As the Eiffel Tower burns, I thought I’d tell a story. Nope, not about the French, its about President Reagan.
I was in the gifted and talented program when I was in school. The year I was in fifth grade was the year Ronald Reagan went up against President Carter. One of our special projects was to analyze the candidates, choose one to campaign for, and then go and debate in front of some of the normal classes.
Out of sixteen people in the class, 10 chose to campaign for Carter, four for Anderson, and one for Reagan. At the time I just didn’t really care. That was the start of when I stopped giving a damn.. Very Malcolm of me at the time. So I was assigned Reagan to “balance things out.”
Of course the people who picked Carter ignored the economy, the hostage crisis, and every other failure. They just had the typical liberal attitude of he’s a Democrat and therefore he’s going to help the poor and disadvantaged. Reagan is bad because he’s a conservative and therefore he is mean and hates the poor. At least the few people who went for Anderson chose him because he’s an independent. Then again, choosing someone just because they’re different isn’t a good answer.
So we did our research and went and did the debates. I hated being up in front of people, and I don’t remember much about doing the presentations. I can’t even remember how our in school election turned out. But years later I’m glad that even at 10 years old, I did my part.
Of course President Reagan won the election. He dramatically improved the economy which helped the poor more than Carter’s policies did. He won the Cold War, and did many other things, the effects of which are still felt to this day. He was a good man and a great President. I’ll leave off with a quote I found.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan went to Los Angeles to open the Olympics. When he returned home, Maureen Reagan asked what he liked most about the Opening Ceremony.
Her dad stood in the hallway for a moment. Then he lit up.
He liked seeing someone carry the flag of China followed by all those athletes, who looked Chinese. And the German flag, in front of all those youngsters who were German. And the flags from little Africa countries, followed by African kids.
And then our flag came out. One of the athletes was carrying our flag,” he told Maureen, getting more and more excited. And following it were marching our boys and girls. And they looked like the whole world!”

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