21st-Century Reaganism

Investor Business Daily Editorial: The war for the soul of the Republican Party was won in 1980 by Ronald Reagan. Presidential candidates who want to re-wage the conflict in 2008 will only weaken the GOP against the Democrats' nominee.

In the aftermath of Vietnam, Watergate and a Jimmy Carter presidency that rendered America an economic and foreign policy basket case, Republicans discovered a tried-and-true recipe for electoral success. They would stand for three sets of principles:
• Lowering high taxes and stemming the growth of government in order to revive the private economy, lower inflation and interest rates, and generate jobs.
• Rebuilding U.S. defenses and unashamedly confronting Soviet expansionism with the goal of winning the Cold War rather than learning to live with communism.
• Reasserting traditional values in the aftermath of the 1960s social revolution, including opposing abortion and smut, especially through the appointment of federal judges holding strict-constructionist views.

. . . Under candidate Reagan in 1980, it suddenly represented a vast cross-section of the country:
• Beleaguered businesses, big and small alike (and those they employ).
• Voters who feared the geopolitical consequences if America didn't soon take the "kick me" sign off its back . . .
•The legions of Catholics, evangelicals and others who deplored America's sinking into a Hollywood-inspired moral sewer.

More than a quarter-century later, sustaining the Reagan coalition remains the recipe for Republican victory in a national election. The candidate most likely to energize all the segments of the Republican grass roots against a Democratic opponent next year is one committed to making the Bush tax cuts permanent and fixing the entitlement spending crisis with free-market solutions, who insists on winning in Iraq and clearly sees Iran for the nuclear threat it is, and who would reverse the radical ACLU mentality on the federal bench.

Yet most of the GOP presidential hopefuls have refused to act as across-the-board Reaganites. . . . Former Sen. Fred Thompson, on the other hand, has managed to gain the endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee (a key stamp of approval from social conservatives) while at the same time espousing the boldest of economic solutions on both Social Security and tax reform. Thompson would solve Social Security's insolvency by giving Americans voluntary control of their own personal retirement accounts. He'd keep the Bush tax cuts, and he announced last weekend that he'd let taxpayers choose between the present, complex tax code and a simplified system with only two rates: 10% and 25%. The movie star politician also proposes a Reaganesque rebuilding of our Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

The Republicans running for the 2008 presidential nomination are often accused of being unconvincing actors in repeatedly invoking the name of Ronald Reagan. Funny how the one real actor among them seems to understand what Reaganism is. . . .[Read More]

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Tags: Election 2008, Fred Thompson, presidential candidates, Reganism, Ronald Reagan To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!