By Lance Thompson
In hindsight, all victories look inevitable. But for the participants, it is much more as the Duke of Wellington described his triumph over Napoleon at Waterloo: "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life." The truth is that no one can foretell the outcome of any contest. Yet many pretend prognosticators, who would gladly have us believe that Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 was preordained, are already telling us that Sarah Palin is unelectable in 2012. Such revisionism and fortune-telling are mutually refuting.
Ronald Reagan challenged Republican President Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination in 1976 and lost. Ford subsequently lost to Carter, who was the Democrat in the oval office in 1980. Reagan was a favorite of conservatives, but his nomination was far from certain.
The mainstream media, which operated in 1980 without the counterbalancing conservative views of Fox News and talk radio, portrayed Reagan as too simplistic and too extreme for the presidency. New Republic called him "an ignoramus, a conscious and persistent falsifier of fact, a deceiver of the electorate." Atlantic Monthly dismissed him as a "casting office Goldwater." The New Yorker predicted that if "Reagan is the Republican nominee, the election of a Democrat is certain." These same condemnations have been applied to Palin since her debut on the national scene.
There was a wide field of contenders for the 1980 Republican nomination: Bob Dole, George H. W. Bush, John Connally, Lowell Weicker, Howard Baker and John Anderson, among others. Former President Ford was also toying with another run, which would change the landscape considerably. Some candidates were more experienced than Reagan, some better financed, some better connected. All were younger.
Bush announced his candidacy in May of 1979, and ran a peripatetic, disciplined campaign. He had extensive foreign policy experience, and plenty of friends in the Republican establishment. He was more moderate than Reagan on social issues, and characterized Reagan’s tax cut strategy as "voodoo economics." Reagan was favored to win the Iowa caucuses, but Bush managed a narrow upset victory.
The media thought Reagan was finished. NBC’s Today Show pronounced, "Ronald Reagan is dead." Conflict among the campaign staff only added to the feeling of impending implosion. Bush was now favored to win the New Hampshire primary, but Reagan threw himself into the campaign. He made an impressive show at a Nashua debate by demanding that all Republican candidates be included, despite the wishes of the Bush campaign, and garnered positive reviews. Reagan won decisively in New Hampshire.
But the Reagan campaign was out of money, and Gerald Ford was saying that Reagan couldn’t win (implying that Ford could). Bush narrowly won the Massachusetts primary. John Anderson decided to run as an independent, further clouding the field. Reagan was written off again and again, but he continued to campaign hard, won the vast majority of primaries, and became the GOP nominee and President of the United States.
The point is that at no time was the nomination of Ronald Reagan certain. In fact, a more common theme, even as Reagan won primary after primary, was the impossibility of a Reagan presidency. This view was held by the media, the opposition, and many in his own party.
Sarah Palin faces the same doubts and predictions of failure. Like Reagan, she is plainspoken and unapologetic in her beliefs–American exceptionalism, energy independence, traditional morals and individual freedom. She has also been called too simplistic and too extreme, and in terms much harsher than those applied to Ronald Reagan. But she has not wavered in her principles, and her positions which seemed extreme at first–opposing Obamacare, tapping America’s energy resources, keeping faith with our allies and standing up to our enemies–resonate with an increasing number of Americans.
Ronald Reagan’s election and eight year presidency altered the direction and fate of this country in profound ways no one could have predicted. Sarah Palin has at least the potential to do the same. Those who dismiss or discount her have either forgotten their history, or wish they could.
Low Down Central.com
