Were Ronald Reagan still alive, he would have turned 100 this past Sunday. In my view, he’s without doubt one of the greatest, and most successful, Presidents of the past century, and perhaps in history. We live in a very different world today than we would had he never walked among us.
I attended a showing of a documentary “Nine Days that Changed the World,” last week at the Museum Center, along with hundreds of other Cincinnatians. It’s about Pope John Paul II who made several pilgrimages to his homeland, Poland, shortly after he became Pope. These visits led directly to the rise of the Solidarity Movement, the downfall of communism in Poland and in the rest of Eastern Europe, and ultimately in the former Soviet Union itself. And even though the movie is principally about the Pope, it makes clear that his partner in overthrowing communism was Ronald Reagan.
Who can forget Ronald Reagan’s challenge to Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” And the wall came down.
On the domestic front, our nation was gripped by a “malaise” that seemed to have no end in sight. Reagan became President, dramatically cut taxes, and the economy came roaring back with unprecedented economic growth, job creation, and it was once again “morning in America.” Ronald Reagan had us all believing that we could be that “shining city on the hill.”
I had the honor of meeting Ronald Reagan twice; both times in 1988 – once in Cincinnati and once in Washington. In Cincinnati I was one of several “greeters” when he arrived at the airport here. (I’ve got a photo of the “greeting” in my office, and in the photo are Reagan, me, Mayor (at the time) Charlie Luken, and Congressmen (at the time) Bill Gradison and Bob McEwen.) My sister Carol was that day in the hospital having her first baby, and I told President Reagan this, and he signed something to give to her and the baby, my nephew Joe DelPrince. I always thought it was pretty cool that President Reagan knew that Joe was being born that day. (It was 8/8/88 which is also pretty cool.)
The second time I met President Reagan was at the White House later that year, when he met with a number of Republican candidates for Congress. (I was running against Tom Luken. I lost despite President Reagan making a TV ad for me. See ad below.)
Anyway, a lot of people I talk to hope that another Ronald Reagan will come along and “save the country.” I don’t know if another Ronald Reagan is in our future, but we sure could use someone who had a core set of principals, stuck to them, and could communicate at a visceral level with the American people.
We have just about another year to find such a person. And if he (or she) proves to truly be the leader so many of us desire, he or she might just be sworn in as our 45th President on January 20th, 2013.
