Reagan took Goldwater's AnCap crankery and Ayn Rand's anti-Soviet polemics into the mainstream.
There's a reason Bush only made it one term and was forgotten shortly thereafter, but Reagan remains a Jesus-like figure in the concervative mythos.
Not that him dying would have necessarily prevented a... I don't know... Pat Buchanan Presidency. But these were not comparable politicians simply because they worked together.
Pappy was a Rockefeller Republican.
Reagan took Goldwater's AnCap crankery and Ayn Rand's anti-Soviet polemics into the mainstream.
There's a reason Bush only made it one term and was forgotten shortly thereafter, but Reagan remains a Jesus-like figure in the concervative mythos.
Not that him dying would have necessarily prevented a... I don't know... Pat Buchanan Presidency. But these were not comparable politicians simply because they worked together.