"Ron Reagan Officially Supports Barack Obama: The Reagan Era Takes a Detour
Submitted by mark karlin on Fri, 10/31/2008 - 8:04pm. EditorBlog
MARK KARLIN'S EDITOR'S BLOG
November 1, 2008

Call it the final stake in the myth and destructive path of the Reagan era. On the evening of October 31, Ron Reagan -- son of the Gipper -- officially endorsed Barack Obama for President.

Reagan now has an evening program on Air America (and is quite good), and had withheld an "official endorsement," he said, because he figured that listeners knew by now where he stood. But you also sensed listening to him that he decided to make a clean break that began when he appeared at the Democratic Convention in 2004. He didn't endorse Kerry then; he spoke on behalf of sickle cell research.

I was there in Boston when he spoke in the convention center and the crowd didn't quite know how to react to the offspring of the Moses of the kooky right wing. Eventually, he received a warm but still restrained round of applause.

Since that time, Reagan -- as anyone who listens to his Air America program will learn -- has become a clear progressive, and if he had not formally endorsed Obama on Halloween Eve (on his radio show), you knew that he was going to vote for him.

But now it's on the record. The son of Ronald Reagan who bears his name is officially backing Barack Obama for President."