20th Century Mount Rushmore: Reagan

if you could build a new mount rushmore for the twentieth century which for presidents would you choose i'm kate mcintyre and today on kbr presents historian richard norton smith tells us why president ronald reagan tops his list smith was the first director of the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas he also served as the director of the reagan presidential library in simi valley california by the way today marks what would have been president reagan's one hundredth birthday smith spoke with dole institute of politics director bill lacy on january thirtieth two thousand eleven it's the first of a four part series on the transformative presidents of the twentieth century will find out why he takes fdr eisenhower and woodrow wilson it's easy to come out for ronald reagan the testers do shelter woodrow wilson and taking names richard you wrote the cover story

for this week's time magazine on the president's centennial art tell us a little bit about that story and kind of highlight the reasons that reagan made your twentieth century mount rushmore with the simplest away the un has he changed it doesn't matter whether you're right or left liberal conservative if you're a bush admirer of bob maguire i mean you probably out of a sense of frustration with how difficult it is for your party or your president to bring about significant change domestically or interviewed for a policy that is a reason for that that the founders wrote a constitution the delivery made it much harder to do things especially big things i especially about war ii and to prevent those things from being done on ronald reagan is one of a handful

of radical transformative presidents put aside its like to talk about a transformative and transactional another way of thinking about that is all a high as i am agent of change or seven basically defined by the status quo and there are a few presidents a transformer that you were still good age named after them and i did every three residents of american history the age of jackson in the nineteenth century he draws about fdr which i think western fifty years and paradoxically this young man in illinois who voted four times for fdr whose father had a deputy a job are men who could never have imagined growing up that one day he would lead his all kind of revolution in a sense to reverse what had come to be seen as an irreversible for all

power from the grassroots and cayenne stop and think you we are ringer hands over the state of the economy and talking they'd we about the need to address entitlements or tax reform or immigration hot button issues right into the moment annie didn't know in a way you don't agree with it get that i think you have to take your hat off an acknowledgment that he took massive data congress of the other party and for example immigration reform was significant immigration reform package and they're wrong inside in nineteen eighty six it made it illegal to hire illegal aliens but i sort of that granted amnesty to three million we're here at the catcher for the last significant

tax reform package in america not only did it simplifies the tax goes back a distraction millions at the bottom end of the income spectrum from paying taxes at all ah so so he was someone and the other think ronald reagan changed the republican party he changed conservatism for most of the twentieth century conservatives were basically around to resist the twentieth century and they resent in the direction that is it was moving and never done that are silent on the face reagan put a smile on the face of conservatism he made it a futuristic he made an optimist and he made it inclusive and one of the real challenges they can find his professor ayers and admirers twenty years after your thoughts while reaganism to pertain figure you can sail sorts of things about him

but nothing we know ron reagan practice and you know as you were there while greg in practice the politics of multiplication he put together a coalition i have as i said the bees greenwich stockbrokers and your farewells narrow majority i'm jeanne kirkpatrick your columns and pat buchanan and we'll call it and the coalition every bit as improbable as fdr as maybe in college when this well fdr already have a law and call their about transforming figures that bio changed profoundly a political consensus and the one that they inherited what they'll apply final point the best evidence of that when bill clinton said famously that the era of big government is over it wasn't because bill clinton had suddenly jettison his activist in the

state it's because bill clinton was smart enough and shrewd of a politician to accept the basic parameters of the the anti washington moon that it didn't bequeath to him and indeed that president obama finds himself dealing with a decade later i haven't well nsa two years ago right after the obama lectured for time which i said that at the end of the league right and i was premature to put it mildly i'm clearly skepticism in some cases cynicism surly hostility about government is a very significant part of the culture the great challenge and i think barack obama conference is how i would do it redefine the word wasn't because he's

not covered which you may read this week he's not ronald reagan read it i'll bought those tasks can he redefined win was of the twenty first century the way that ronald reagan i do we redefine conservatives reagan's ascent to the presidency was was very long and involved a lot to me kindly give us a little bit of that history of what happened before he was governor before he ran the first time in its president ford and a significant event but when things are going for him when he became president he had a movement he he was known to millions americans for robert i'm not just because he was in fifty three mostly be the reason i would order that was not an insignificant audience but the fact is that the chorus all his hollywood career he underwent a commercial a political conversion from liberal democrat who is as they

