Michael Reagan: Obama Exploiting Dad's Legacy For Political Gain Read more on Newsmax.com: Michael Reagan: Obama Exploiting Dad's Legacy For Political Gain Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!
Michael Reagan, the son of the late President Ronald Reagan,
tells Newsmax.TV that President Barack Obama has been playing a
game of "three-card Monte" with his father's memory in an attempt
to win support for his re-election bid.
"They're trying to actually put words in Ronald Reagan's mouth and,
if people don't really know Ronald Reagan, they may be led to
believe that Ronald Reagan would be against his own party and be
for the Democrats in this next election - and I think that's
exactly what he's trying to do," Reagan charged in an exclusive
interview on Tuesday.
"He's playing three-card Monte with Ronald Reagan and I'm glad I'm
here to make sure that I know where they're hiding the ball," added
Reagan, a Republican strategist and head of the Reagan Legacy
Foundation.
Watch the exclusive interview here.
He said that Obama would have Americans believe that President
Reagan would be supportive of his so-called "Buffett rule."
Obama recently attempted to draw a comparison between himself and
Reagan, referring to the Gipper as another "wild-eyed, socialist,
tax-hiking class warrior" in an attempt to win support for his
campaign for higher taxes on top U.S. earners.
Moreover, Obama said that he is not the first president to call
"for this idea that everybody has got to do their fair share" and
he offered to rename his proposal the "Reagan Rule" if it would
sway Congress.
"The reality of it is Ronald Reagan would be supportive of the Paul
Ryan plan. Ronald Reagan would not be for what it is that Barack
Obama wants to do - and is doing - to the United States of
America," Reagan insisted.
Despite his misstatements, Obama is correct when he says that
President Reagan would have difficulty winning his party's
nomination in today's political climate. But the same can also be
said of President John F. Kennedy, who would have difficulty
winning the Democratic Party's nomination, according to
Reagan.
"Two iconic figures of their own parties would have trouble today
getting the nomination. But Barack Obama is using that to make
people believe that somehow Ronald Reagan would support his
position on taxes - his position on what needs to be done in the
United States of America to bring us to fiscal sanity, if you
will," Reagan declared, adding that his father would never have
supported the Buffett rule.
Reagan also offered advice for Mitt Romney to how best to bring the
party together to defeat Obama now that the former Massachusetts
governor has emerged as the presumptive GOP nominee.
"He needs to reach out to conservatives," explained Reagan, who had
endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "They need to have a
voice. And maybe that's when he chooses his nominee for the vice
presidency. Maybe that's where he'll go to somebody who's a strong
conservative. Then, in fact, conservatives can rally behind, and
therefore support Mitt Romney."
He believes that Romney's best shot at winning the general election
is if the Republican Party is "100 percent" behind him. "It's got
to be about Barack Obama. It can't be nitpicking at our own
candidate and finding his flaws. But it's got to find the positive
side if there's going to be change and we have to get rid of Barack
Obama. That's the way Mitt Romney can go out and win," declared
Reagan. "If we are not together as one on Nov. 7 of this year then
Barack Obama will win another four years in the presidency."
But Reagan cautions Romney to be wary of people who may claim to
have worked on his father's campaign. "As much as you hear Barack
Obama using my father's name; as much as you hear Republican
candidates using my father's name; there are also people who work
on campaigns who, in fact, drop my father's name every single day -
as if they were hooked to my father hook, line and sinker. And
those things are not always true," he warned. "Always check it out.
Because many people who say they worked on my father's campaign
when he became president, in fact were fired, and not on the
campaign at that time."
He said that Romney should surround himself with people who have
been associated with winning political campaigns, as opposed to
losing efforts. "It's time to shed the Republican Party of the old
guard and bring in the new," he declared.
Reagan draws a parallel between the 2012 election and his father's
successful election in 1980.
If Romney makes the election about Barack Obama, he can be
successful, according to Reagan. "If the election is about Barack
Obama, as in 1980 the election was about Jimmy Carter, then yes, it
can be like 1980," he explained. "But if the election is about, you
know, Mitt Romney. If the election's about in-fighting within the
Republican Party, and is he a true conservative? Is he not a true
conservative? Maybe we should have voted for that guy - and we get
caught up in our own minutia - then in fact, it won't be like 1980.
It will be like 1976."
He did not know enough about the relationship between Romney's
father - George Romney, the popular three-term governor and
automobile company chief executive in Michigan - and President
Reagan, to say whether the two men were close. But "you'll never
meet anybody anywhere who ever had a bad relationship with Ronald
Reagan," quipped Reagan.
That is everyone except possibly Reagan's predecessor in the Oval
Office.
"Jimmy Carter to this day is still mad that Ronald Reagan beat him,
and still thinks that Ronald Reagan somehow cheated him out of
winning his second term as president of the United States of
America," he said.
President Reagan once gave his son insight into the presidency that
may be relevant for Romney.
"He said, 'Michael, you're elected president, but there comes a
time in every one of our lives when you no longer look at the fact
you were elected, but that day is, you become the president of the
United States, and understand the authority and the power that you
now have, and then what you have to do with it."
