Reagan, often cited in GOP debates, was nuanced in reality
"They cite him, but very few of the candidates who followed him have understood Reagan."
To reboot his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker last week visited a shrine: Eureka College in central Illinois, alma mater of Ronald Reagan.
Walker promised to "wreak havoc in Washington," a goal he equated with his idol's famous vow to "drain the swamp" there. Walker said he would prohibit unions from deducting money for political activity from federal workers' paychecks, roll back Obamacare, and cancel the nuclear agreement with Iran.
At one point, Walker said he was humbled to be speaking from "this great stage - this stage where Ronald Reagan once found his voice - not just as a student here at Eureka, but found his voice for this nation and really his voice for this world."
Invoking Reagan is practically a requirement for running for president as a Republican and has been since he left the White House more than 25 years ago. The 2016 candidates quote him to justify policy positions, inspire listeners, and to try to claim his leadership qualities.
"They cite him, but very few of the candidates who followed him have understood Reagan," said Craig Shirley, a conservative public relations executive and respected biographer who has written four books on the 40th president.
References are certain to fly Wednesday as the candidates gather for a televised debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., with the Air Force One he used looming over the stage.
In the first GOP debate in August, front-runner Donald Trump parried questions about his past support of Democrats, abortion rights, and single-payer health care. Reagan "evolved on many issues," Trump noted.
"He was a Democrat with a liberal bent, and he became a great conservative . . . a great president, a great leader," Trump said last week on Fox News' Sean Hannity Show. "He had a great heart, and I have a great heart."
Both men also were actors. But Reagan was a two-term governor of California before he was president, and, as Shirley noted, had thought deeply about politics and become a popular conservative thinker years before he ran for office. And, while Trump wants to build a wall on the border with Mexico, one of Reagan's greatest moments was when he stood in Berlin and demanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
A three-panel mural of that scene dominates the office of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, another 2016 candidate who wants to crack down on illegal immigration. In the first debate, Cruz lamented that the United States is not feared by its enemies and said, "It is worth emphasizing that Iran released our hostages in 1981 the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into office."
Gov. Christie often tells voters that when he turned 18 in 1980, "Reagan was my very first vote." Christie, who contends with a legislature controlled by Democrats, also has said that Reagan knew that effective governance meant compromise.
As president, the conservative hero signed an "amnesty" for three million undocumented immigrants, raised taxes several times (he also cut income tax rates), and negotiated arms treaties with the Soviets.
"If you read Reagan's speeches, then they read just like the playbook from the tea party today. It's 100 percent conservative," University of Texas history professor H.W. Brands, author of the new biography Reagan: The Life, said in a recent interview with PBS NewsHour.
"So the most conservative members of the Republican Party today can read Reagan, they can watch his speeches on YouTube and elsewhere, and they can say, 'That's our guy,' " Brands said. "But there is also the Reagan . . . who knew that the point of getting elected was to govern. Reagan used to say that he would rather get 80 percent of what he wanted than go over the cliff with his flags flying."
In short, the man was nuanced. Consider the chapel stage at Eureka College that Walker used last week to announce his "havoc" plan and recount his success in weakening public-employee unions in Wisconsin. When Reagan made his first speech there in 1928, he called on Eureka students to strike to protest budget cuts. (Students did strike for a couple of weeks that year.)
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a libertarian-leaning 2016 contender, turned to the peace-through-strength Reagan during the August debate to explain why he is less hawkish than many of his rivals.
Referring to President Obama's Iran nuclear agreement, Paul said: "I don't think that the president negotiated from a position of strength, but I don't immediately discount negotiations.
"I'm a Reagan conservative. Reagan did negotiate with the Soviets. But you have to negotiate from a position of strength, and I think President Obama gave away too much, too early."
Sometimes, the GOP candidates echo Reagan's words and style. Gov. John Kasich of Ohio ended his July announcement speech with a favorite Reagan meme: "The light of a city on a hill cannot be hidden. America is that city, and you are that light."
The shining city traces its lineage to the Gospel of Matthew, in a parable Jesus told, and also in a famous sermon by Puritan minister John Winthrop on aspirations for the new settlement.
Reagan "was a revolutionary, always challenging the status quo, the conventional wisdom, even inside his own party," said Shirley, the Reagan biographer. He wanted to "transcend" the Soviet Union, not contain it, for instance.
"In an often-overlooked speech from 1981, Reagan said that his tax cuts were not about the economy but about reordering man's relationship to the state," Shirley said. "Who in politics talks like that anymore? It was a profound thought - to reverse the flow of power from Washington to the individual."
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