19:1

Obviously, the Republican candidates want no part of the Bush lagacy, and if a bunch of Democrats were running for President after one of their own was at 30% in the polls for close to a year, you'd see the same thing. But the fact that they have to go back 20-plus years to find a conservative figure that they respect, that they can trot out to the nation without everybody laughing in their face... that's just sad.

I was in elementary school when Reagan took office. There's an entire generation eligible to vote that doesn't remember him at all (considering what really happened in that era, and how cruel and vicious Reagan was to the poor, maybe that's a good thing for his legacy). I don't think wrapping Reagan in some hazy gauze and thinking that will appeal to voters in 2008 is really going to work. Neither will saying you don't believe in evolution (which is like saying you don't believe in gravity), but there you are.

UPDATE: Yes, that bit where Giuliani claimed Reagan got the hostages back from Iran because he "stared them down" is patently absurd. First of all, he negotiated arms deals with the Iranians later in his term; second of all, Reagan allowed Iraq to use chemical weapons on his own people, and he sent Donald Rumsfeld to tell Saddam Hussein it'd be OK; and third, he had back-channel talks with Tehran while he was running for President to ensure that the hostages wouldn't be released until his inauguration. It's a total fabrication that the Ayatollah released the hostages because he was scared by the manly steely glare of St. Ronnie.