Reagan and Palin: the MSM views are amazingly similar.

At Hot Air, portlandon notes the amazing similarities between the conventional wisdom about Reagan before the election in 1980 and Palin today.

It gives me a chance to remind us all of what Reagan was putting up with 6 months before the ’80 elections:

Time Magazine – March 31, 1980

“National opinion polls continue to show Carter leading Reagan by an apparently comfortable margin of about 25%. They also show that more moderate Republicans like Ford would run better against the President. This suggests that Reagan is not the strongest G.O.P. choice for the November election and that he clearly faces an uphill battle.”

“Party operatives are plainly unhappy with his selection. In Massachusetts, where both Bush and Anderson defeated Reagan, party leaders are not yet reconciled to the Reagan candidacy. Says one: “There’s a vacuum of leadership at the national level; and what appears to be the Republican Party’s response? A 69-year-old man who has done virtually nothing for years”

“Reagan has a history of committing rhetorical blunders that drive away voters. His quest in 1976 was damaged when he suggested vaguely, without proper research and consideration, that $90 billion in federal programs should be turned back to the states. He then spent months explaining that the affected programs would not be eliminated, only transferred. As Governor, Reagan was outraged by student unrest and once proclaimed: “The state of California has no business subsidizing intellectual curiosity.”

“Worse perhaps than the verbal gaffe is Reagan’s relentlessly simple-minded discussion of complex problems. He is aware that he is charged with this failing, and in his 1967 inaugural address on becoming Governor of California, he asserted: “We have been told there are no simple answers to complex problems. Well, the truth is there are simple answers, just not easy ones.”

Time Magazine – March 31, 1980

1980:

1.Reagan was behind President Carter by 25%

2.Establishment Republicans didn’t like Reagan

3.Reagan was a blunderer who makes Gaffes

4.Reagan is simple-minded

5.Regan was an old man who hadn’t done anything in years.

2011:

1.Palin is behind President Obama by 25% + percent

2.Establishment Republicans don’t like Palin

3.Palin was a blunderer who makes gaffes

4.Palin is simple-minded

5.Palin is a young women who hasn’t done enough.

The Reagan who governed and the Reagan who ran seem to be two different people.  The media solons didn't like him and the chattering classes thought he was a simpleminded fool.  Those who didn't disdain him characterized him as a dangerous ideologue.  He was an actor! by God.   Jimmy Carter was a sitting president who had the media in his hip pocket.  Sure, we had 15% inflation, but are you going to turn the country over to a simpleton like Reagan?  Not a chance!  "Turn him over, he's done" was the conventional wisdom.  If only the Republicans had run a moderate like Ford again, we would not be faced with Jimmy Carter's second term.

Ask yourself at this point, what is the biggest political story of 2010?  If your answer isn't the Tea Party movement, people should stop listening.  And who is the darling of the Tea Party?  Who has the energy?  Who has the charisma?  Who is the MSM telling us can't win?

Go Sarah!