Reagan claimed his political heros were Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.I'm too young to remember Reagan's 1980 campaign but I've lived through enough revisionist history to believe Common Tator is correct.Reagan spent 35 years of his life as a registered democrat and gave large sums of money and campaigned for FDR, HST, Stevenson, and JKF.
It was in 1962 or 63 that Cap Weinburger and Ed Meese thought if Reagan switched to the Republican party he could defeat Democrat Governor Brown in 1966. The problem was how to overcome the certain RINO image that Reagan was sure to get. NO RINO could get the Republican nomination.
There were few Republicans that wanted to get near Barry Goldwater in 1964. They felt he was the kiss of death. but Cap and Ed Meese decided that if Reagan contacted Goldwater and offered to give a prime time speech that a RINO coming out for Goldwater might help Goldwater pick up a few votes.
So Goldwater gave Reagan a prime time speech at the Republican convention Rather, Cronkite and Browkaw heard how good Reagan spoke and decided the way to end his life as a politician was to paint him as a Goldwater clone. So they did. And Reagan in one speech went from a far left RINO to a Goldwater Republican with out changing a view.
That gave him an easy primary victory in 1966 but he spent the 1966, 1970 and 1980 campaigns trying to convince swing voters that he was really a RINO.
Reagan in his years in office doubled the natioal debt. Had his buddy Democrat Speaker of the House Tip O’Neal over the the white house weekly. Reagan after 1964 never once met with or invited Barry Goldwater to vist him.
I covered the 1980 Reagan Campaign in the mid-west. The reporters had a bet on who could get him to say the words “Senator Goldwater” first. No one ever did. The winner of the money was a reporter who got reagan to say “The Senator from Arizona.”.. but Reagan would not call Goldwater by name.
Reagan in his 1980 campaign stump speech claimed that he was the only candidate for president that was a member in good standing of a Union and who had been elected twice to the presidency of his local union.
Reagan claimed in his stump speech that he had no love for big business. And that he had not ever left the Democratic party.. His views had not changed from the days of FDR and Kennedy. He said the Democratic party had left him.
From another Common Tator post
And Reagan ran in the industrial north as a Democrat who was still a Democrat in every thing but name. It was just that the Democratic party had changed ... not Reagan. I covered a lot of Reagan speeches in the industrial midwest. He never missed a chance to tell his audience how he had been a Democrat most of his life. He claimed that FDR was his political hero.And one moreThe reason he got more than half the union vote in Ohio was his FDR speech and his pitch that his economic policy was identical to the JFK economic policy. It really ticked Teddy Kennedy off every time Reagan claimed to be a Kennedy fan. Over and over I heard him say of his economic policy, "It worked for JFK and it will work for me."
I used to do an imitation of Reagan doing his, I have no love for big corporations act. REagan would say, "When I was just a small boy My Dad was let go by a big corporation on Christmas (SNIFF SNIFF) eve (SNIFF). It was our worst Christmas ever.(sniff) I have no special place in my (sniff) heart for big corporations."
The point to be made is that to defeat an incumbent a candidate has to get some voters to change their votes. Telling them they were dumb stupid idiots the last time they voted will only harden their support for the other guy.Reagan showed how to beat an incumbent in 1980.. He did not attack Jimmy Carter. What he did was offer plans and the impression that he would make a better president than Carter. Reagan convinced the voters that he would solve problems. Reagan knew better than to make voters defend their vote for Carter in 1980. He offered himself as a better choice in 1980. He did not try to prove that Carter was a bad choice in 1976.
If you want the boss to fire a someone and hire you in his place, first you have to convince him that you would do a much better job. Leave it to the boss to figure out the current job holder is doing a bad job. The same is true in politics.
You can see examples of how to lose when you study the attempts to defeat FDR and HST. Republicans attacked the incumbent. They were not about how to do a better job. And even in a continued depression FDR won. And in a recession and a screwed up foreign policy situation HST won. You win elections by convincing the voters that you can solve the problems.
It is far better to campaign on how to fix the problems than attack the man that holds the office. Attacks on incumbents do not work.