Republicans have left Reagan By Warren Bluhm News-Chronicle Still only halfway through Peggy Noonan's "When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan," I am struck by a sense of loss and melancholy. Where are such men today? Not the calculated, focus-group-driven men and women who seem to believe nothing and allow their views to ride with the wind. Where are the disciples of Reagan? Reagan was a man who appointed more minorities and women to office than any previous governor of California but found himself accused because he never made a big deal about it. Noonan writes about the awkward meeting with black leaders who wondered if he was afraid of angering his white conservative supporters. The atmosphere grew lighter when a truly surprised Reagan said he had appointed the best people for various jobs regardless of their skin color, and he thought it would be cheap politics if he went out and "started singing a song about it." He said and did the right thing for no other reason than it was the right thing. That was the secret of how President Reagan won the hearts and votes of so many people: He was real, he had a sense of right and wrong, and he was honest about it. The greatest sense of loss, as I pass the book's halfway point, came when Noonan quoted something Reagan wrote about how far the federal government had strayed from the Founding Fathers' vision of America. "They regarded the central government's responsibility as that of providing national security, protecting our democratic freedoms and limiting the government's intrusion in our lives - in sum, the protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Reagan wrote. "They never envisioned vast agencies in Washington telling our farmers what to plant, our teachers what to teach, our industries what to build. The Constitution they wrote established sovereign states, not mere administrative districts for the federal government. They believed in keeping government as close as possible to the people ..." A Democrat for the first half of his adult life, Reagan became a Republican in the early 1960s and often said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me," meaning that it turned, in Noonan's words, "toward higher taxes and more government power, toward an antibusiness bias and a weaker foreign policy." What would Reagan think today? With a Republican president and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, a decree comes down that states must reduce the legal limit on drunken driving to a 0.08 blood alcohol content. And in Wisconsin, a Republican majority in both houses of the state Legislature cheerfully agrees to accede to the exercise of raw federal power. The debate among Republicans is not whether taxpayers should pay for the prescription drugs of all elderly people, regardless of need, but how comprehensive this new entitlement program should be. A Republican president and Congress, faced with a cowardly and deadly attack on the United States, respond by creating a massive new federal agency with unprecedented power to intrude and interfere with our lives, our liberty and our pursuit of happiness. I envision Reagan going after our enemies with the same sense of resolve as George W. Bush, but I can't imagine him signing a bill that would require libraries and banks to cooperate as the federal government snoops on the affairs of their customers and patrons without their knowledge, as the USAPATRIOT Act does. Forty years after the Democratic Party left Reagan, now the Republican Party has left him, too. Where can we turn now? I ran the idea of this column past my dad, and he shared my frustration with the Republican Party but noted that the alternative in a two-party system is frightening: It's not as if the Democratic Party shows any signs of embracing a limited, constitutional government. And no other party is strong enough yet to challenge what is increasingly a monolith - two parties with different superficial aims but the same belief in big government. Has our last, best hope to save the republic faded with the embers of Reagan's soul, trapped in a mind and body racked by Alzheimer's disease? To fall victim to that despair is contrary to Reagan's legacy. He inspired a nation by believing that its best years are still ahead, that government is not the solution to what ails us as a nation; government is the problem. Oh, for a leader who can inspire us like that again. Bluhm is editor of the Door County Advocate and former managing editor of The News-Chroncile. His column appears Tuesdays. Contact him via e-mail at [email protected] or call 920-743-3321