Ronald Reagan video from the 1950's

interesting archival footage from the 1950's war on Socialism. Seems as relevant today as ever before...--Paul


Hi Rick C, all,

Thanks for sending over the Reagan commercial from the 50's. I'd seen it a few weeks ago, but didn't comment on it till now.

I've read 3 books on Reagan, including his autobiography, and his conservative views were formed in Hollywood of all places. He grew up fairly poor in Dixon, IL (exit at Dixon to see his childhood home and talk with the curator there on your next drive down I-88 toward the Quad Cities), and his family, like most during that time, were Roosevelt Democrats. When he became an actor (after being "discovered" as a sports announcer for a few years), he saw that Hollywood--producers, actors, etc-- was dominated by Communists (some things never change I guess--thank you Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Barbra Streisand, etc). So he worked his way up in the various acting unions fighting against the commies, and he became very popular among those who saw the evils of Stalin and others. This was the Cold War, the McCarthy hearings after all, which you remember better than I I'm sure, when these commercials were made.

He was a man of great courage and character even back then, as this stance against the Hollywood commies sort of ended his acting career. It's the same thing today for Republican actors, who are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to getting work. We need to support actors like James Woods, John Ratzenberger, Tom Selleck, Bo Derek, Kevin Sorbo, Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer, Kevin Farley, Jon Voight, Leslie Nielsen, Producer David Zucker, and hopefully more will "come out of the closet" in the coming Republican Revolution.

He worked for GE for years as well, giving speeches in plants all over the country on the virtues of capitalism, hard work, and so on. Hard to be believe that GE today is run by a Socialist, Jeffrey Immelt, an advisor to Obama and the man who signs the checks for the haters Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Ed Schultz at MSNBC.

This work led to him running for Governor of CA, and at least twice winning by huge margins. Despite his disappointment in narrowly losing to Gerald Ford in the 1976 primary, Ford, who was what Rush calls a "Rockefeller or Country Club Republican"--others would call him a RINO-of course lost to the totally incompetent and overmatched peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter.

It was the malaise of Jimmy Carter from 1976-1980 (long gas lines, 20% interest rates, hostages in Iran, double digit inflation, and the creation of at least two enormous wastes of money, the Dept. of Energy and the Dept. of Education, among others) that led to the two landslide victories by Reagan in 1980 and 1984. If you ever needed proof that the US was, and still is, a "center right" country, Reagan won every state but one (Scott Brown's Massachusetts) in 1984, even taking Walter Mondale's home state of Minnesota.

It is my hope that the malaise of Barack Insane Obama will lead to landslide victories for the Republicans again in November, 2010, 2012, and beyond. I will post this reply at my blog, http://wisconsinrepublicandad.blogspot.com and please encourage your lists to check it out.

Happy Easter!


Paul