What Would Reagan Do? Reflections from a closeted Reagan Democrat in 2020

Greetings, friends! Thank you for continuing to read my blogs as I wander my way through the first month of my post-PwC life. With less than two weeks until the 2020 presidential election, I thought I would share a few political reflections—without mentioning the names of either 2020 presidential candidate, and while reaching for some wisdom from the past.

If you’re reading this and know me at all, I am sure you know who I early voted for. For those of my Democratic friends out there – buckle up – my political alignment is far more moderate than you might think. And for my Republican friends, many of whom think I am some crazy, bleeding-heart liberal – you will hopefully see that is not even close to being the case. The more I think about this, I am not sure if anyone will actually “Like” this post at all, so I will be looking forward to your open-minded reactions!

My political journey, like that of many, was complex. When I was 12, my neighbor rode his bicycle to my house to tell me a man who was running for President was speaking later that morning at a historical site a block away from where we lived. He was a Democrat, and his name was Morris Udall. I was mesmerized by his speech, and from that day I became a Democrat. When he conceded to Jimmy Carter at the 1976 convention, I began, as much as a 12-year-old could, to campaign for Carter. While Carter’s empathy, caring, ethics, and integrity were evident throughout his life, I don’t think it is too controversial to argue that he had a challenging Presidency. In spite of it, a Democrat I had become. 

Fast-forward to 1984, and I was in the Young Democrats Club at the über-conservative Miami University (of Ohio), and it was time to vote in my first presidential election. Incumbent President Ronald Reagan was running against Walter Mondale. I tried to look objectively at the facts, and asked myself a few questions about the incumbent. Do I feel proud to be an American under his leadership? Do I trust his judgment and integrity to navigate a crisis and keep us on a sound path even if I don’t agree with all his decisions? And finally, the similar question Reagan used is the country better off than than it was four years ago? The answer was blatantly obvious to me, and I, a democrat since age 12, cast my very first presidential ballot and did so for a Republican. 

Similar criteria led me to vote for George Bush, Sr. …twice. And believe it or not, a completely random introduction to Jack Kemp (who became Bob Dole’s running mate), combined with my uneasiness with Bill Clinton’s integrity, led me to vote for Dole in 1996. Reflecting back, no Democratic presidential candidate actually got my vote until 2000, although they’ve had it ever since. With that said, what I wouldn’t give to again have the option to choose Mitt Romney or John McCain in this November’s election.

My point here is that I have always put character and integrity before party, and I think, until recently, many American voters did. While I will always be a huge fan of the Obama years, if I am being totally honest, I feel that America may have been at its finest in my lifetime during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. Don’t get me wrong, I am not na?ve here, there was the Iran-Contra affair, his inability to accept AIDS and a host of other issues, so in no way was he perfect, but the country felt and acted optimistic and transformative and that didn’t end with a complete pendulum swing when he left office. So, with all that said, what would Reagan think about our current election choices? Rather than pontificate what I think and spark potentially fiery reactions, I would ask you to consider looking back for just a few minutes to January of 1988.

The City Club of Cleveland had just celebrated its 75th anniversary of providing a forum for free speech, when it secured, for the first time, the sitting President of the United States as a speaker. Full and fair disclosure, I am a proud board member of The City Club, and I believe free speech is as important today as ever. I am sharing the link with you here to that January 11, 1988 speech (and the unfiltered Q&A), as it was just recently added to The City Club archives. While 30 years later we are talking about Industry 4.0 instead of the third industrial revolution, Reagan’s remarks are shockingly relevant today. Beyond that, however, I focused on the character of the man speaking given the criteria I set forth above. To me, the qualities he displayed were: optimism, confidence, agility, humor, and leadership. He made me feel pride and respect for the office. He had a vision for America, but also acknowledged our issues, calling the national deficit, built under his watch, an embarrassment and a shame. He spoke of the importance of human liberty and spontaneity, and of embracing the possibilities of a new world economy in which national borders become obsolete. He talked about the need to defend against crises of confidence that posed risks to our fundamental values. I am even more confident in the vote I placed in 1984 after watching this, than I was as a young college student at Miami.

At the risk of taking his quotes out of context, I want to share just a few lines from the closing of his remarks. Speaking of the Constitution, Reagan said, “The more I reflect on that noble document, the more I am drawn to the same conclusion as George Washington, that it is more than the product of human invention, that divine providence, as Washington believed, must have also lent a hand. Two-hundred years later, this document will serve as a guide, not just for this nation, but for the world, as we enter the 21st century. “

Highlighting the importance of the trade deal he had just reached days before with Canada, he closed with the following remarks: “These new economic realities dictate a world economy. Because of our experience with a continental economy we are uniquely situated to lead the world into a new era of economic cooperation – to make this city on a hill that is America, a global city. The watchword of this new era will be ‘freedom’ — free enterprise, free trade, freedom to travel, freedom of immigration. Freedom – the emancipation of peoples’ creative energies around the world. That’s the challenge that has opened up to us in the 1980s. All we need is the courage to meet it”.

These quotes don’t do his remarks justice, so please do watch the recording in The City Club archives. The speech resonates with me today and I welcome these sentiments. So, what would Reagan do? I will leave that question for each of you to decide. When casting your vote, though, I would ask you to consider evaluating more than just a candidate’s political party, as there is a great deal at stake on a host of fronts in this election. 

What I will say is that on the basis of character alone, my decision in 2020 was as easy as it was way back on my first ballot in 1984.