Partisan Democrats go further. "The difference between Reagan's re-election [bid] in '84 and Bush's in '04 is that Reagan was in some ways the master of the landscape," says Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. "He was a president who inspired confidence and made people feel better about the direction of the country. President Bush doesn't inspire personal confidence in the same way." Bush, Garin adds, lacks the self-deprecating wit and the "sense of humility" that Reagan showed.
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That humility may be more important than ever now that the rosy glow of the Reagan retrospectives is beginning to fade. Americans will begin to turn increasingly back to their current problems--especially the rising casualties in Iraq and the difficulty of transferring power to an indigenous government in Baghdad. The question is whether Bush will stay the course or demonstrate Reagan's ability to seize the moment when circumstances change. It was, after all, Reagan, the lifelong cold warrior, who formed a partnership with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and helped to dismantle the "evil empire."
As was true in the Reagan era, the risks are enormous, and Bush is facing them without the panache or communications skills that Reagan possessed. But if Bush manages to somehow create a real democracy in Iraq and win the war on terrorism, he might be celebrated as a figure of historic importance--just like Ronald Reagan.
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