I think that is an exaggeration.

Trading weapons with Iran while we were overtly supporting Iraq. Mining civilian harbours. Defying congress with funding terrorists/freedom fighters. Invading a country under false pretenses (we were attacked in Lebanon so he decided to invade Grenada). Classifying ketchup as a vegetable to slash food rations for low income students.

Cutting taxes in 1981 to fool the public and then raised them every single year for the next six years. Cutting social programs but increasing the debt to $150 Billion with military spending. Both of these with a Republican Senate and a Democratic House up to his last year in office. Agreeing to allow the Pakistani ISI to funnel the money and control for the support of the Mujahideen.

Lets consider some firsts in the Reagan administration which was the first administration in the history of the United States to:

Have a sitting cabinet member indicted.

Have an Assistant Secretary of State indicted.

Have an Assistant Secretary of Defense sent to prison.

Have over 100 members of an administration charged with crimes.

The first administration in American history to have more members of his administration charged with crimes than the cumulative total of all other presidents in the twentieth century.

Reagan accomplished a lot of good things in his term as President, but he is hardly the messiah that the republicans make him out to be. I voted for him twice. Primarily due to his charisma and the fact that the democrats did not have anyone better. But Reagan is hardly the saint that some paint him as.

I am aware of some of Reagan's shortcomings, he was as well.Reagan said he was not happy about the budget deficit and described it as "one of the greatest disappointments of his Presidency" but I see it as one of those things they had to live with since we were fighting the cold war, which we ultimately won.I like Reagan because he was a leader, stood up for America and believed in American values and way of running things, not a big government, nanny state who rapes many of it's citizens via taxes or who bends over and takes it from other nations, he looked out for America first as any President should.Reagan stayed pretty much to what he outlined in his nomination acceptance speech.Every admin is not without issues and yes he had some people get into trouble but that was them, not Reagan.I also really dislike his amnesty to the 3 million illegals, but he did what he saw as the best option at the time.

Unemployment went down after surviving the post Jimmy Carter recession, inflation dropped.My father has always said he did very well under Reagan and talked to plenty of people who did and lets be real here, a President does not leave office with 64% approval rating if things are not good for most people.Peace through strength won the Cold War because the Soviets took a President serious for the first time since JFK.Reagan appointed Sanda Day O Connor to the Supreme Court.Things are not going to be good for everyone, that is just just life, but 64% is a large number of people so Reagan did his job well, stuck to his principles and that is why he is remembered well.

Steve I'm not, I never cared about Clinton getting a blowjob, good for him lol. My issue is with his dishonestly.Remember, "Listen America, I did not have sexual relations with that woman" that was just blatant dishonestly to America. I agree it turned into a witchunt just like the Iran Contra thing did.

Scott Brown is electable because he is young, new, nice looking etc but doesnt seem that bright to me. I would have a hard time getting behind him politically, he is a RINO pretty much.Not a fan which is unfortunate because I was excited when he was elected after Ted Kennedy passed away but now, no.

I hope Steve doesn't mind me usurping his question.
The right has always portrayed itself as the antithesis of whatever the left was doing at the time. More specifically, the Republicans and the Democrats always portray themselves as the antithesis of each other, while really being more middle-of-the-road than anything else.

I hear that all the time, but I'm often left wondering if people really know what they're talking about when they say that, and why they dismiss it so easily.

What is described above, and policits in general are the natural result of a two party system, which is a natural result of a winner-takes-all system.

In a brand-new winner-takes-all system, there are two kinds of voters; those who will vote for A, and those who will vote for B on any given issue. When representatives are voting for you, it makes sense to elect the representative who will vote your way on the most issues of value to you.

However, you won't always get your way like that, whether you're a voter or a candidate, so like-minded groups get together into parties to combine votes, and this is where the trouble starts. (:roll: Don't we know it!) When a vote or candidate ceases to be of the individual type and becomes the party type, and interesting shift of paradigm occurs. Now it's not so much about getting what we want as it is getting enough votes to get what we want, and that's a whole different beast.

When conglomerates of voters and representatives find themselves in a winner-take-all system, they do exactly what you'd expect them to do; they polarize. Each party wants the majority of the votes, but in order to secure that majority they must appeal to the most people. Each party begins to amalgamate interests into its platform as fast as it can, and if party A gets to issue 1 first, party B is forced to adopt issue -1 for no other reason than the votes. Maybe B then gets issue 3, so A now has to take -3, etc... etc...

