Tonight’s GOP Debate: A Noun, a Verb, and Ronald Reagan

[underpants]

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/09/reagan_debate_rick_perry.html

The GOP primary race, like pretty much every GOP primary race for the past two decades, has partly been a contest to claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan. You can see it everywhere. In just the past few days, Mitt Romney named his proposed multinational free trade pact the "Reagan Economic Zone" for no discernible reason at all, Newt Gingrich claimed in a press release that his accomplishments as Speaker of the House were inspired by "the success of Ronald Reagan’s policies," and Ron Paul boasted in a TV ad that he was "one of only four Congressmen" to endorse Reagan for president during the 1980 race.

The task of ingratiating oneself to the Reagan legacy might be a bit tough for the newest face on the stage, Rick Perry. That's because Perry was a Democrat for the first six years of his political career, a time period which happened to overlap with Reagan's presidency. Perry entered the Texas statehouse as a Democrat in 1984 and supported Al Gore's 1988 presidential campaign before switching parties in 1989.

None of that necessarily means that Perry didn't admire or support Reagan then, or that he doesn't idolize him just as much as any other candidate presently. But with Perry galloping away with the GOP nomination, this is one vulnerability that his increasingly desperate opponents will likely try to exploit. What better place to draw the contrast between "real" Reagan devotees and recent converts than inside the Reagan Library, as the Gipper's widowed wife watches from the front row.

But Perry has an easy retort at his disposal. All he has to do is flash a charming smile — like Reagan would have — and observe that he doesn't see anything anti-Reagan about youthful flirtations with the Democrats, since Reagan himself was a Democrat until he switched parties in 1962, at the age of 51.

[Ohio Joe]

1. Perry - Yes, I assure you, I am crazy enough to be a teabagger

Fucking nuts the way these assholes are trying to out crazy each other.

[CBHagman]

2. Uh-oh, here it comes.

It's funny that the candidates apparently have invoked Reagan relatively few times, though they certainly will score off that charts in that regard tonight, I expect.

It's been my experience that Republicans who invoke the name of Ronald Reagan ALL economic growth of the past 30 years to his policies (They act as though G.H.W. Bush's presidency simply didn't exist). They attribute all lowered taxes to him (though it's Congress who makes the laws; the president only signs them) and keep silent on Reagan era tax increases.

And the entire eight years is depicted a paradise on earth. You'd think there were no foreign policy missteps, no economic uncertainty in the cities or in the Great Plains, no flights from the bloodshed in Central America. No stock market crash of '87. No Iran-contra. No HUD scandal.

And I'd wager there would be no mention of those things tonight, and not just to avoid wounding Nancy Reagan's feelings. It's always morning in America in the past that exists only in Republican minds.

[underpants]

3. Oh I can guarantee you that none of that will be mentioned

not only have the scrubbed the list of Reagan disasters from the public memory they have completely blurred the line between the W/Obama timeline.

[rocktivity]

4. Oh, just like last election's GOP Debate

I half expected Reagan's ghost to rise out of that replica of Air Force One!

:eyes:
rocktivity