In 1977 Ronald Reagan wasn't taken all that much more seriously than Sarah Palin is today

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

In 1977 Ronald Reagan wasn't taken all that much more seriously than Sarah Palin is today. He was a funny ultra-RW crackpot who had lost after a very colorful, well-covered campaign the previous year, losing his primary challenge to Ford. (May 1976 TIME cover added to remind folks of that campaign that went down the memory hole. The Reagan challenge was a big deal. Carter actually locked up the nomination before Ford did.)



And we have gotten dumber and more sympathetic to hypofascist bullshit in the interim.

Seriously, Reagan was a figure of fun. His white cowboy hat was comical. The fact that someone that incredibly old had sought the nomination in 1976 was comical. The fact that he was a much dumber version of a guy who had gotten the worst drubbing in presidential election history (Goldwater) was comical.

How did Reagan win a landslide three years later? Because Republican primary voters couldn't get quite excited enough about GHW Bush and conditions in America sucked.

I don't see a Sarah Palin presidency, but mostly because sexism would probably cost her a needed 5% somewhere... Republican men who are just as misinformed, unread and unstable are taken seriously.

There is no obvious limit to how right-wing or stupid a person the American electorate might turn to if things suck bad enough in an election year.

Our shifting ethnic demographics provide some ceiling to the RW, but if conditions are bad enough then almost anything is possible. (God help us if they ever stop attacking Hispanics)

So we need good conditions, not merely incompetent opponents.

[depakid]

1. Cater basically imploded

and had the worst rhetorical style I've ever seen in a politician with his inappropriate smiling. Very hard to watch.

[shotten99]

54. Too much went wrong too quickly on his watch.

Ironically, I would compare that aspect of his presidency to Shrub's.
That, and the campaign that Carter led in 1980 was inept and all but pulled it off
had it not been for the debate. Whole other can of worms to open there...

[depakid]

58. There he goes again...

Carter also had an unfortunate propensity to micromanage.

[Drunken Irishman]

2. There is one huge difference.

Reagan hadn't really established himself as a national political figure. Outside of California and beyond the minimal Republican ranks, he was more known for his movie roles nationally than politics.

Sarah Palin is a political figure. We know what she thinks. We've seen what she is capable of during a campaign. Reagan had a blank political slate when he ran as a fairly moderate candidate in '80. Palin is so well known now for her VP run in 2008, it's impossible to shake that image already presented to voters.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. Are you perhaps a young man, Irishman?

I love you, but your version doesn't gibe with the contemporaneous scene in the late 1970s. (I added some stuff on edit after realizing that not everyone is 850 years old.)

Reagan challenged the sitting president (Ford) in 1976 in a dramatic primary season running on a gold-standard, nuke-everybody, stop-the-jungle-music type campaign.

He was one of the best known national political figures and a very pigeon-holed one in the public mind as an unelectable RW nut. Comedians used him as a stock figure of age/backward-lookingness and of fervid anti-communism.

And he didn't run as a moderate in 1980. Bush was the Rockefeller Republican to Reagan's Goldwater in a replay on 1964.

[Drunken Irishman]

20. My history is fine, thank you.

Reagan was not a household name early in 1979. He had been a Republican name, but other than the primary (which is generally only followed by party elites - especially back then) Reagan's most known roles were that of Hollywood actor.

Palin was a VP candidate. She saw face time for every day between Sept-November. Her entire career was put under the microscope the second McCain named her and we knew exactly where she stood on every single issue.

She has more POLITICAL face time than Reagan ever did prior to running for president in 1980.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

22. You are simply wrong. Sorry.

Ronald Reagan challenged the sitting president of the United States and almost won.

The process took up half of 1976.

By 1977 he was one of the most famous, recognizable and opinion generating political figures in America. He had about as much political face time, pre-1980, as a person could get back when there were only three networks.

Period.

On the other hand, he was NEVER particularly famous as a movie actor. Movie fans knew him but he was more minor than, say, Don Ameechee. He was best known, actor-wise, as the host of the 1960s TV show Death Valley Days and as a product pitch-man.

[Drunken Irishman]

25. Sorry, bud, but it's you who is wrong.

And you know why I know you're wrong? Because of this:

By 1977 he was one of the most famous, recognizable and opinion generating political figures in America. He had about as much political face time, pre-1980, as a person could get back when there were only three networks.

It ain't 1977 anymore. Our media wasn't saturated with cable news and the internet. You could go months without probably hearing about Ronald Reagan. Have we been able to go months without hearing about Palin?

