The Personal Side

So we thought we’d dedicate this podcast to the personal side of our 40th president who was described as an ordinary man who accomplished extraordinary things. Ronald Reagan often credited his political success to an empathy with ordinary Americans. Asked by a reporter on the eve of his election in 1980 what Americans saw in him, Reagan replied: "Would you laugh if I told you that I think, maybe, they see themselves, and that I'm one of them? I've never been able to detach myself or think that I, somehow, am apart from them." Even after two terms as president, Reagan called himself a "citizen-politician," the phrase he often used to describe himself in 1966 when he was elected governor of California in his first race for public office. Reagan said he wanted to become part of government in order to reduce its influence.