The Great Communicator

Depressed and downcast, a majority of the American people looked to smiling, unflappable Ronald Reagan for even more miracles. Certainly, his own life had much magic to it. Born above a grocery store in Tampico, Illinois, in 1911, Reagan worked his way through college, became a sportscaster and then an actor-less than a spectacular talent, perhaps, but with 53 films and many TV appearances to his credit, he was never out of work. Reagan left acting to enter politics with a strong stop-communism and end-big-government message. In 1966 he handily defeated incumbent Democrat Pat Brown for the governor’s office in California and served two terms, during which he made a national reputation as a tax cutter. Delivering a feel-good message to the nation and promising large tax cuts, a vast reduction in government (“getting government off our backs”), and a return to American greatness, Reagan defeated the incumbent Carter by a wide margin in 1980. Even those who bitterly opposed what they saw as a shallow conservatism admitted that Reagan deserved the title of The Great Communicator.