Searching for Ronald Reagan (Part One)

If you’re like me, you’ve been looking at this current field of Republican candidates wondering where the next Ronald Reagan is going to come from. With the race essentially down to five candidates, I think it’s important to take a hard look at each one as we prepare to make our choices in the upcoming primaries.

Before we examine the five contenders, it would be helpful to define what a “Reagan conservative” would look like. Every Republican (probably even Ron Paul) would like to claim the Reagan mantle, but let’s look at what Ronald Reagan really stood for.

In his 1980 presidential campaign, he ran primarily on three issues; cut taxes, dramatically increase defense spending, and balance the budget. He also promised to fight for pro-life causes and endorsed a constitutional amendment allowing voluntary prayer in public schools. In addition to these issues, he had a greater vision of “making America great again.”

Ronald Reagan was always optimistic about the future of this country and the greatness of the American people. He believed we could accomplish anything and that our best days were always ahead of us. He called this great vision the “shining city on a hill” and he believed that conservative principles and the conservative movement would be what made our country greater.

Like 1980, our world faces many dangers and we need a strong leader who is willing to stand up to and confront the evil that threatens us. We need a president who can secure our borders and put a stop to the flow of illegals coming into our country. We also need a president that understands economic policy and will extend the Bush tax cuts and keep our economy growing, while at the same time taking on Congress and its wasteful spending.

So who of the five contenders is best equipped to lead our country the way Ronald Reagan would? All of them have their strengths, but, unfortunately, none has shown us yet that they have the complete package. I know it’s asking a lot to be like Ronald Reagan, but I think we need someone with that kind of boldness to lead us in these uncertain times.

Let’s first look at Rudy Guliani. I love this guy on leadership. No denying what he did for the City of New York during his eight years as mayor, topped off by his outstanding leadership after 9/11. He is also very strong on economic issues. He seems to understand the principle that low taxes keep more money in people’s pockets leading to stronger economic growth.

The problem of course is his pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and pro-gun control stands. These are three major strikes against him. I could live with maybe one of these three, but to be wrong on all three of these issues is a lot to overcome, especially the issue of life. Being a Catholic, one would think he would support the pro-life cause.

Also his infidelity in his marriage says a lot about his character. All these lead me to wonder if Rudy would be on our side at all in the culture war, and what would happen to our party if the presidential nominee was opposed to three of the pillars of our party platform.

Fred Thompson is a guy that I must admit I don’t know enough about. From everything I know about him, he has all the conservative credentials. His voting record in the Senate indicates that he’s right on all the issues. He would keep our country safe and he would be on our side in the culture war. The biggest question is how hard would he fight for these causes?

Thompson has of course been labeled fairly or unfairly as the “lazy” candidate. No fire in the belly, no energy on the campaign trail. I wonder if that could just be because the media has nothing else on this guy. The good thing about Thompson’s campaign is that he has the opportunity to prove his critics wrong. If he comes back from a big deficit to win the Iowa primary and goes on to win South Carolina, his candidacy is likely to catch fire and it will be hard for the media to keep calling him lazy.