"Establishment Republicans all pretend to have seen Reagan's genius at the time, but that's a crock. They wanted to dump Reagan in favor of 'electable' Gerald Ford and 'electable' George Herbert Walker Bush. Newsweek reported in 1976 that Republican 'party loyalists' thought Reagan would produce 'a Goldwater-style debacle.' This is why they nominated well-known charismatic vote magnet Jerry Ford instead. Again in 1980, a majority of Republican committeemen told U.S. News and World Report that future one-termer George 'Read My Lips' Bush was more 'electable' than Reagan. The secret to Reagan's greatness was he didn't need a bunch of high-priced Bob Shrums to tell him what Americans thought. He knew because of his work with General Electric, touring the country and meeting real Americans. Two months a year for eight years, Reagan would give up to 25 speeches a day at G.E. plants—a 'marination in middle America,' as one G.E. man put it. Reagan himself said, 'I always thought Hollywood had the wrong idea of the average American, and the G.E. tours proved I was right.' Because of these tours, Reagan knew—as he calmly told fretful advisers after the Grenada invasion—'You can always trust Americans.' The G.E. tours completely immunized Reagan from the counsel of people like Karl Rove, who think the average American is a big-business man who just wants his taxes cut and doesn't care about honor, country, marriage or the unborn. Reagan knew that this is a great country. If only today's Republicans would believe it."

---Ann Coulter