Back in March, Gregory Hilton exposed the back and forth view of Reagan that has been expressed by Ron Paul. Paul apparently uses an endorsement from 1978 that reads as follows:
‘Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first.’
It should be noted that Reagan was likely to support any Republican, including liberals Lowell Weicker and Arlen Specter, as Hilton points out.
But after that Paul said this about Reagan:
The American people have never reached this point of disgust with politicians before. I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration.“
“Paul’s disaffection started early in Reagan’s presidency: ‘Ronald Reagan has given us a deficit 10 times greater than what we had with the Democrats,’ Paul told the Christian Science Monitor in 1987, ‘It didn’t take more than a month after 1981, to realize there would be no changes
It is fine to differ with Reagan on the deficit. It is not fine to pretend the two of them were buddies-buddies, implying that Reagan would endorse Paul – which is what he did in an ad the last time around.
Even a poster at Ron Paul forums admits this (and his libertarian run) are problems:
I liked the wording “they did it to Reagan”. It moves him closer to Reagan. We’d want to use the 2 Rons pix somewhere, use the endorsement. But we have the “I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration” to deal with in the best manner possible. And then the libertarian run.
“George Washington”, who has posted here before, responded to the Hilton article in fine fashion:
Greg Hilton, …I think i see what is going on here… You hate America. Gotcha.
Paul also brings Reagan into the debt ceiling debate in his latest ad, using a newspaper clip:
“Mr. Reagan reluctantly agreed Saturday to sign the legislation, which also raises the government debt ceiling to avert a Federal default, but said he would veto any tax increases aimed at meeting the deficit target”
The problem with this is that Reagan approved raising the ceiling many, many times during his presidency, sometimes insisting that the Democrats do so. I have the quotes from Reagan’s diary to prove it.