WITH THE EXCEPTION OF TR, HOOVER AND NIXON...:

McCain’s viability owes a lot to Reagan (MATTHEW DALLEK, 9/23/08, Politico)

McCain is capitalizing on the strength of a conservative coalition that Reagan stitched together during the tumultuous aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam. McCain is competitive despite Bush’s weak public standing because Reagan’s conservative supporters in the 1970s won a debate about government growth, taxes and spending that continues to resonate with a large segment of the electorate. [...]

Then there’s McCain’s selection of the socially conservative Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. Palin has energized “values” voters and has shown that social issues once championed by Reagan can still mobilize segments of the conservative electorate, much to McCain’s benefit.

During the 1970s, the anti-Equal Rights Amendment leader Phyllis Schlafly joined evangelical Christian, right-to-life, and Christian school organizations in campaigning to protect and promote “traditional family values.” “The ERA issue introduced large numbers of Christian women to politics and tapped into their fears” that their values were under attack by secular liberalism, Schlafly biographer Donald T. Critchlow has argued.

Palin’s appeal to Schlafly’s heirs is due to her self-styled “hockey mom” identity and her hard-edged socially conservative beliefs and policies. [...]

The McCain-Palin ticket is also successfully updating Reagan’s hard-line anti-communist stance and unswerving brand of fervent patriotism — positions that Reagan refined during the late 1970s. While the threats facing America have changed since Reagan’s day, McCain’s national security ideas and rhetoric resemble Reagan’s: McCain has pledged to seek “victory” in Iraq, dismantle the Iranian nuclear threat and follow Osama bin Laden “to the gates of hell.”

Like Reagan, McCain speaks in terms of good and evil. In showcasing his own brand of celebratory nationalism at the Republican convention and in trumpeting his “Country First” campaign slogan, McCain has appealed with some success to working-class Reagan Democrats, who admired Reagan’s unstinting love of country, pugilistic sound bites and promise to increase defense spending.

...the GOP always had the smaller government position in hand, but Democrats handed them the morality and patriotism high ground in the late 60s/early 70s. That's why the only national elections Democrats have managed to win have come when they ran religious Southern governors.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 23, 2008 7:17 AM