Nope.

Reagan was known for those who followed politics. Even if he nearly unseated a sitting president. Palin was in a GENERAL ELECTION - not a primary. She saw significant face time and her policies - every last one of them - was exposed.

You can't compare the two. Especially with the media dominating politics today.

[slackmaster]

35. And the best-known musician in today's Internet world is...

...Keyboard Cat. How far we have advanced indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAepgZ5iM5k&feature=PlayList&p=DD7AD713D7A7A1E2&index=0

Have we been able to go months without hearing about Palin?

Not yet, but how long has it been since you have seen someone get Rick Rolled?

Palin was in a GENERAL ELECTION - not a primary.

So was Sargent Shriver.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

41. Oh, I didn't want to have to do this...

I hate "fisking" people, but what the heck.

"Reagan was not a household name early in 1979..."

False. Everyone in 1976 knew who Ronald Reagan was and would have identified him as a politician, not an actor. By "everyone" I do not mean everyone, of course. I mean people who could name political figures. A lot of people don't know who the first president was but I would feel okay in saying that "everyone" knows it was George Washington.

"He had been a Republican name, but other than the primary (which is generally only followed by party elites - especially back then)..."

False. You are making a weird assumption that because more resources exist today for political junkies (Internet, Cable news) that ordinary people consumed less political news back in the day. The truth is the opposite. Because outlets for political junkies did not exist, and because the FCC still required all stations to do a certain percentage of public affairs programing the average person was exposed to a lot MORE political news then they are today.

The American people were more politically sophisticated in 1977 than they are today. It was still considered a civic duty to at least have a sketch of the players.

As for the primaries being covered more closely today, again, not true. For the same reasons stated above the average person was much more aware of the primary process. Political news cut into and replaced entertainment programming.

Conventions were covered gavel to gavel on all three networks. People had no choice but to be aware of the players. America was a captive audience.

And primaries were not back-room party-elite deals in 1976. They were already modern TV events, unlike, say, 1952. Reagan got 4,760,222 votes in the primaries. And it was a much smaller country--Carter got only 40,831,881 votes in the general.

"Reagan's most known roles were that of Hollywood actor."

I can not stress this enough. Movies are what I know and Ronald Reagan was never a famous movie actor or even a successful movie actor. He was a B-movie player with a handful of bit-parts in A-pictures.

His highest profile activity as a movie actor was, ironically, political and off-screen. (President of the Screen Actors Guild.)

[Aragorn]

56. u r right

not knowing something is/was so does not make it wrong. u r arguing with fodder for reagan style candidates imo

[iceman66]

44. Are serious?

Reagan was most certainly a household name prior to 1979.

[pnwmom]

4. I disagree. As the Governor of a huge state, Reagan had a definite national presence.

And he was influential outside of that state, even though Dems laughed at him. Lots of people didn't.

[Drunken Irishman]

21. Reagan had been out of public office for five years when he decided to run in '80.

I don't doubt Reagan had some national pull. But outside of the Republican Party, more people knew him as an actor rather than a politician. I mean, Pete Wilson was California's governor too and I doubt his pull nationally could have delivered him the 2000 Republican nomination.

My point was that while Reagan had served as California's governor and established a base within the Republican Party, most voters didn't know much about him politically when he ran in 1980. That isn't the case for Palin. We know what Palin thinks on nearly every issue because she was fresh off a general election campaign. Reagan never ran a general election campaign prior to 1980 and even though Palin was McCain's VP choice, it made her a political household name.

Kinda like when Edwards ran with Kerry in 2004.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

24. Dude, saying it doesn't make it so.

I appreciate that you have a theory, but there are no facts to back it up.



If you want to argue that in our mass-media age that all sorts of people are more famous than anyone was back in the day you can say that and that might be a fine observation about the nature of fame or something but would not change the fact that Ronald Reagan was famous all-day-long as a national politician well before 1980.

It is just what it is. You might as well be arguing that water is dry.

[pnwmom]

39. Reagan had a much higher profile than Pete Wilson outside of CA,

at least in my memory. Probably because of his history as an actor, but also because he continued to speak out strongly about issues such as Social Security (which he strongly opposed).

