conservative alternative to Reagan.

Crane, the purist, won 1.8 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary and exited stage right.

 

[TorontoBoyWest]

Talking to your alts again?

She is actually my alt.

Dumbass.

 

[TexasWife25]

Talking to your alts again?

Talking to yourself is a sign of genius. One of my alts told me that.

 

[TorontoBoyWest]

Talking to yourself is a sign of genius. One of my alts told me that.

You really think he is smart enough to get the connection there?