Centerfield

Invoking Reagan

Mitt Romney is at the head of the cast of GOP hopefuls who are busy invoking Ronald Reagan, the ghost of GOP successes past. Reagan sure provides a cheerier vision that the specter of GWB, who's considered the ghost of failure present.

In these early days of the 2008 presidential campaign, when politicians still are exploring the notion of a run and trying to fill out their political profiles, candidates are trying to glom on to a little of the luster from the Reagan glory days.

They seem to be trying to out-Reagan one another.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says his party "must return to the common sense Reagan Republican ideals of fighting for hardworking Americans."

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback offers himself as "a full-scale Ronald Reagan conservative."

Arizona Sen. John McCain, tells crowds that Reagan offered precisely the kind of leadership needed by the Republican Party today. "We can do it again if we lead and inspire as he did," he exhorts.

I noticed this a few weeks back in coverage of a recent Romney campaign speech. (That's what it was, folks. He's running.) The game Romney wants to play is "I'm more like Ronald Reagan than you are. Romney better be careful. I can't help but think that John McCain is sharpening his Lloyd Bentsen line. If it comes to a debate and Romney talks too much about Ronald Reagan, expect McCain to give him the old "I knew Ronald Reagan...."

If Romney gets viscerally tagged with being a pale imitation, a mere pretender, he'll go down in a heap.