PrairiePundit

Jeffrey Lord: Reagan speechwriter Ken Khachigian alerted Reagan alumni, of which I am one, that in listening to Joe Biden’s introduction of running mate Senator Kamala Harris he heard …ahhhhh…something familiar. Specifically, it was this – as seen here: Said Joe: “We can define America simply in one word: “Possibilities.” Possibilities. Let me say it again; possibilities. That’s America.” Ken, one of the crack speechwriters for President Reagan, knew exactly where he had heard this talk of America and possibilities before. It was September 3, 1984, where the President was speaking at a Reagan–Bush campaign rally in Fountain Valley, California. Said Reagan: “Now, we’ve heard what others have offered to the American people today, in this year. They have said that America is nothing if it isn’t promises. Well, America isn’t about promises; it never has been. America is about promise. It’s about possibility. Recall that 1987 – a full 33 years ago – was when Joe Biden was runnin...

Washington Post: New ad invokes Reagan to target GOP candidates’ immigration comments A commercial from an immigration reform group uses the Gipper's words to call out Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Scott Walker. Reagan actually regretted his amnesty deal for illegal aliens.  He thought it was his biggest Presidential mistake.

Government by those who believe in government as the answer has the lowest trust.

George Will has it just about right.  I think Reagan would have loved working with current crop of Republicans in congress.  He also nails why conservatives are so unwilling to buy into Democrat deals.  The get the tax increases and never cut the spending they promise to cut.

IBD: ...   As Steven Hayward puts it in the second volume of his epic history "The Age of Reagan": "In the annals of public policy prognostication it is difficult to find such a wide assembly of wrongheadedness."   Sen. Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio promised in early 1981, "we will see $1.50 gas this spring, and maybe before. And it is just a matter of time until the oil companies and their associates, the OPEC nations, will be driving gasoline pump prices up to $2 a gallon."   Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas claimed, "without rationing, gasoline will soon go to $3 a gallon." Sen. George Mitchell of Maine, later the Senate's Democratic majority leader, warned that "every citizen and every family will find their living standards reduced by this decision."   Instead, when Reagan removed price controls on oil via an executive order issued shortly after his inauguration, the price fell almost immediately and kept dropping so that b...

Reagan is the more inspirational figure.

Stephen Moore: If you really want to light the fuse of a liberal Democrat, compare Barack Obama's economic performance after 30 months in office with that of Ronald Reagan. It's not at all flattering for Mr. Obama. The two presidents have a lot in common. Both inherited an American economy in collapse. And both applied daring, expensive remedies. Mr. Reagan passed the biggest tax cut ever, combined with an agenda of deregulation, monetary restraint and spending controls. Mr. Obama, of course, has given us a $1 trillion spending stimulus. By the end of the summer of Reagan's third year in office, the economy was soaring. The GDP growth rate was 5% and racing toward 7%, even 8% growth. In 1983 and '84 output was growing so fast the biggest worry was that the economy would "overheat." In the summer of 2011 we have an economy limping along at barely 1% growth and by some indications headed toward a "double-dip" recession. By the end of Reagan's...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife Ralph Peters: ... Comparing Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan is like comparing Bernie Madoff to Warren Buffett: Hustling your clients isn't heroism, and fraud's not a formula for enduring success. At a press conference last Tuesday, Obama couldn't restrain himself from invoking Reagan's name yet again, associating him with Tip O'Neill (another disgraceful linkage). But you only had to listen to that presser or read the transcript to grasp the immense distance between Obama/Hamlet, forever wringing his hands and wondering, "To be, or not to be?" and Reagan/Henry V embracing a battle the Washington court heralds insisted he could not win. Asked about the tumult in the Middle East, Obama responded with gutless generalities. Asked about the freedom demonstrations in Iran, he offered cautious, lawyerly support in terms that seemed chosen to avoid a law-suit. Asked about Saudi Arabia, he stone-walled completely. As...

Image via Wikipedia From Eugen Robinson via Real Clear Politics: Today's Democrats Are Like Reagan This is falling down funny.  Would Reagan be strangling energy production?  Would he be wasting money on political boondoggles like the Democrats have done for the last two years?  Would he be looking to raise taxes? Today's Democrats are not the Reagan Democrats.

Power Line had the back story on the speech.  It is pretty fascinating.  There were a lot of people inside the government trying to talk Reagan out of the statement that became one of the more memorable speeches in history.  It is a speech that still stirs emotions when you watch it.

Michael Barone: ... "I wasn't a great communicator," said the man who talked his way into college, into radio, into the movies, into politics and into the presidency, "but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full blown from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries." The president who voted for more winning presidential candidates than any other president seems to have always regarded himself as a child of destiny, and it turns out he was. But the destiny, he insisted, was not his own but that of the people of the United States of America. This comes at the end of a biographical piece on Reagan that most of you will find inspirational. He accomplished so much, that is hard for some to appreciate how he did much of it by his own boot straps. Related articles Michael Barone: The Great Lone Star Migration (online...