The Ghost of Ronnie

The ghost of Ronald Reagan looms over this year’s group of Republican candidates. It started with the first debate in the Reagan library and the comparisons continued by candidates themselves, the press, and the public. With Romney’s coifed hair and sunny disposition he is the most obvious person trying to take that Reagan mantle but pretty much all the Republicans have been trying to be the one that bring the Republicans back to the heady days of the 80s. There is only one problem with the candidates trying to do this. They are trying to live up to a man who has become a legend.

The status of mythical Reagan has grown and grown since he left office in 1989, and came to a peak with the week long funereal celebration when he passed. It is like the coach that has to replace the retiring legend you a fighting the lethal combination of reality and myth. Plus you have people look back on the good old days and tend focus on the positive and overlook or downplay the negative. So Reagan is the Cold War Warrior who not only defeated the Russians, and took on the status quo in Washington. Less attention is paid to Iran Contra, ketchup is a vegetable, and some of the other dubious accomplishments of the Reagan years. So when striving to become the next Reagan you are trying to be a legend instead of someone who was an above average president.

The bigger problem may be that the Reagan Revolution has run its course. It was a coalition of libertarian leaning fiscal conservatives and social conservatives with organizations like the Moral Majority got involved in politics as a group. Now the fiscal conservatives are unhappy with the big spending in Washington, and add to that the unease of libertarian types with Patriot Act and other Big Brother like attacks on our civil liberties. So far their unhappiness is harder to gauge because the social conservatives voted heavily for Huckabee. New Hampshire will have more of those voters taking part. However, no matter what this group is not nearly as unhappy as the social conservatives. After 20 plus years of voting and working for Republicans they feel they have very little to show for all their work. Other than maybe Mike Huckabee none of the current Republican contenders are acceptable to the social conservatives, but Huckabee is hated by the fiscal conservatives. In the end none of the contenders have been able to appeal to all parts of the coalition.

The Reagan legacy looms large in 2008, and makes an already difficult cycle for the Republicans even harder. We will see what happens in the next month or so I have a feeling it will be messy.