September 28

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book."

Ronald Reagan, 40th President, 1981-1989, Apparently uttered at Business Luncheon in Los Angeles in 1977. Along the same lines, Reagan said, "You know, it has been said that politics is the second oldest profession and I've come to realize over the last few years, it bears a great similarity to the first."(from a speech at Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan (November 10, 1977)). Reagan was one of the most charming, if not controversial, Presidents of recent times. He was loved for his "less government" philosophy and homespun humor. His logic often confounded critics who believed his statements were many times not backed up by the facts. One stated, "In the Reagan years, more federal debt was added than in the entire prior history of the United States." (Richard Darman (Reagan adviser), Who's in Control? Polar Politics and the Sensible Center). Another wrote, "Ronald Reagan is the first modern President whose contempt for the facts is treated as a charming idiosyncrasy." (James David Barber, presidential scholar, On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency) Yet he succeeded in the political arena. When he ran for his second term in office against Walter Mondale, former President, Richard Nixon, predicted a Reagan victory; stating Mondale would win the debates, but Reagan would win the audience. (May 9, 1984, Speech to The American Society of Newspaper Editors, New York.) In Reagan's farewell speech to America on January 11, 1989, Reagan, himself, stated, "Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts."