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>>>>I would really like to see the two parties work together and if we are to succeed, it would be best if they do. We cannot have one party dictate to the nation.
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>>>The Republicans started losing their collective mind when Reagan wed us to the Moral Majority. The last 30 years have just been a steady spiral out to the extremes. Hopefully, this election might get more of them thinking that perhaps they might want to pay more attention to people who are not part of their rarified segment of society.
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>>You are so correct! Yes, the Moral Majority, the Jerry Falwell group. We got to enjoy Reagan in California, as our governor, before the rest of the nation experienced him.
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>>We are still waiting for that trickle down to be seen promised from Reaganomics.
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>>I must say one thing in Reagan’s favor though: He knew how to start a war and win it! Remember Grenada? However, his war on drugs has had questionable results.
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>>About 100 years ago the Democratic and Republican parties had different agendas. The Republicans looked a lot like the Democrats of today and the Democrats looked like today’s Republicans. Nothing remains the same! :)
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>These days Ronald Reagan would be viewed within his own party as a centrist. Maybe a little squishy on social issues.
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>He was a great American president, even though I didn't agree with him at all. The mark of all great leaders is that they leave footprints in the sand. We can count only a few of them in our history: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Reagan.
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>If you have any reading time on your hands I will be happy to send you Robert Caro's magisterial biography of LBJ. All you have to agree to is to send it back. Four of a scheduled five volumes, that is; the fifth is in progress. If he survives long enough. He won the Pulitzer Prize as a young man for "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York." Even his wife says his obsession with LBJ has gone on for decades longer than expected and may literally kill him. I don't admire LBJ any more than you do but this is an admirable piece of work.

When I was in the Air Force stationed at Goodfellow AFB (Security Service), LBJ would come to visit his hometown. The people in the area hated him with a passion! They had specific and personal reasons due to how he treated close friends and neighbors he grew up with.

If LBJ stayed out of Vietnam, he would be thought of differently. But then, the nation could not afford to allow the “Domino Effect” to destroy civilization. :)