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By Newsweek Editors
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During the 1980s, conservatives were always saying "Let Reagan be Reagan," by which they meant that he should be allowed to be more conservative. It was another measure of his political skill that he persuaded his base to think he was with them even when he wasn't. The man who cut taxes later felt the responsibility to raise them (unlike today's president). The hard-liner on the Soviet Union later signed arms-control deals his right wing didn't believe in. Now right-to-lifers are arguing that stem-cell research should not be one of Reagan's legacies because he would have been against it, whatever his wife's views. There's obviously no way to know for sure, but I'd wager he would have favored it, for a reason that's central to what Ronald Reagan truly believed. It's a reason, incidentally, that may help John Kerry get elected president.
At Reagan's core was his faith in the power of personal experience. His own personal experience revolved around Nancy, of course. If she passionately favored stem-cell research, it might have taken him a while, but he probably would have come around. It's not that everything personal was political for him: his son Ron said pointedly at the graveside that his father didn't believe in "wearing his faith on his sleeve." But his political ideas often flowed directly from his life story, especially his presidency of the Screen Actors Guild, where he first confronted communists, and his experience at General Electric, where he learned of the excesses of government regulation. He failed as president in areas where he lacked this personal connection. Had someone in the Reagan family contracted AIDS, for instance, it's unlikely he would have waited six years to do anything about it.
When it happens to you, everything looks different. A former Democrat himself, Reagan no doubt laughed at the old neocon line that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. Today the inverse is true: a liberal on health issues is a conservative who has been mugged by an illness in the family. So Bob Dole made an exception to his dislike of social spending when it came to helping the handicapped. Pete Domenici, the conservative chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, became a champion of funding mental health in large part because of experiences within his own family. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a former Reagan speechwriter, changed his position on stem cells after he and his wife tried in vitro fertilization and realized that clinics across the country had to throw away embryonic stem cells every day that could be used for research.
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We all know it should not take personal experience for politicians to do the right thing; they're elected to walk in other people's shoes, not just their own. When they can't, politicians less skilled than Reagan eventually pay for it. This year the stem- cell debate could become a first-tier political issue--and another metaphor for the president's failed leadership. Almost every American family includes someone or knows someone with Alzheimer's, diabetes, muscular dystrophy or Parkinson's. Many of these families are swing voters open to the argument that Bush's pandering to a narrow interest group could risk slowing a cure for their loved ones.
If the Democrats go down that road (Kerry took tentative steps last week), the GOP will quickly charge them with "politicizing" the issue. That takes a lot of nerve. In February, for instance, the White House fired two members of the Council on Bioethics because they weren't sufficiently doctrinaire on stem cells. (So much for Bush's pledge to carefully sort through the ethical subtleties.) Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has already signaled the Republican strategy by suggesting that policy on stem cells will be reviewed after the November election. That way, Bush, bolstered by his own wife, Laura, who publicly defends his policy, continues to look steadfast but not unreasonable while the Democrats are the "cloning party." It might even work. Because Democrats are so easily intimidated, they may continue to downplay the stem-cell issue, figuring it's too touchy.
That would be a serious political mistake. Complex new issues scare politicians. They aren't sure which way they will cut. But if handled with confidence, there's only political upside for Democrats. The issue of stem-cell research offers Kerry the chance to project himself as the candidate of the future--the one who will take a tough and controversial position if it has the chance to improve the quality of life for millions and restore America's medical leadership in the world. All along, John Kerry has thought this Kennedyesque. But it sounds as much like a more recent president, whose final legacy may be to spare other families the ordeal of his own.
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