Ronald Reagan last ran for president 24 years ago. A lot has changed since then — partly thanks to his policies. We're not fighting the commies any more. We don't have marginal tax rates of 70 percent. It's now been 35 years since Roe v. Wade rather than 11.
And, frankly, Reagan's record — as opposed to his rhetoric — isn't exactly what those who pine for the Good Ole Days seem to think it was. Reagan did virtually nothing to advance the socially conservative agenda he talked about. He appointed Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, two moderate swing votes, to the Supreme Court to go along with Antonin Scalia, his lone conservative appointee. And he signed the biggest illegal immigrant amnesty bill in the country's history. He allowed spending to skyrocket under his administration, leaving the country saddled with historic debt.
Some further thoughts from Kevin Drum:
...when it comes to truly emulating Ronald Reagan — hawkish; socially conservative but unwilling to spend much political capital on it; fiscally moderate; pragmatic when he needs to be — McCain is more in the mold of the real Reagan, as opposed to the currently popular cartoon version, than any of the other guys who were up on the stage in Boca Raton last night. Anyone who thinks otherwise just doesn't remember Reagan all that well.
A few days back I wrote this about the potential for McCain to run on Reagan's legacy:
Were McCain to win the presidency in 2008, my prediction is that his time in office would in many ways be like that of Jimmy Carter. Carter tried to remake the Democratic party, and the result was a disaster. In the Congress, for example, in vote after vote his primary source of opposition came from his own party, so much so, in fact, that by 1979 one of his own party leader's was willing to openly challenge him during for the nomination in 1980. Like Carter, I have no doubt McCain would work to transform his party. But like Carter, I also have no doubt he would spectacularly fail. You can't transform a party that doesn't want to be transformed. It never has worked like that, nor will it ever....
This is the fundamental dilemma faced by candidates as their political coalition ages. How do you simultaneously attract older voters with familiar rhetoric while simultaneously reaching out to newer voters with new ideas? As Stephen Skowronek has shown, the further away you get from the moment when the coalition was first put together, the more difficult that task becomes. For Bush I that task was difficult but not impossible - think about his problems with his "no new taxes" and "environmental president" pledges and you'll have some idea of what I mean. For Bush II it was far more difficult but still not yet impossible - campaign promises to govern as a "compassionate conservative quickly gave way to more traditional Republican concerns once the White House had been secured. And for McCain? Well, there's just no way I can see how this will work.[Andrew] Sullivan trumpets [McCain's] reasonable approach to immigration, climate change, and torture, and when compared to the other men running for the nomination, no doubt McCain is the most sane. But as Limbaugh's opposition makes clear, what appears sane to independents and moderates is almost unthinkable to the conservative establishment. You think what the right-wing noise machine did to Clinton was bad? Just wait until McCain puts forward an immigration bill cosponsored by the Democratic leadership that grants "amnesty" to illegal aliens. Just wait.
Joyner might be right about the reality of Reagan's record, but as political coalitions age, it isn't reality that matters, its perception. The perception is that Reagan did all sots of wonderfully conservative things. Its not necessarily true, but that's what people believe. And because people believe it, they expect those who build on Reagan's legacy to behave similarly. Except, of course, that they cannot, because if Reagan couldn't do it, how likely is it that others trying to be like him will? Over time, the divergence between perception and reality, combined with the effort of new presidents to lead in new ways, is what frays a political coalition.
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