Replies

That is simply not true. Reagan was a strong supporter of Barry Goldwater whose platform always was and always will be strong conservative orthodoxy. Haven't you seen “A Time For Choosing?

64 for Goldwater...
first I said GOP not conservative....
Reagan was considered so outside the mainstream and 76 and 80 by the GOP both in his battle with Ford and in his battle with Bush Senior it was Bush senior that called supply-side voodoo economics

but on conservative can you even give me conservative orthodoxy over the years?

Robert Taft was not Barry Goldwater was not William Buckley was not Ronald Reagan..... then into that mixed people like Buchanan or even if you really want to stretch some might call Ron Paul one.....and neocons are not paleo cons. and neither are libertarian conservative.... and there certainly have been populist conservative

Were the founding fathers conservative?...

is being Constitutionalist a limited government conservative????? because the Constitution was a radical expansion of government.. it created the Federal replacing the weak Articles of Confederation that was States right heavy

conservative at one point were strictly isolationist... but you wouldn't call Goldwater an isolationist?... and later in life Goldwater became more of a Libertarian became pro-gay-rights

William Buckley is considered the modern father of conservatism yet him and Reagan were on opposite sides of the debate on the Panama Canal with Buckley insisting it go back to Panama and Reagan took the pro - American nationalist position of keeping the canal

so there isn't even a consistency of Orthodoxy to say that's Orthodox conservative.... it's all over the place... but with some general themes...

Reagan himself changed radically over the years we all know you was an FDR Democrat... but the Reagan that was governor of California was a quite a bit different than the guy that ran for president in 1980... the Reagan of 1960 California was more abortion friendly... the Reagan of 1960 California was certainly not libertarian conservative he was aggressively battling the anti-war movement

and here we are griping about a illegal immigration and the Reagan that was president granted amnesty I was upset at the time about that one

My point being that Reagan was a pro American nationalist conservative in simpler terms more a John Wayne conservative.. a silent majority conservative vs all the different flavors of conservative ideology that has come and gone through the years