Do you thiink Reagan tapped into people's desire for

[ruggerson]

Poll question: Do you thiink Reagan tapped into people's desire for

"dynamism" "clarity" and "optimism?"

Or do you think he tapped into people's greed, resentments, ignorance and fear?

[Clarkansas]

1. They got tired of being criticized by Carter

and Carter had too many expectations of them.

[Lithos]

2. His style was to make fear and ignorance

into supposed virtues.

L-

[AX10]

3. Reagan tapped into people's desire...

to feel good about themselves and wash their hands of any responsibility for the problems that were faced. That's why the right wing made up false threats, such as "encroaching" communism, and bashed the progressive movement of the 1960's.

[Zynx]

4. The Reagan vote was an ugly backlash against the Progressive policies

of the 1960s and 1970s and also just a repudiation of Carter's economic management.

Reagan appealed to the worst in people. Greed, fear, and ignorance, but he did it with a sunny smile.

[Warpy]

5. Greed, too, since he promised (and delivered)

three 10% across the board tax cuts. People who couldn't do the math thought it sounded like a big deal, which it was for the rich. The rest of us saw less than an extra dollar per two week pay period on our checks from those cuts.

[MADem]

6. Gordon Gekko said "Greed is GOOD" back in those awful days... nt

[Perky]

7. First election or second

Firt was not about avarice at all.

[comradebillyboy]

9. right. I voted for Carter the first time he ran

but after 4 years of his sanctimony and failed foreign and domestic policy I rolled the dice and voted for Ronnie Rayguns. For all of the negative things he did he was still 10 time better than I thought he would be when I voted for him. Carter made a fine preacher but a shitty president.

[penguin7]

11. Carter is a good man and he was a good president

I do not particularly agree with his decision to boycott the olympics.

On energy independence Carter was way out in front.

[pingzing58]

8. Reagan was an evil man who facilitated the murder of thousands of people in

Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile by supporting right wing death squads like those he called "freedom fighters". Oliver North is as evil and complicit in the deaths of so many innocent people who struggled for justice. Reaganomics didn't work then and will not work now. It is beyond me why anyone would hold him up as an american hero! He was monster as is GW Bush. I know that in the future his name will be invoked as a great leader. But it's mythological, made up, opinion contrary to fact, a "fairy tale".

[PDJane]

10. Ronald Reagan was involved in a

constitutional crisis that went unpunished and unfixed, and indirectly led to the unitary presidency.He was a senile old man with a complete lack of anything resembling a conscience and a complete lack of intellectual curiosity. Gee, wonder who that sounds like?

It was wrong, all the way around.