voted for fdr voted for truman i think i was the first republican to vote for reading changes registration until the nineteen sixties but that that the matter is he was by his oh he's the reason i was a heap i was valuable even higher level i was a hemophiliac and i guess enough to start a blog blow somewhere because of bodily fifties he was working his movie career was over he was working as a spokesman for general like traveling the country which was a kind of campaign in many ways i'm doing what became known as the speech and the speech must have been given hundreds of times it in it reagan outlined his basic values convictions his fear of the government out with the best of intentions was all too often producing the worst of results that was the enemy of innovation and private enterprise a lot of the white hair and then

it's a big optimistic and again conservatism in the twentieth century in our coverage over ahh it was angry are out there it won't matter oh was in many ways he is the godfather i think of the modern conservative movement but people tend to forget they think about the later goldwater the sixty four was was running in a way as an angry campaign and quite frankly a campaign that in the south at least was fourteen with the races and reagan had this extraordinary gift he made some ways are curbing underestimated which work to his advantage in a number of ways in nineteen sixty it was approached by some conservative businessman in la mostly long run for governor and the

great wine jack warner said dodd why reagan forgotten all know the jimmy stewart gardner already of her best friend i'm wheeling internet email and by his own admission he knew about the beginnings of government he had a somewhat rocky first year but you know a nineteen sixty six remember when this country was in the mid sixties when ben adler one of the ironies of reagan is very sunny optimist think they're looking figure he was a man as a byproduct of a rather sign or fewer full popular mood in the wake of the civil rights revolution of the gathering women's movement on a number of other movements that since transformed our culture and happiness be at all a growing sense that the great society

all of the well intentioned was falling short of delivering what it had promised so i think it doesn't rest of the penguins was doing enough to remember some of you made entirely at that i am america in the mid sixties are a lot of people thought that for thirty years about the sixties were the defining decade there are people in the sixties were a period of an aggressive the word liberation well overdue recognizing all sorts of groups who have been modernized in our society arm there are other people who believe that the sixties represented a breakdown of traditional values including the family itself will include we tap into that latter camp the latter camp had enough of a majority to like richard nixon in nineteen sixty eight what ronald reagan in nineteen eighty to like the republican

congress in nineteen ninety four and so write million rides the crest of this of this way but he is an unconventional conservative but he was a principled pragmatist and that is now an oxymoron in nineteen seventy six he runs against gerald ford for the republican nomination ironically because i was ready to popularize the eleventh commandment thou shalt not speak ill of another republican asterisk unless it was gerald ford iran hasn't happen to be appointed to the president said that your two weeks before the convention this week conservative announces his choice of vice president regents writer a liberal senator from pennsylvania she'll pragmatism some would say cynicism designed to do nothing crack open the pennsylvania delegation it did work but it did suggest something about

ronald reagan ronald reagan had been is onward days president screen actors guild as owen union president he knew something about negotiating across the table from top adversaries and he always said if i can twenty percent of what i want i'll call it a victory and others sang true believers who would think that unless you get a hundred and five percent you haven't got a victory and i don't think they understand reagan then i got you and that's really understand reagan now talk a little bit about richard the nineteen eighty campaign they got to the campaign got a very very slow start and then gathered steam and had a tremendous spanish but that you know that's about some of the challenges we were in nineteen eighty and eighty nine as we have been going through and i'm going through tough times economically but people have very short memories when they call this the worst situations it's a great depression the second letter is imagine

a country with double digit unemployment with interest rates topping out at twenty one percent ohio says a civil war with double digit inflation pasi energy there is energy shortages left prisons of bats what jimmy carter brought into that it at a lectern and then on top of that you had the americans will be held hostage in iran by the iranians in for ayatollah khamenei so you have this wiring perception it is an article of faith in this country with your partner democrat that the future is going to be better than the prayers that your children will have a better opportunity that america will be

