July 27, 2007
Another Great Rightist VI Posted by Alexander Burns at 02:45 PM EST Fred Allen is right that many Americans remember Reagan as the winner of the Cold War. There’s plenty of evidence to complicate that perception of history, but it may be that popular memory hasn’t yet absorbed it. Going back to look at the specifics of the poll that selected Reagan (incidentally, it was run by the Discovery Channel, not the History Channel, as I first wrote), I think there may actually be a simpler explanation for his victory than anything I, Mr. Smoler, and Mr. Allen have suggested. In the final round of voting, the list of contenders had been narrowed down to Reagan, Lincoln, Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Martin Luther King, Jr. A traditional liberal voting in this contest would have been hard-pressed to decide between voting for Lincoln and King. Enthusiasts of pre-twentieth-century American history might have had a difficult time choosing between Lincoln, Washington, and Franklin. Meanwhile, Reagan would have had a compact, reliable base of support among conservative viewers most familiar with the recent past. By this rubric, you would have had Reagan winning the most votes, with Lincoln coming in second by picking up support from some of the liberals and some of the history buffs. King, Franklin, and Washington would have finished in the last three spots. Indeed, this is how the votes came out: Reagan (24 percent), followed by Lincoln (23.5), then King (19.7), then Washington (17.7), then Franklin (14.4). So maybe the American public, more broadly, might have preferred the winner of a traditional war—Lincoln or Washington—but couldn’t quite decide which one. If only Discovery had taken the contest to a runoff.
|
