It's a common talking point among Liberals — one heard especially during this contrived "Reagan at 100" holiday — that Ronald W. Reagan would never be nominated by today's Republican party. I disagree.
It's true that Reagan did a lot of things that his admirers today refuse to admit he did…like raise taxes and grant amnesty to illegals and raise taxes and work for nuclear disarmament and raise taxes and negotiate with terrorists and raise taxes and…oh, did I mention he also raised taxes? In fact, back when he was governor of my state, he not only raised taxes, he raised them more than his advisors advised and so wound up with a surplus. He tried to explain the surplus away as an example of his skill at cutting government spending but he hadn't cut government spending. Anyone can wind up with a surplus if they raise taxes too much. (I'm dwelling on this tax thing just to annoy my friend Roger who absolutely refuses to believe Reagan ever raised taxes. If you showed him tape of Ronnie saying, "I'm going to raise taxes," he would swear it was dubbed or that someone must have been holding Nancy hostage to get Ron to say that.)
Reagan also did a lot of things that his fans today acknowledge but just plain overlook, like the thing with illegals. If a Democrat did that, he'd be a Socialist Nazi who wanted to turn America into Bolivia or something but in the case of Reagan, it can just be ignored. No big deal.
Despite all this, they'd back Reagan today. Why? Because he'd be their best chance at beating Obama. Reagan was darn good at getting elected and winning is a lot more important these days than ideology. And Democrats would think the same way if the situation was reversed.
That's not necessarily hypocrisy. I want a candidate who believes in all the same things I do. I've never seen one of those on any ballot who seemed to have a prayer of getting even one electoral vote so I settle for 80% or 70% or whatever I have to. Given the choice of two candidates — one who mirrors my views but probably can't get elected, one who is off on a lot but probably can — I might claim I'll opt for purity of vision over victory. I might even convince myself of that right up until Election Day. But when it comes time to mark the ballot, I'm going to mark mine for the guy closest to my worldview. For most Republicans, even if they admit all the things Reagan did that go against Tea Party fealty, it would be Ronnie over Barack. Easily.
There are at the moment, no serious announced candidates for the Republican nomination. This is apparently because they're all on the Fox News payroll and they have to give up those checks and that exposure once they announce. But announce they will…and while some Repubs will say they won't vote for Romney because he championed a health plan not unlike "Obamacare," that will be overlooked if he looks like a winner. He'll renounce it. His father once did a complete reversal of his position on the Vietnam War claiming he'd been "brainwashed" and had finally come to his senses. This Romney will come up with some double-talk explanation of how he was tricked and anyway, it may look like the same kind of health plan but it's really different…and most folks who want to vote for the Republican will buy it if he's the Republican. They bought John McCain, flip-flops and all. Some of them are probably even willing to pretend that Sarah Palin knows what she's talking about.
And like I said, Democrats are no different. Obama has done a lot of things some of us don't like and we're just going to do a Sgt. Schultz about them, professing to know nothing, see nothing about them. Because even with all that, he'll still be preferable to the person Republicans are likely to nominate. Heck, we might even vote for Reagan today if he came back and ran on the Democratic platform. Which is probably where he'd feel the most comfortable.