there are three or more prosperous to marilyn is today his trees an escalator and a revolving door and in nineteen eighty we read a far we have begun to lose that confidence which means we've begun to lose confidence in ourselves so that was the political climate and which republicans nominate reagan and you're right that that campaign who i was thinking of the symbolism or not he started out and mississippi the city armed in a yacht in a community ripped meat we're the racial overtones memories from the civil rights movement and he rated by that states' rights are which is a very charged phrase but typically they are armed that was just a it was just a bizarre way to begin the campaign i'm on the

enemy and reagan had something going for or expectations there are millions of people are watching that they ordered for over again not necessarily because they got into supply side economics the united at the candidates don't do reagan had a program i was really specific he had an agenda yet or he said if you let me i don't know this this is my plan for the economy last government lower taxes on most of the incentives are for the entrepreneur an incline a huge build up in the defense budget reagan all right well transformative leaders lived in a world of his own a magic a sincerely believed that he could cut taxes radically increased defense spending and balance the budget i have in many ways the story of the reagan

presidency is on the somewhat painful discovery i can do to help revive got to drink and he decided that he would do to a tree and he would read the balanced budget there be peace dividend if we won the cold war it's etiquette and thirty years later we're as we're dealing with the consequences of that by nineteen eighty that was rendered they are two debates jimmy carter did not choose the debate with reagan and the third party candidate john anderson who i was out there republican and they did find in the first debate and remember right here is the parallel i would not exaggerate the parallels between obama right but strategically nineteen eighty as into validate the challenger at the same test the meat he had to demonstrate to a skeptical electorate that he had the training the temperament the background the instincts

people can experience but it's no experience in the sense that if you have your resume you're looking to hire someone it's but it's it's you know this has become in my living room twenty four seven out of that war or eight years and i'm comfortable with it and reagan used the debate recorded now and that was exactly our culture was car credit was undoubtedly better it's undoubtedly better briefed on doubt only add more facts at his fingertips and it didn't matter whose reagan with his instinctive grasp of rob the american people needed to hear when carter attempted for example to turn back against reagan are things he had said in the past about voluntary social security or opposing medicare are riches it'll actually a document a bowl and reggae just pounded on they go again and this is common though

the genie you know i was sort of in this piece is aging you know fundamentalist which is an oxymoron when you've got to think about it but then insisted begins to convey the complexity rather make it was a complex man who appeared simple arm and he had an intimate he did in that debate was to fall reassure people that he wouldn't be trigger happy that he would start a nuclear war that's the first thing you need to do if you want to get elected president arbenz second he made the connect to people in his closing statement he said are you better are you were four years ago when you go to the market to buy things cheaper is it easier for you to get gas i mean these questions that

don't take incised all right it rolls but which absolutely reach people with a wave and only with a boat so i think i i think with every respect have great admiration for president carter i think has an extraordinary things as a former president but thirty years later he still doesn't know what he had and in the end that today because he was approaching it intellectually in a cerebral way and read from where he was coming he had the facts as i get the facts at his fingertips and ronald reagan was this kind of genial snake oil salesman and rain and now one huge landslide that year he won another huge landslide in nineteen eighty four you talk about that the debate with carter talk a little bit about the first debate with mondale the one that is so difficult than it has been

on again and ron juniors book there's no doubt that get one regular so unconventional there was a major story jim baker tells one that went to geneva are the first criminal encounter between reagan and gorbachev and remember this is that he is in which the cold war had become pretty frosty and after all that was riding on this and reddit apologized for the morning of this meeting i'm sorry fellas get out of it at this briefing book is that briefing book but you know the sound of music was all it was righteous man that way and our head and amend it jimmy can you imagine telling jimmy carter you know really get ready for your first meeting with the cobbler job is to is to watch julie andrews and christopher plummer you know in the end the swiss alps i don't think so the genetic history suggests

whereas the president's probably the invasions of the dvd where it does that it does seem to have that it does seem to have worked i'm better than i was work and there's an entire last night and there's no doubt that ronald reagan's first debate against worker mondale was a disaster and now no more than right right it was a disaster as he has each other at a mock the stage really smart really on reaganesque and he knew i'm you know in that case he'd been over prepared and i'm witnessing thing is two weeks wherever the second debate we remember is reagan's one weiner about because i don't think it crystallized doubts that somebody in the media as it is it's meant to is he to out to want to be president yeah because you know that of course and he had the perfect comeback and he said you know i'd rather go