[Syntheto]

18. Reagan also didn't have...

...the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, so forth and so on... Like Kennedy in 1960, it helps to be techno-savvy and what they called 'telegenic' back then. There's no need for ten-city whistlestops ala Theodore Roosevelt these days. Still, for the time, T. Roosevelt used the technology that was available at the time. Look at F.D.Roosevelt and his use of the radio. A better way to put is that no candidate will get elected if their campaign doesn't have mastery of all the mass communication tech that's out there. If they come up with a viable holographicvision system, say, in 2012, whichever candidate, regardless of their politics, who comes across in an attractive, charismatic way in 3D will be elected. Marshall Mcluhan had it exactly right with his quote: "the medium is the message." As Teddy would say; "Bully!".

[pnwmom]

40. Nobody else did either. But Reagan had his movie actor career, which put

him firmly in the public mind.

[Syntheto]

42. Very true...

...plus all the propaganda blurbs he did during WWII... Just like the Duke, ol' Dutch had a following. In fact, I would venture to say that, psychologically, a lot of people superimposed Dutch's image over the Duke's and were actually voting for Marion Morrison, er, John Wayne...

[DailyGrind51]

49. Compare populations of Alaska with that of California.

Ronald Reagan had television and film exposure long before his venture into politics. He was President of the Screen Actors Guild and testified before Congress during the black-listing period.

[NJmaverick]

5. The is absolutely correct and is why we should not help the right

tear down our Democratic President. We destroy our own and Palin will rise from the ashes.

[nichomachus]

9. This is why our Democratic president

should give us something to work with. If he continues futzing around and we try to support him, we will be like the Freepers congratulating Bush for not puking during a debate.

[Mz Pip]

6. Reagan was a two term governor

of CA. He didn't quit half way through his first term.

I don't think Reagan was stupid, either. I didn't agree with his politics but that didn't make him stupid. He read books and wrote quite a bit. I doubt sarah does either.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. I agree with you that Reagan wasn't as stupid as he seemed

He did, however, come off as a dumb man in the context of the times.

Whenever I see old political footage, speeches, talk-shows, etc., I am amazed at the complete thoughts and sober perspective that even loony politicians had. Some level of smartness was pre-requisite. (A serious dumb-ass like Bush II or Palin would have been a non-starter.)

I read a transcript of the Reagan-Carter debate not long ago and was struck that Carter was speaking in paragraphs and Reagan was speaking in sentence fragments. (Reagan seemed more modern, insofar as we have gotten used to spastic phrases rather than expressed ideas in politics.)

Even southern redneck rabble-rousers who sought to appear common often read like statesmen in retrospect. Just a different sense of language and content, I guess.

[nichomachus]

10. I don't see Reagan as smart as you seem to think he was

he was an actor through and through -- but there was nothing there -- his whole life was going through scenes and reciting lines.

Some of the biographies of him are chilling. He would write down his day's schedule -- like a schedule for shooting a movie (out of sequence). When he finished one task, he would draw a line through it -- just like they do with movie shooting schedules. When someone was in his office, he would be their best friend. Five minutes after they left, he would have no idea who had just been there or what they talked about. Everything was just a series of "scenes" to be played out with no relation to one another.

He slept through cabinet meetings. Much of the stuff attributed to him was done by the people around him.

Even the guy who wrote his authorized biography couldn't find anyone home.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

12. He was senile for most of his presidency which does make one seem a little slow

I considered him a flat-out moron at the time but reading his earlier letters and such he wasn't as dumb as Palin.

But there's no shame in not being as dumb as Sarah Palin. She's world-class.

[Auggie]

15. +1: "He was an actor... reciting lines." Exactly.

[Hippo_Tron]

7. Did Reagan embarrass himself on national television like Palin did?

The reason nobody takes her seriously isn't because she's an RW loon. The reason nobody takes her seriously is that in every media appearance she made during the McCain campaign she came off as a light weight who was not up for the job.

[harkadog]

14. He didn't embarrass himself on TV?

Apparently you don't remember his "Fellow citizens we begin bombing Russia in 5 minutes" statement which put the Soviet military on high alert. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7VEAlitCUc

[slackmaster]

31. You think that was an embarrassment for Reagan? I disagree.

He got a huge laugh out of it.

[slackmaster]

30. Not much until his second term as President, when he would occasionally get a blank look on his face

He was rarely at a loss for words, and almost never butchered the language. He spoke proper, non-colloquial English. He was a trained, professional speaker.

Sarah Palin is a ninny with a pretty face.

