I prefer to remember Ronnie as these people recall his legacy.
RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Well, everyone this weekend has talked about winning the Cold War, that will be part of the historical debate, that certainly is an enormous part of the legacy. Let me suggest something that people haven't talked about very much.
Norton SmithHe really probably more than any president since FDR transformed the political landscape, and that's not easy to do. FDR shattered the political consensus that he found in place in 1933, and he left behind a new consensus and an army of followers who for 50 years really defined American politics. And Ronald Reagan really followed in his footsteps, even if they charted a different course.
American conservatism before Ronald Reagan, conservatives were people who were fighting a rear guard against the 20th century. They invited caricature; they were overfed men in bat wing collars and little old ladies in tennis shoes who worried about fluoridation in their water. Ronald Reagan not only put a smile on the face of conservatism, his conservatism was not only optimistic, it was futuristic.
And that I think is an enormous part of his legacy, one that is still unfolding and, don't forget, there's a whole generation of young people who came of age during the Reagan years, many of whom are in this White House, others in all other sorts of fields, so the Reagan legacy marches on into the 21st century.
GWEN IFILL: Michael, if you use Richard's term of the new consensus that was formed, does that constitute the Reagan Revolution we hear about, and if it does, how would that manifest itself in policy?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: It does a little bit, although, you know, a large part of the Reagan Revolution was reduce the size of government. Reagan couldn't do it, nor could any later president, nor could any Republican today who might run now or in four years, so it didn't quite happen.
At the same time Richard is right in terms of there are certain things now that are centrist that 25 years ago were conservative. Bill Clinton who was a Great Society liberal when he started out was the one in 1996 who said the era of big government is over, and also signed a welfare bill that was anything but liberal.
BeschlossHe did that because the consensus had moved, he was afraid not to. He wanted to run for reelection. And the other thing that Reagan did that I think did buck this is one test of a leader is if he or she creates an institution that carries on his or her ideas after they leave the stage. The Republican Party in 1980 was moderate and even liberal enough so that the elder George Bush almost got that nomination in 1980, he was a moderate from the Northeast.
Nowadays, the Republican Party is 90 to 100 percent a Ronald Reagan party, conservative southwestern, and also very religious. He changed it, and it is in a way an engine of Reaganism that carries that on.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/jan-june04/historians_reagan_6-7.html