exploring the issue and not the votes for a bipolar as youth and inexperience and mommy no you see so that the signal is that it's a place that he knows it'll you know you in a very slim chance to win that election and he knew in that one liner that was so that's so fascinating because i was the political director of the republican national committee install but a campaign management look at the campaign's up the covert the national committee and the president's numbers indyk worked ones that work with older in the daily tracking figures going into that first debate we had about making what we we saw were to collapse over a period of four days about nine want an eye uk about five years ago we had the former vice president mondale here and i asked you about the specific episode this is a great thing about the job that that richard created here and help first battle davy get a chance to ask the historical figure that i said mr vice president

your standing there with that big smile and how laughing at this one liner that president reagan is that odd do you did you know at the time that was a walk off home run that he just fit he said bill i was standing there laughing as far though was recovered by half of laugh that are ominous started crying so i knew the election was over that second cell just really fascinating i'm actually going to get that right now in law because i think that i think that's important because one of reagan's gold all had been in the cold war a title the time described the arms go up an easy relationship with gorbachev and his role in all idiots humanity and the cold war ii he manages about where he meant to end the nuclear standoff and i guarantee you that the establishment votes in the state department raising arm most politicians and so multiple that's an incremental

west's then they measure progress in in baby steps that's only true when arms control successes restraining the rate of growth of nuclear arms reagan was going from adults reagan was a radical reagan believe that nuclear weapons were immoral he thought that usually assured destruction was inhumane it won't get rid of a way to get rid of the aisle which i guarantee you will his own advisers every bit as much as high as the senate saga of the senate's but that's you know that's how reagan thought alm he's again he's now conventional in his approach to do these big issues he had it he said

that the soviet union the soviet we have that dialogue in some cases it was a big deal i mean the weight and i lamented constantine should they go is i'm well the set the messages in and out of a kgb guy from the kgb before that brain of in his dotage i'm so i'm the howdy ron reagan this year in american history to be president outlived one soviet leader after another and in some ways it was a metaphor for the soviet system was was headed and then along came this dynamic unconventional thinker color because of gorbachev and the first margaret thatcher that gorbachev and she said this is a man i can do business with

and i think that no catcher reagan alliance is is that said ma i do think that the three i think i know exaggerated but i do believe that that you're margaret thatcher ronald reagan and john paul the second are ira ah ah ii has its the trinity i had that's that maybe i might be an appropriate but but certainly are a trio who all made history in a very significant way of reinforcing way in some ways anticipated the course of history in other ways given that when reagan came into office with but leaving for several soviet union was a historical aberration from every day this week decided to the attic of history and and it just drove the people the state department up a little that's not how you were supposed to

do to conduct diplomacy it and they never changed it at seven reagan goes to the brooklyn and gives a famous tear down this wall street and as late as the flight over big with the state department kept taking the phrase out of his speech and reagan kept putting a packet and guess who won in the air i hum so the so there was this clarity about reagan you know you don't think of conservatives making waves in that sense but but but reagan did and i'll do so by nineteen eighty five he's reelected and dumb the economy is wearing that city given summer turned his attention to foreign policy on the hand he's got the defense buildup that he wants so now we can use these introduced the concept of the strategic defense initiative popularized as star wars so you have a pieces

are now in place i'm plus he's established his reputation in moscow as a tough guy who does what he says and it's not because of the rhetoric it's not because you called the medieval and water it's because in nineteen eighteen now in august of nineteen eighty one he fired eleven thousand here traffic controllers strike was a connection us i guarantee you it made a big impression in moscow with a c a series of american presidents meaning well albert nevertheless had shied away from it step that all that radical that politically risky remember when the patco strike took place there were no holes there was actually no reason in the world to believe that it would be popular there was any reasonable way that would be a fiasco that the nations irresistible rival whole but our regular be

blamed for that because of his ideological obsession all union busting i'm so i'm also the two defining moments of the reagan presidency was the assassination attempt in march of nineteen eighty one there was nothing mike deaver have nothing to do those pictures and read that script than on stage that we sail through to ronald reagan we saw reagan's character we saw his humor we saw how he dealt with the most pressure feral situation that one human being could imagine i'll he showed us qualities that we have seen on the campaign trail and i think millions of people including millions of people who never been born a battle with reagan that day which ramifications far as politically that there's domestic way in getting is tax and