But politics doesn't stop there. Once the battle lines are drawn, there are still raids, skirmishes, and flanking maneuvers to perform. The most infamous of these tactics is seen on the battlefield of special interests. Special interests, as we all know, have power disproportionate to their size; not so much due to their financial contributions, but due to their ability to sap the enemy's vote. If special interest M (or whatever) goes to party A (who they like) and says, "What will you do for us, specifically?" and M is large enough, A will likely promise them a great deal. The members of M may be of varied opinions, but when M comes back from Washington and announces all the great things A will do for them, their vote becomes one. When the pre-aligned special interests run out, parties begin to seek unaligned special interests and court their vote with promises and such. And it gets a lot more complicated than that, especially in matters of trade and industry. Mookie knows this, I'm sure.

At this point, the original platform is unlikely to resemble its original self, but politics isn't done yet. Propaganda is next, but it isn't just propaganda - its counter propaganda and counter-counter propaganda, and counter-counter-counter propaganda, and it pervades every level of society. This is mostly what reaches the politically disinterested voter, but it also becomes engrained in the minds of party supporters. They find themselves supporting things they otherwise wouldn't care about because a party case has been made for it.

And it goes on, and on, and on, but that's enough for one post.

So if the liberals make political hay by accusing the right of having the "biggest deficit ever", they're not hypocrits when they make one many times larger and then say it's okay, they had to?

an interesting side note. As I was driving in to work today, the radio announcer pointed out that Reagan's approval rating at this point in his presidency (42% - august 1982) was lower than Obama's curent number: 47%.

I'd imagine that would depend on whose polls they are referencing.

This is where the GOP is at nowadays. Anybody that isn't an extremist is labelled a closet Democrat.

Whatever works to break the monopoly.

Energizing the base is good, but elections are decided by swing votes.

Yeah and the swing voters are definitely in an anti-incumbent mood.

True BUT Reagan did the opposite of Obama and the economy recovered.Obama's leftist policies will not lead to recovery Americans expect.Where did you get 47? Most polls I see say 44-45 range and dropping.

Obama also has a lot of baggage Reagan did not.Due to Obama's racist connections, actions, remarks, the costly vacations and other controversies he has lost independents, esp white male independents and I would be shocked if he got them back.

Well they don't have to be an extremist but when someone runs as a Republican which implies some conservative views they are expected to vote that way most of the time because their principles should demand it, esp on major Dem pushed issues of the Obama agenda.This is a fight for the future, no time to for warm fuzzy cooperation with Obama and his goons.Time to fight their agenda to best of ability until can regain enough seats in congress to stop them and get the US back on the right track.

I was initially excited about Brown winning the seat Kennedy held for so long but a red flag for myself and many was when he continually praised Ted Kennedy after his election, red flag for sure because no self respecting conservative could praise a slug like Ted Kennedy.Sure you do not speak ill of him publicly since he is dead but you don't praise him either, let it be.Then Mr Brown goes to Washington and joined the usual traitors like Snowe, Collins etc If you vote for an an Obama bill, then you are endorsing the Obama agenda and are no Conservative or Republican.

Brown voted for the wasteful and ineffective jobs bill shortly after entering office.So his first vote as a US Senator was the wasteful "jobs bill". Hows that working out? oh yea unemployment is still high and prob going to rise some more.

This is from an article I read and the author said it best:

Today Senator Brown announced that he will be supporting the financial reform bill known as Dodd-Frank. Yes, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are the ones who has a massive role in creating this mess now want to right the law that fixes it. Scott Brown supports it because they eliminated the tax increases to pay for it.


"I decided that while the bill was far from perfect", he writes in his Facebook post, but it is a "vast improvement". In other words the bill still sucks, but I'm going to vote for it anyway because I don't have spine and I want to try and keep my liberal voters happy in my liberal run bankrupt home state of Massachusetts.

Brown is a RINO, if he had true Conservative/Republican principles he would have voted NO for that crappy bill by Dodd-Frank.

So most of the time thus far on the major issues, Brown has voted with the other side, hmm.I was happy he voted against Kagan, guess even Libby prone Brown saw the potential she has to cause harm.

Brown is a RINO, it's obvious.

re: Scott Brown
 

you have to decide if you want electable moderate candidates or pure, but unelectable conservatives. The democrats got their majority in 2006 by running conservative, pro-gun, anti-abortion candidates in conservative ridings.

Brown is a Republican who managed to get elected in Red liberal Massachusetts. He can't vote with the Republicans all the time if he wants to get reelected in 2012. If you check his votes, you will see he still votes with the Republicans most of the time. He is picking his no votes wisely to have the most impact in Mass.

You have to decide which is better to have in the senate, a moderate republican or liberal democrat? I'm sure the democrats would say the latter.