Noemie Emery’s fine cover story on “Reagan in Opposition” in the June 1 edition of The Weekly Standard is must-reading for everybody and anybody on the Right who hopes to see a victory for limited government in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
Emery, a Weekly Standard contributing editor who also writes a sterling column of political analysis for this newspaper in its Wednesday print and online editions, describes how Reagan recovered from his loss of the 1976 GOP presidential nomination contest to Gerald Ford by following a strategy that redefined the party from its green-eyeshade roots to an expansive, optimistic, populist vehicle for achieving fundamental conservative reforms and winning the Cold War against the Soviets.
It was a combination that both won the White House against incumbent disaster Jimmy Carter in 1980 and led to the GOP retaking a majority in the Senate for the first time since 1954, then anchored the epic “Morning in America” re-election victory of 1984 over Fritz Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro.
Without giving away the whole story, see especially the passage in which Emery points to four elements of the Reagan character during the years between 1977 and 1980 that stood out. First, “he was focused on large, central themes” like defense, foreign policy and economy growth. Second, his tone “was unfailingly gracious and civil, and focused on issues, not men.”
Third, Reagan was unfailingly the optimist “who seized the banner of hope” that had previously been exclusively the preserve of the Democrats. Finally, and in my view, most important, he was a conservative fusionist who set forth “a coherent and principled message while forming and leading a diverse coalition made up of three different strands” of the Right.
There is a great deal of wisdom in how Reagan handled those difficult years and Emery has done a superb job of explicating the major highlights and some key details. It reminds us – myself very definitely included – of some important lessons that often seem to have been lost in the years since the Reagan tenure in the White House ended.