spending cuts through a way lot what iran contra table reagan had banked about credit with the american people they were willing to cut him some slack they might've impeached another president but they were willing to do to wright ragan explains and with a tower commission and everything else he do it but sometime he had become a p seeking president he had become a president committed to diffusing get cold war tensions and ultimately the mayor talk about the evil empire would be in red square with the coverage of kissing babies and preparing to sign the first treaty in the history of the cold war that eliminated entire class of nuclear weapons he didn't get his wish it was too visionary

to write out our nuclear weapons but more than any american president since hiroshima not ronald reagan reversed the course of history talk a little bit about the defining characteristics of reagan's leadership style what what is you talk to you know at the outset you talk about you know he's a conservative icon but he was actually a very pragmatic he got along very well went out of his way to get along with the other party the civil and courteous and it has a huge advantage say one earlier i think in nineteen eighty you didn't have msnbc and fox and you didn't have the internet and i sound like a broken record and i'm sorry but on balance those have not been positive forces in encouraging either political stability or people work across the

aisle and the way that that regime falls idaho for reagan could have an old republican party would not want that in two thousand twelve i don't know if in this media climate in eight years when reagan pick up the bill and get three networks in new york with ninety percent of the national television audience to clear the decks and given not our we have no competition and i have to give a half hour to a democrat afterwards otherwise they just have a few pundits basically telling you what you've just heard are today the president and it's true of george bush's troop while the senate up even get the proper it may be relegated to table

suddenly wealthier he's done for millions of people are between what they think they have this up appointing puckett and so it the better but the teddy roosevelt created and that ronald reagan filled brilliantly is in danger of being drowned out by an electronic writer and i think that has been relentlessly diminish the persuasive function of a president and that's a we saw this a couple weeks ago drew so the president i think almost universally it was felt gave a moving huge we appropriate speech which are very good the show's of partisan politics but these giveaways sort of simon that's what lincoln said the better angels of our nature so it can't happen but now with the frequency or predictability results that ronald reagan

could good record called on thirty years ago which is just a different a i mean that said there are very carnal we hear all what reagan's decency is honesty his integrity i'm i his regard for his opposition he saw that his adversaries not enemies and that's that's important on for that week and yet he was a polarizing figure is about thirty five percent of the way through his first year that he had ten twenty percent unemployment under those circumstances is under today circumstances people tell me when will the presence the restaurant that is nothing it's seven point five percent aren't what they won't do to increase the president's popularity of eight to nine point four percent i'm so there are those but and then

there's those extra ordinary qualities that reagan had that fdr had that andrew jackson said that lincoln had i'm in in in iraq of like we would call them delusional this capacity to believe what no one else is this capacity to imagine a war with us without nuclear weapons armed and that instance after instance it all ready and spent a lifetime at making believe he had a very thin tough hardscrabble and i remember i've heard him describe his mother who gave him out of grounding who made you know we did everything to happen in life was part of god's plan on what they made a game out of poverty and in particular i

pretended that we'll meet was a diversity i don't i'll never forget when he was much more observant people thought when i think it probably wants and then i've worded i could see it for myself as a break or reagan reagan's first job you know when he wanted to be as a boy he would be a cartoonist i was a cartoonist he's an observer he's someone who stands back is visibly very detached but very observant and i thought that you know well you know relatives family moved seven times by my count before he was ten years old so he never set down roots never really developed friendships in the way that most of us do in a more rooted environment and i think that's his father famously was was an alcoholic so i think from a very early age was remote quality i mean franklin

roosevelt was exactly the subway fdr was an only child bring beautiful that he could get on the radio and say my friends and millions of people believed he was speaking directly to them and the fact is he had no friends ronald reagan have had virtually no and yet millions and millions of americans felt of reels almost spiritual kinship with the president you saw that during his presidency is always sought a few years ago at the time of his death with el outpouring of emotion probably the greatest since jfk made his final trip burlington so i'm a burrito story he he wanted to stop yes which are basically stories about the imminent failure of the soviet union

