Free Republic

My last post about the new Reagan book--THE GREATEST COMMUNICATOR--by the president's chief strategist and pollster, Dick Wirthlin, got such a strong response I thought I'd share another nugget I just read from this AWESOME book. This is one of Reagan's never-before-reprinted jokes he told Wirthlin inside the Oval Office. Here's how it goes...

The big Reagan Tribute keynote speech will be covered live on C-SPAN tonight beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET. The speaker will be President Reagan's "Karl Rove," his chief political strategist and pollster, Dick Wirthlin. Wirthlin is the author of the newly released best-seller, THE GREATEST COMMUNICATOR: What Ronald Reagan Taught Me about Politics, Leadership, and Life. In THE GREATEST COMMUNICATOR, Wirthlin reveals never-before-told stories about their epic 36 year friendship, a relationship that led to two of the biggest landslide presidential elections in American presidential history. Live C-SPAN coverage begins at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Word is The Washington Times has called this book--THE GREATEST COMMUNICATOR by Dick Wirthlin--among the best Reagan biographies ever written. Wirthlin is apparently giving a big speech at the national conference for Young America's Foundation in Washington DC this August (www.yaf.org).

In The Greatest Communicator: What Ronald Reagan Taught Me About Politics, Leadership and Life, a book laced with insights and revealing personal experiences, Dick Wirthlin, for more than two decades Ronald Reagan's pollster and political strategist, gives us in six words the essence of the 40th president's success as a communicator: "Persuade through reason; motivate through emotion."

How the Man Who Won the Cold War Inspired Such Intense Loyalty

Reagan's critics have speculated many things about his life and work. Wirthlin debunks several of these myths, including the notion that Reagan relied heavily upon polling data to direct how he governed. In actuality, Reagan used Wirthlin's expertly-compiled statistical data to measure how the people felt about what he was doing - as a reflection of his governance, not as a substitute for his own ideas.

"Once, Reagan and I were visiting in the Oval Office when he brought up the parable of the Good Samaritan. He said, `You know, it is often overlooked that the person who really gained the most was the Good Samaritan who rendered service, not the person who received it. I think the real lesson of the parable is that we benefit most when we help a neighbor in need.'"