Sagging GOP Rebuilt in His Image

Although he was forced later in his term to raise taxes to offset some of the revenue lost from that 1981 measure, and though he never achieved the kind of spending cuts he liked to talk about, the principles of cutting taxes and limiting the size of government were embedded in mainstream Republican philosophy.

"Beginning with Roosevelt, the presumption was that if you had a problem, the federal government was going to solve it," said David Keene of the American Conservative Union. "Beginning with Reagan, the presumption was that if you had a problem, government was likely to screw things up and you looked for a private solution."

Reagan's presidency brought a new term to the political lexicon: Reagan Democrats. His social conservatism, his unapologetic appeals to patriotism, his challenge to the Soviets and his economic policies brought onetime Democrats streaming into the Republican column. He won reelection in a landslide in 1984 with his "morning in America" message, carrying 49 states against former vice president Walter F. Mondale, leaving the Democratic Party a shambles and in need of reform.

"Without Ronald Reagan, we would not have the shift in partisanship where the parties are virtually split," said Richard B. Wirthlin, who was Reagan's pollster. "The Democratic Party could have extended its dominance much longer without Reagan's appeal to blue-collar workers, some labor unions, the South and young people. Those were the four groups that moved most dramatically in 1980, and most of that shift has endured."

Reagan's second term was marred by the Iran-contra scandal, which badly damaged his administration and brought embarrassment to Reagan. His approval rating plummeted to 40 percent in January 1987, significantly tarnishing his image. But the second term also brought success in his overriding foreign policy objective, which was challenging the Soviet Union. From "evil empire" to "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," he never shrank from confrontation, but eventually his ideology gave way to pragmatism and negotiation. His policies helped hasten the breakup of the Soviet Union and eventually the end of the Cold War.

Reagan's presidency inspired a generation of Republican politicians, from the Gingrich generation who began as House backbenchers during his presidency and eventually drove the revolution that resulted in a Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, to George W. Bush, whose 2000 presidential campaign bore many more elements of Reagan's politics that those of his father.

As Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, put it last night: "George W. Bush has governed as if it were the third term of Ronald Reagan's presidency. People who are looking to run for president in 2008 will run as Ronald Reagan's heirs."

"It is undeniable," said Ralph Reed, former chairman of the Georgia GOP, "that the Republican Party of today is largely the party that he remade -- a conservative party, a grass-roots party, and one whose candidates, with very few exceptions, pledge fealty to the principles that he articulated."

Reagan's political success also forced Democrats to undergo their own transformation, led by Bill Clinton in his 1992 campaign. Democrats under Clinton sought to shed their image as tax-and-spend liberals and as a party whose foreign policy was paralyzed by its opposition to the Vietnam War. In shifting the party to the center, Clinton challenged the rise of the Republicans and helped produce the parity between the parties that exists today.

Reagan's political career was marked by strategic retreats from his stirring conservative rhetoric, pragmatism when he needed it, and a number of instances where he failed to come close to achieving his goals, most notably in bringing the federal deficit under control. But in the almost 16 years since he left the presidency to return to California, his influence on the party and the politics of the country has never waned. Few politicians in the history of the country have had that kind of lasting legacy.

Researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.