[NYC Liberal]

11. The difference is that Reagan could put on a show

Seriously, the guy was a professional actor. No matter what he was selling, at least he could wrap it up in a nice-looking package. He was a made-for-TV candidate. He flashed a grin and told some folksy joke that made people comfortable with their bigotries and prejudices. It didn't matter that when he had to speak off-script at a news conference or something he seemed as dumb as Palin.

Palin has none of that. Her dumb ideas served on a platter, not a nicely-wrapped gift box that conceals them 'til after you've open it on January 20th. She can't sell her shit, Reagan could.

[Mz Pip]

23. Sarah puts on a show

if you like a Radio City Music Hall version of politcs. Lots of flash. Lots of glitz. Lots of glamour. Some people go for that kind of thing.

Even professional actors have to have some amount of intelligence to memorize the script, follow directions, learn delivery and timing. Reagan was far from a brilliant man. Not even close but I don't think he was anywhere near as dumb as Sarah.

On edit, I also think the there is an "Idiocracy" element to our current population and culture that allows for people like Palin to reach the heights she has. "She's just like me!" carries a lot of weight with many people who don't have a lot of education and don't read much. They like the idea that someone like them - anti-intellectual - has a shot at being president.

[AlinPA]

33. America has enough stupid people to help her. Read "It Can't Happen Here"

a novel by Sinclair Lewis. An ignorant electorate elects an ignorant person Buzz Windrip (who had also written a book appealing to the "common man"). The novel may give us some ideas about how easy it is for someone like Palin, Reagan, or Bush to be elected.

[tritsofme]

13. In 1977 Reagan was two years removed from being governor of California.

A position that he held for two terms. Many forget that his first run for president was in 1968.

This is not even defending Reagan, he was quite a baffoon, but these two aren't even in the same league.

Sarah Palin is a side show, and is taken seriously by no one but the tea-baggers.

[klook]

16. This is one of my frequent daymares.

I, too, am 850 years old and remember well that Reagan seemed like a joke. On the campaign trail, he had the habit of making his staff cringe whenever he went off script and said something idiotic. Like the time he said "The American Petroleum Institute filed suit against the EPA (and) charged that the agency was suppressing a scientific study for fear it might be misinterpreted... The suppressed study reveals that 80 percent of air pollution comes not from chimneys and auto exhaust pipes, but from plants and trees." Shortly after saying that, he appeared on a college campus, where some wag had tied a banner around a tree reading "Stop me before I kill again!"

I thought it was impossible that a nincompoop like Reagan could ever get elected president. Shows what I know.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

17. I think it is in one of Al Franken's books where....

Reagan has a campaign appearance and says he's against reforming marijuana laws because he claims it can cause brain damage.

At his next campaign stop he speaks in support of repealing motorcycle helmet laws.

[LovinLife]

19. Reagan may have sounded loony, but he didn't sound dumb. Palin is a dumb racist.

God help us if she ever gets the codes to the nukes.

[Clio the Leo]

32. Nailed it.

There is a difference between charismatic.....

And plain old looney.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

26. Reagan was charming (to enough people). Palin is not.

Reagan was able to pull of cute little one liners that people loved. He acted the part.

[slackmaster]

27. I remember that time well. The OP is nonsensical, wishful thinking.

Reagan always had tremendous stature among Republicans and older people in California, who remembered him as a movie star. A large number of people in this state, including my parents, had moved here from the Midwest and were old enough to remember Reagan as a radio announcer in that region. My grandfather knew him personally when he lived in Iowa. Because of his long career in entertainment, a lot of people had met him and found him personable and likeable. He was actually a New Deal Democrat until the mid-1950s, and his personal journey from liberal to conservative paralleled that of millions of people in the World War II generation.

On the other side, Reagan was deeply despised by the left for some of the things he did as governor of California. He served that office from 1967-1975. People in academic careers and mental health professions had a special hatred for him for taking a meat axe to their sources of public funding. On the other hand, he cultivated some popularity among women by signing the Theraputic Abortion Act which legalized elective abortion in California.

How did Reagan win a landslide three years later? Because Republican primary voters couldn't get quite excited enough about GHW Bush and conditions in America sucked.

History FAIL. Understanding the opposition PROFOUND FAIL.

First of all, the Republican incumbent in the 1976 election was Gerald Ford, who never gained much traction as a leader and alienated some people by pardoning Nixon. Ford won the 1976 nomination and lost that election to Jimmy Carter. But the really amazing thing about Reagan's acendence to power was how quickly it followed Nixon's fall.

