When the 1980 campaign began, America was becoming fed up with liberal, Democratic big government (sound familiar?).  As it moved forward, the nation was tearing apart at the seams due to high inflation and unemployment, gasoline shortages, and a hostage crisis in Iran in which more than 50 Americans were held captive by radical Muslims.  Carter was a weak and powerless failure.  Voters felt helpless, hopeless, and wondered if bread lines loomed in their future

They were waiting for someone to tell them what they needed to hear.  That man was Ronald Reagan.  He told Americans that it was okay to believe in themselves again.  He proudly declared that the United States was a “shining city on a hill” whose best days were still ahead. The usual pseudo-intellectuals labelled him as too extreme and simplistic. The American people decided not to listen to them.   Reagan defeated Carter in a landslide, winning 44 million votes, or 50.7 percent, and 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 35.5 million votes, or 41 percent, and only 44 electoral votes. It put a sudden halt to the out-of-control locomotive that Franklin Roosevelt rode toward ever-bigger government and tore asunder FDR’s political coalition that had smothered the politics of America for most of the previous half-century.

Reagan never forgot who he was and where he came from. That is what endeared him to the majority of Americans.  On Election Day, when  a journalist asked Reagan what Americans saw in him, he asked:

Would you laugh if I told you that I think, maybe, they see themselves and that I’m one of them? “I’ve never been able to detach myself or think that I, somehow, am apart from them.

Compare that statement to those of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  I dare you.

He was the oldest person ever elected president for a first term, but in the end Americans didn’t seem to mind because he was in such good health and looked much younger than his 68 years.  From the start, this humble man made his intentions very clear.  He would roll back communism where possible, strengthen national defense, cut taxes, and stop or slow the growth of government. Many disagreed with the details of his policies, but they accepted the direction he was setting and liked his positive, decisive leadership.

It was not coincidental that President Reagan’s rise in politics happened at the same time as the ascension of the religious right, the term given to millions of Christian Conservative voters who held the balance of power in many states.   Under Reagan,these people, like myself, became much more active in politics.

Thirty years later, as we head into the 2010 Mid-term Elections, history seems to be repeating itself.   Only this time, it’s turbo-boosted.  Let’s look at some polls from rasmussenreports.com:

This upcoming election should be a slam dunk for the Republican Party.  The problem is, they have been fighting among themselves since before Obama got elected.   Read these words from the great Thomas Sowell, writing for nationalreview.com in 2009:

The “smart money” says that the way for the Republicans to win elections is to appeal to a wider range of voters — including minorities — by abandoning the kinds of positions Ronald Reagan held and supporting more of the kinds of positions that Democrats use to get elected. This sounds good on the surface, which is as far as many people go when it comes to politics.

Ronald Reagan won two elections in a landslide by being Ronald Reagan — and, most important of all — by explaining to a broad electorate how what he advocated would be best for them and for the country. Newt Gingrich likewise led a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives by explaining how the Republican agenda would benefit a wide range of people.

Neither of them won by pretending to be Democrats. It is the mushy “moderates” — the “kinder and gentler” Bush 41, Bob Dole, and John McCain — who lost disastrously, even in two cases to Democrats who were initially very little known, but who knew how to talk.

Today, the Republicans are doing nothing to help themselves win the confidence of the American public going into November’s elections.  The party seems to want to be squishy Moderates, instead of  Reagan Conservatives.  Right now, those in power want to remain the aloof Beltway Elitists that they have come to love every time they look into a mirror.

They have a problem.   As of yesterday, Rasmussen reports that 65 % of those polled, believe that the Country would be better off if most of those in Congress would be defeated in November.  The public is demanding accountability and will not take “no” for an answer.  Like Rush Limbaugh has been saying for years, Conservatism wins!  Not just fiscal Conservatism coupled with situational ethics and moral relativity, but true Conservatism. 

As President Reagan said:

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.  

Sources:  usnews.com, rasmussenreports.com, nationalreview.com, brainyquote.com