Can The Reagan Legacy Be Rekindled?

Rekindling the Reagan legacy may have been more easily achieved directly after the Clinton years, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. And it appears some former Reagan insiders are considering doing just that very thing in the person of potential presidential candidate Fred Thompson.

A key figure in the Reagan inner circle has now given his seal of approval to Mr Thompson, best known as a star of the television crime drama Law and Order.

As deputy chief of staff, Michael Deaver was a key member of the "troika" of aides who kept the Reagan White House on track. With the chief of staff James Baker and special assistant Ed Meese, he was the master of image and presentation.

Mr Deaver sees the same raw material in Mr Thompson as was perceived in Ronald Reagan, describing him as someone "that could really make a difference". He added: "He is very popular in his party. He could change this whole thing and turn this primary system upside down.

Apparently Deaver isn't the only former Reaganite jumping on board and Thompson is moving to firm up similar types of support. That's all well and good, Thompson may indeed juice up the race by presenting a candidacy in the Reagan model. But will that be enough and is Thompson really enough like Reagan to pull it off?

Reagan benefited from his optimism as juxtaposed to Carter's failed theme and legacy of America as a morass. Thompson won't be battling against a failed sitting Democrat, he'll be combating the legacy of what many, though far from all, Americans view as a failed Republican President, one mis-characterized as a Conservative at that.

The final arbiter of Thompson's success may rest with, of all places, the younger vote. Reagan was instrumental in inspiring a new generation of younger Republicans who rallied behind his pro-American optimism and did what many conservative and moderate young people rarely do, work for a candidate and also vote.

While there is a great deal yet to play out when it comes to selecting candidates for both parties in 2008, one trend I would definitely watch is how Thompson plays with the younger political set. It's one thing to garner the support of an aging Michael Deaver and his friends, but quite another to impress a less seasoned mass of voters who will be going to the polls to elect their first president, or their first president after the currently not widely popular Republican, George Bush.

The film star and former Republican senator from Tennessee will this week use a speech in the heart of Reagan country, in southern California, to woo party bigwigs in what insiders say is the next step in his coming out as a candidate.

Clark Judge, a White House speechwriter for Mr Reagan, said: "Fred Thompson, like Ronald Reagan, is a man of tremendous substance. There is a sense in the party that none of the candidates is quite 'it'."

Mr Reagan, he said, had "embodied the mission of the party - entrepreneurial growth, limited government and a strong national defence. Whoever can bring that mission into this age will be the nominee. And it may be Fred Thompson." Roger Stone, who was a Reagan campaign strategist, said: "The president Americans want is, in fact, the guy they see on Law and Order: wise, thoughtful, deliberative, confident without the cockiness of George W Bush, urbane yet country. Fred Thompson communicates all those virtues."

In 1965, when Mr Reagan, then the host of the television show Death Valley Days, was considering whether to enter politics, members of the Lincoln Club in Orange County persuaded him to run for governor of California.

On Friday Mr Thompson will address the 45th annual dinner of the Lincoln Club, which is billed as the "largest and most active political club in the United States." The invitation was one that other Republican candidates had tried to secure.

The club includes some of California's richest businessmen - a necessity if you need to raise $20 million quickly in order to compete with Mr Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney. The club found $100,000 for the 2003 campaign to oust California's Democrat governor, Gray Davis, which helped Arnold Schwarzenegger into the post.

Mr Thompson has shown that he recognises the importance of assuming the Reagan mantle. He is on record as saying: "Ronald Reagan believed in something. How much we need that today. He showed what can be done if you have the will to push for tough choices, and the ability to ask the people to accept them."

Comments

[Buzzy]

RUN FRED RUN!

[BobInStamford]

Isn't he half dead??? Wait - you guys are the party of Terry Schiavo, so i guess it doesn't matter.

The SURGE is WORKING, patriots!!

[Buzzy]

Yes BiS, the Fred Thompson SURGE is working and working fine.

[Bill Faith]

The truest Reagan heir in the running is Duncan Hunter who, unfortunately, doesn't stand a snowball's chance of getting the top slot on the ticket. I'd love to see him on the ticket as Thompson's VP choice but a Thompson/Steele ticket has a better chance of being elected, particularly if Obama gets the dhimm nomination, and would be almost as good.

[scarshapedstar]

"Rekindling the Reagan legacy may have been more easily achieved directly after the Clinton years"

Man. Too bad you guys didn't have a shot at anything like that.

Hey, hold on a minute...

[Charles Warren]

Nostalgia for the good old days is a sure sign of a country or a party on the way down.

The GOP, like the Democratic party in the 80's, just doesn't want to deal with the fact that the old slogans and the old mantras won't work anymore.