I remember my mom (who was then a Republican) saying at the time of Nixon's resignation, that we would probably not see another Republican President for a whole generation. I also remember Reagan's concession speech at the 1976 Republican convention. He spoke with a power and self-confidence rarely seen in politics by someone who just lost. I remember one commentator (was it Bill Moyers?) saying that we surely had not seen the last of Ronald Reagan.

Then came the Carter Presidency.

'nuff said about Reagan. Sarah Palin is nobody by comparison. I think spending any effort to bring her down is a waste of time and energy. She is NOT the enemy you are looking for.

[CreekDog]

28. True, but one thing gave him the edge and made him better than her:

he had smarter people around him and listened to smarter people at least occasionally.

he also had been in Hollywood and surrounded by that did seem to have some effect on him for the better, albeit slightly.

the only people Palin has around her are sycophants and I'm sure the brighter ones don't last long. (For some reason, I'm thinking of my friend in the military who had a commanding officer tell him, "you read too many books.")

[slackmaster]

29. Reagan had been vocal and involved in politics for almost 30 years when he was elected President

He'd served two full terms as the governor of the (then second IIRC) most populous state.

Sarah Palin is a small-town mayor who jiggled her ass into the office of Governor of the least populous state, and quit in the middle of her second term.

There is really no sense in comparing the two. Even if you despise everything about Reagan you cannot deny that he had a huge presence and could be quite inspiring.

[CreekDog]

34. Actually, Palin quit during her first term as Governor

:eyes:

[slackmaster]

36. Ah, thanks for the correction!

She really is a nobody.

[CreekDog]

37. Yeah, Reagan looks like a Rhodes Scholar in comparison

:rofl:

[treestar]

38. Scary thought

This country can be so dumb sometimes. Hopefully we have climbed out of it. The current situation shows the failure of Reaganism over the last 30 years. We hope.

[NICO9000]

43. Reagan: Dumb. Bush: Dumber. Palin: Dumbest. BUT...

Palin does not have anywhere near the donor base that Ronnie & Dumbya had. If it cost Obama 100s of millions to win last year, 2012 is going to be even more expensive. I don't think there's any way she could raise the cash needed to run as an "R" on the national ticket. I'm still betting on a Perot-like third-party presence for her, splitting the Rethug vote.

[tinrobot]

48. I think Palin's only in it for the money.

If you follow he actions, every single thing she does is for money. I honestly don't think she'll run, but will use the attention given her to cash in. She'll sell books, charge for autographs, do some high-paying speeches, and when it comes time to decide on a run, leverage her notoriety for a talk show or reality show.

If she was serious about politics, she'd have stayed governor.

[TheKentuckian]

45. I think Palin has much more negative opinion than Reagan did

I'm not saying it is impossible she win but I think she is a whole lot deeper in her own doodoo than President Teflon ever managed to find himself. The only thing is that St Ronnie didn't have himself and Dumya blazing a trail for him so its is more than possible that our tolerance for brainlessness has increased enough to cast a vote proving we don't deserve to exist least we give the Universe indigestion and a terrible headache over our utter foolishness.

[saltpoint]

46. It took at least 8 years of cognitive deterioration owed to Alzheimer's

to result in Reagan's being as mentally dysfunctional as Palin is naturally.

She's vacuously stupid.

[tinrobot]

47. Reagan was an excellent public speaker.

His acting skills served him quite well in that department. It also helped him in the debate.

Palin can't string a sentence together to save her life... then again, neither could George W Bush and he came close enough to steal it twice.

[andym]

50. 60 minutes had a great program on him back then--"trees are the major source of pollution", etc

Just an example of one of his many outrageous statements (misunderstanding the relationship between O2 and CO2 production in plants).

I thought there was no way this guy would be taken seriously. But in a few years he was President.

[Imajika]

51. Yes, Palin could very well win...

People are sticking their head in the sand in dismissing her.

Reagan WAS a household name. He became a media go to guy during Jimmy Carter's term when the press was looking for "the other side" of any policy Carter was pushing. The media gave Reagan huge amounts of airtime even over the Panama Canal.

I remember the intellectuals, the enlightened, the educated mostly said Reagan was an idiot who had NO chance to win. The left did not take him very seriously, many on the right didn't even take him seriously. A lot of those Republicans, the 70's incarnation of moderate Republican, thinkers like today's version of people like David Brooks or Peggy Noonan, they considered him a far right radical who would take the party back decades and lose in a Goldwater like landslide.

