McClatchy Nitwit: 'Today's Republicans might not elect Reagan'

Mind-numbing stupidity from McClatchy's Steven Thomma.

Today's Republicans might not elect Reagan

WASHINGTON — They want to put his face on Mount Rushmore, but Republicans today are demanding such ideological purity that they might not even nominate Ronald Reagan for president if he were to run now.

Abortion? He was for abortion rights before he was against them.

Taxes? He raised them as governor, and raised them several times as president after his big 1981 tax cuts.

Immigration? He signed the law that Republicans now call amnesty for illegals.

Foreign policy? He negotiated with the head of the "Evil Empire."

In fact, they'd find him wrong on almost every hot-button issue of the 2008 campaign.

Most of those stands are overlooked in the Republicans' idealized rear-view idolization of Reagan as an unwavering conservative icon. But they serve as a reminder that even the revered Reagan was a pragmatic politician whose stands often changed and might not fit in today's politics.

Read the rest.

Along with completely misreading history, and who knows if this guy was even alive in 1980, Thomma completely ignores the main reason why Reagan was elected: Jimmy Carter.

I don't recall abortion being a huge issue in 1980 (in the end it never is, except with the media). Yes, Reagan "negotiated" with the Evil Empire, as Thomma puts it. We know what the end result was: No more Evil Empire.

And tell me this: If ideological purity is such a primary concern, why is it a relatively liberal Republican like Rudy Giuliani is leading the pack? If the Republicans demanded such ideological purity, we wouldn't give Giuliani the time of day.

Thomma and the rest of the media spend no time whatsoever fretting about the ideological purity of the far-left Democrats, yet seem quite consumed with how Republicans consider their own candidates. Worry about your people, and let us decide who our candidate is. We sure don't need your advice, thank you very much.

In the end, Reagan was the far superior candidate to Jimmy Carter, while Giuliani and all but one current Republican candidate (guess who that might be?) is far preferable to any Democrats.