Mitch Daniels: "Let Ronald Reagan Go"

I first saw a reference to Daniels' comments in my "Rush in a Hurry" e-mail, summarizing the content of Rush Limbaugh's Monday broadcast. (I haven't heard so much as a whisper of Rush's show since arriving in Alaska; this is probably a record for me since I started listening in 1993.) Then my father-in-law commented on what Daniels said, so I'm assuming this must have made semi-national news.

I went to the original story for some context. Knowing a little about Mitch Daniels (A. he is my governor, B. one of my good friends, John Smith, worked closely with him in his term as a state Representative from 2004-2006 and C. Mitch was a chief political advisor, among other positions, in the second term of the Reagan Administration), I have to ultimately differ with what may have been Rush Limbaugh's take on this one. I do this with great trepidation since I highly esteem Rush and his political savvy, and again, I didn't hear his commentary firsthand.

Daniels would never disavow the impact that Ronald Reagan had on the United States, nor would he offer the opinion that we should not treasure Reagan's legacy. I am positive that he would pay homage to Reagan as the Father of the modern conservative movement.

Daniels is simply saying what others with even stronger conservative credentials are arguing, namely, that we cannot let the good be the enemy of the best in this election. Pat Buchanan also said in a recent column that our time is not Reagan's time, and we must get over our tendency to simply cite past successes as a tonic for all current difficulties.

What I find even more remarkable, once again, is looking at the words of the Gipper himself. I just concluded a new book (for me) on Reagan, written by his pollster and friend, Dick Wirthlin (The Greatest Communicator is the title, if you're interested). Wirthlin shares many interesting stories in these 225 pages that you won't find anywhere else and a number that all the Reagan people tell in their memoirs. One of the anecdotes that I don't remember reading in any other narrative tells of a conversation Wirthlin had where Reagan shared an observation by Ralph Waldo Emerson that America, when you get right down to it, always has only two political parties: the party of hope and the party of memory. Reagan's view was that the Democrats' failure of imagination in the '80's was due to a continuous hearkening back to the halcyon days of FDR and JFK. This immediately caused me to recall one GOP debate after another within the last year where Reagan's name was invoked over and over again.

I wrote an essay on this blog a few weeks ago on Ronald Reagan and what a hero he is to me. I'm sure this is even more so for Daniels, Buchanan and others who served with him and daily enjoyed his smile, laughed at his stories and even more importantly, helped enact an agenda that changed America. But we face new challenges that Reagan could not have anticipated, just as the great General Eisenhower (the only Republican besides Reagan to serve 2 full terms as President in the 20th century) could not have forecasted the hurdles of the 1980's.

So should we "let Reagan go?" Probably not the best use of terminology, though Mitch did caution his audience before he uttered those words that he "hoped not to be misunderstood." Indeed, Rush was right when he said, as he so often does, that we dare not forget the Reagan playbook if we want to win elections: stay true to conservative convictions and do so with a generous spirit. But to use Reagan's name and legacy to set a bar that no future Republican can hope to clear defies the can-do spirit that Ronald Reagan exemplified his whole life. I believe this is what Mitch was trying to communicate.

Pat Buchanan elaborates on many of these themes in this column.