Look what happened, he won in 80' and went on to win a massive landslide in 84'. Reagan shaped the direction of the US Government long after he left office.

Never dismiss very charismatic people with truckloads of ambition. And yes, Palin has charisma. She may be almost anti-charismatic to most of us here, but she is a magnet for attention.

If this economy doesn't improve, or some unforseen things happen to make the American public more afraid, they may very well turn to her in 12' or 16'.

It is very clear she is going to run as the simple, common sense, hockey Mom. She will argue that "we gave the college professors and ivory tower intellectuals" a try and they failed. People fall for this kind of stuff all the time, do not underestimate the American public's ability to vote en masse for people like her - anti intellectual types.

And no, she doesn't have to overcome some Republican anti-women bias. Republicans are not that dumb. They care about getting in power and seeing their agenda pushed forward. If Palin can do it, they will support her.

Do I think Palin is going to win in 12' or 16'? Probably not. Do I think she could though? Yup.

[dmr]

52. I'm not worried about Palin, EXCEPT

if the right people 'buy' her off to be their puppet. She gets all the fame, glory & perks if she lets the 'shadows' rule the empire.

I don't think Reagan would've won if there wasn't a nefarious machine working behind the scenes, just as there was a machine hidden behind GW.

I believe McCain's hand was twisted to nominate Palin. I think there were those who thought Palin would be a good patsy. I also think she disappointed them by her 'rogue-i-ness' of not listening, and not trying to better prepare herself.

But I also believe Palin has got the taste and is hungry and crafty enough to lie, cheat, steal and sell out to the 'shadows'. And, I think the powers-that-be would put the screws to her if she reneged on their deal.

I don't trust any of them. Collectively, they are dividing our country. This is why, as angry as I get at Obama, I won't turn my back on him.

The above, or even any Republican that might get elected is why I wish to all that is holy, that Obama would 'smarten up' our government and then turn the DOJ loose on the past administration, the Patriot Act cancelled, insist on only FISA wiretapping, regulate the banks, hold regulators accountable ... so on and so forth.

History not only tends to repeat itself, but each round tends to get worse.

[burning rain]

53. I've seen Reagan's mental decline dated as early as after Hinckley having shot him.

At any rate, his performance in the first debate with Mondale in 1984 showed him in a truly sorry condition.

[IndianaGreen]

55. Reagan was a genius compared to Palin, and he was secular

Carter was the victim of the Arab oil embargo (Saudi Arabia), his failure to secure the release of American hostages in Iran, among other things. Despite all of that, Carter almost beat Reagan.

[Frisbee]

57. What really scares me...

"I don't see a Sarah Palin presidency, but mostly because sexism would probably cost her a needed 5% somewhere... Republican men who are just as misinformed, unread and unstable are taken seriously."

What really scares me is that 5% would probably more (probably much more) than made up for by people who are clueless but vote for her just because she is a woman, and would be the 1st woman president. How many times have you heard someone say "what this country needs is a woman president"? There are a lot of uninformed people out there who might vote for her for that reason alone. Last election we had record black turnout, why wouldn't we have record female turnout if she runs?

[yellowcanine]

59. That isn't how I remember it. There was no question after Ford's loss that Reagan was going to be a

leading candidate in 1980. The only question was whether more moderate Republicans could stop him from getting the nomination. Besides, as someone pointed out, being ex Governor of California carries substantially more weight than being ex Governor of Alaska. Reagan also knew how to follow a script as well and that had a lot to do with his success at winning over moderate Republicans, conservative Democrats and independents.

[LatteLibertine]

60. Yep Reagan was

actually a good public speaker and could be great when needing to come up with a quick zinger. He also had a certain charm she lacks. Well that's before he lost it.

Palin does alright reading what has been written for her. She panics and starts sounding like Ms. teen South Carolina when she gets put on the spot. In these cases, she doesn't seem to have the ability to calm herself down, compose her thoughts, then speak. She just rambles incoherently.

I honestly do not think she's interested in the Presidency, and rather in just getting paid. Palin, Limbaugh and Beck all remind me of the same type.

The only way she might have a chance at the Presidency would be if she made well over 90% of her public exposure speeches. She would need to stay away from most debates, and certainly from interviews where any questions of substance were asked. She'd need to concentrate on job creation, the economy, deficit reduction, and smaller government. If she made too many socially conservative issues the center of her message, I think she'd fail horribly.