and of the dissatisfaction of the ones up right so the people in there and their way of pretty good at the war and the economy was the week he would tell them to go to and the really funny thing is a great job for britain to find them is a rigid tells you something about that then that memo which hasn't been told the data concerned i'm an online course there'd be a long line in red square presumably to get into a store to find what little consumer goods were available and this line was interminable and slow moving and finally someone in the back of the line is that he just that he said i got that up with a more insane or gels full and the ocean a weasel it runs across red square disappears over their eyes twenty four hours elapse alive is barely

moves arm and then someone says it there's a guy was there to leverage up and the guy comes back when across red square and say well the usual green ridge of a set that was twice as long susan about ronald reagan to the same confidence you have to tell a story like that very remarkable a remarkable guy and you know people ask the question when they say you know who's the next ronald reagan was a reason for it no need for better weather is not another ronald reagan i will get in trouble for saying this but it's not the first time i got in trouble for saving i have said the republican party

until it deals with to that will not regained majority status is going it has to figure out a deal with the ghost of over again after figure out how to deal with email to real presence of rush limbaugh and when it when it but it has a strategy that it will take the last time i was with the president was when i resigned from his staff in nineteen eighty six to go to work for bob dole and done is really special for me because i have a photograph we had a few minutes there in the oval office and he gave me was my dr most prized original version which is a crystal gale of the jar with the presidential and more you had the chance to be with him much later than what was that roy you know i hadn't heard this before i on last time president reagan it was at the

very beginning of january of nineteen ninety six they review the map of every year since he wrote his famous letter to the american people revealing is the diagnosis of alzheimer's any <unk> weren't as he did a number of occasions and indeed would continue to do so after i was i loved that they worry about your grand rapids but anyway i tried to present him up you can imagine that what's on people's faces you know in the library when ronald reagan walked in the door it was a fire at a thrill and then afterwards we took a moment or the lawyers the bridge were going to go have lunch i was about ten miles this one's boyce says don't go right to the president so i'm in the backseat of the car and i am the baum we stand chatting i don't know why probably the same

instinct that was going to say things that get in trouble i thought while i ask god curacao asked the president a question or he can answer and thinking back of course to that defining moment in march nineteen eighty one i asked him mr president we know why but i don't know you know how does it feel to be shot and he used to be and he has died describing the experience and i realized after mentors so that he was talking about in the movies or not john hinckley and it was very poignant and on the one hand it goes to this alternate got a reality i don't think it was also on president ronald reagan by that point in his wife people would ask

me did you see effects of his illness an end to a remarkable degree the answer that was not the only way you knew you'd been around in this was a man with an extraordinary repertoire of stories he's the best president or storyteller so it's like arm and it's interesting over time the record for the minute he never talked you know told a lot of stories about the white house he told stories about hollywood and he told stories about growing up i am particularly in dixon and his wife for days i swear to the day he died along with his marriage to nancy i think the thing you his proudest of was the fact that over seven summers and has a documented he rescued seventy seven swimmers can to india and the repertoire of

stories the biggest airline total after i went to the and he would talk about why was it ever it's very interesting i said he was more observant people thought especially listen while reagan deconstruct the psychology the difference between saving man who were drowning and didn't want to admit it and women who only too willing to be saved by the handsome strapping you know and it was and it was a it was a window i married his psyche and the reagan again was much more observant of people that i think he was reading and i we had a delightful watch but i'll never forget you know the last time i heard i was to be shot on a hot on i would movie set

we are going to open up for tonight that question right here if you laid them like a rocket you think the great and take on big shot the disarmament of the matter no i don't think so that's an interesting observation i think it matters on i'm not sure he would have a higher taxes much at historical significance to it and the impact that at home on his presidency that people like i have a mom i also think that town in several ways it had to have affected his presidency and i know i'm not speculating on his physical health per se but for example we know that mrs reagan was already understandably quite properly concerned with security and and

then and scheduling over over scheduling became you know even more so after that i am and whether right not to us and just say something it's the reagan is it absolutely pivotal part of this story yet they had never been incinerated i seriously question there were deliberately and be all that she was born in a very very difficult in an awkward position because he saw the best in everyone which is a wonderful trade in any human being and perhaps an unaffordable what three of the president but he did meet young he wasn't naive i think he was gonna was as a difference on any candidacy the good people and down that in some ways though that her will the kind of protective

