In response to:
Why Reagan couldn't get elected by "conservatives" today:
"Here is a powerful quote on the subject from Reagan in 1975 from Reason magazine.
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is."
Popular theory suggests Reagan was too moderate for today’s GOP, but the experts disagree.
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From Townhall Magazine's November Perspectives by Kyle Bonnell:
Questioning Ronald Reagan’s electability in today’s political environment has become a preoccupation of today’s liberals. As this story goes, Ronald Reagan was too moderate and compromising for the tea party-infested, intransigent and ideologically rigid Republican Party. But is it true?
Not according to Edwin Meese, President Reagan’s Attorney General.
“If you look at his...
"Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to ensure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves."