William Tucker: Romney Can Be the Next Reagan

William Tucker is the author of Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey.

I'm hoping Republicans will soon wake up, stop fighting among themselves, and realize that Mitt Romney has the best chance of becoming the nation's next Ronald Reagan.

Everybody remembers Reagan for his single-mindedness in cutting federal spending and taking the government out of the central position in everyone's life. What they forget is that it was Reagan's temperament that made all this possible.

Think back to Reagan's famous rejoinder to Jimmy Carter in their first and only debate, "There you go again!" What was the significance of that? Carter had just finish a long, beady-eyed recitation about national health insurance, which, he said, promised "not inpatient care but outpatient care" with "an emphasis on hospital cost containment," and how Candidate Reagan, of course, was opposed to all this because he had opposed Medicare in 1964. Reagan stood shaking his head and laughing the whole time and when it finally came his turn, he sighed, "There you go again."

The audience laughed and why not? Carter's expressionless, robot-like recitation typified his whole presidency. He was obsessed with details. Reagan's genial response was that when he opposed Medicare in 1964 it was because he favored another piece of congressional legislation that relied less on government. But in a single moment, Reagan had also revealed Carter as a narrow-minded pedant while he was an affable, good-natured leader capable of keeping things in perspective. Voters liked what they saw and that ended Carter's Presidency.

Mitt Romney has a very similar temperament...