role off about questioning whether people's motives were as pure for example that the matter is we know about it if you've got reed had not swap jobs with jim baker at the beginning of the second term or even the secretary of treasury anyone reaches down so god knows why eva n n and baker wanted to be the candidate and i think if bakker if jim bakker been so huge that it would not have been a record and mrs reagan seems to have says from the very beginning of a quite quite proper way that don regan at least was a mismatch in that in that chief of staff job so in some ways you know who knows if it was during the war there's a lot of history that might ever whenever out there the question that question right here while

these it said um reagan's early liberalism might have made any positive contribution to his unique form of conservatism that's a very very good question i think i'm in practical ways that this was a man who spent the majority will hop of his life as a former democrat and while people tended to zero went on the fervor of a convert but the fact of matter is reagan understood democrats even what he understood what they what they stood for me when he got into a negotiation you didn't demonize then they weren't ideological or other enemies and i think it i think he did have an impact on in the

operational sense he didn't have to eat enough to get a hundred percent all the top end and critically critically rate in a way that is unusual almost unique the madam president reagan running genuine humility to the office and famously when ruby mania us what the american media and were discovered where which often end up you know it was the rage and there are people around the president were very concerned that gorbachev was dominating the press coverage and reagan said oh yeah that there's a you know i don't want that hair icon start with what's there now it's a great way that's very revealing that the reason that ronald reagan had a bomb with people including people like they didn't vote for hillary with no people believe that he was a

man of principle who was willing to risk things the principal and two i think they appreciated it was never his amiability i think they sent it to him a basic decency om you know that we had to think of as especially american art and it's easy to you know i would say i'm a way to understand reagan remember a tax your memories if you remember the late michael medved had a sketch on said no life at the time of iran contra and it was brilliant its shoulder to reagan's whenever i was around reagan was his daughter a new man who barely knew him only was or where he was and the minute and then left you know suddenly super reagan

well the rover i put this man with a computer write that by and grasses situation and it was it was as wonderful as it as often is the case it's commonly that reveals to him and it was something i think about their apartment was wasn't smart enough to sentence but those of the reagan again i said oh he made a crew are being underestimated and i think now that served him in some ways very well but the other thing that people incensed about reagan was he didn't need to be present we'd been through a series of spectacularly tragically short and presidents tragic president's unsuccessful presidents well meaning presidents with rare exceptions the richard nixon went on sale

their first thought every morning opening their arms was what i do today to become president eleven years of actively psychotic leadership and the oval office and then ronald reagan comes along whether he was that israel america's war i think convinced a lot of people that he'd he didn't need his due to be whole in need to be president to be ronald reagan he conveyed a sense of all or holders of aleppo are now that had been the same in the us if you can survive this is that i didn't trouble or for the question if ronald reagan were a contemporary politician would he be a leader of the gop side of the tea party movement see that's an impossible question to answer

i'll let them within ask about it and because ronald reagan in nineteen seventy six reagan reagan runs against the panama canal treaty and i know which is a jingle issue very issue alm of the political news i'm terry branstad schweiger a mistake that's not want a court that's not at all that's not a good sequence of events i'd suggest a degree of political genius and in the best sense of the word ruthlessness that successful presidents there how i have no doubt that rate it would look benign really on the concept of the tea party but that reagan will be nine way on those things i am i think here's the difference i would put the question and say to good today's tea partiers be as inclusive

as wright ragan practice the politics of both occasion some of his professed admirers on talk radio and cable gad vests i'll seem to excel at division you've just heard richard norton smith speaking with only three of the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas smith was the first director of the dole institute he also served as the director of the reagan presidential library in simi valley california he's now a scholar in residence at george mason university in suburban washington dc this was the first of four talks on who would deserve a place of honor on a twentieth century version of mount rushmore incidentally to day would have marked ronald reagan's one hundredth birthday he died in two thousand for for information on smith's other three choices fdr eisenhower and woodrow wilson goode the dole institute's website dole institute that oh archie will be broadcasting those

lectures here in kansas public radio later this spring i'm kay mcintyre kbr prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas