If the internet were around during the Reagan era, how would it have effected him in the polls?

[Flabbergasted]

Does the internet make it more difficult to manage public perception?

[Frances]

1. I voted against Reagan in 1980 and 1984.

But GE paid Reagan well to perfect his line that gov't is the problem, not the solution. Reagan convinced the majority of people that the economy would grow if there were no gov't regulation. He argued that consumers didn't need the gov't to keep them safe because it would be in the companies' best interests to keep their products safe. Reagan also convinced the majority of people that unions were responsible for higher prices, not CEOs.

I didn't believe Reagan but I don't think the internet could have convinced the majority of voters that Reagan's philosophy was not in their best interests.

I was very angry when I first heard Obama talk about the change Reagan brought because I thought Obama was praising a man who did a lot to get the country in the trouble it's in now. However, I think that what Obama is saying is that he hopes to have as much influence for the good of the country as Reagan did for the bad of the country.

[Warpy]

2. We still had the vestiges of a press back then

and I was still watching the nightly news reporting what that asshat was doing to us and every night I'd wonder if he'd finally screwed the pooch and people were going to get disgusted with the "aw shucks ma'am" and kick the son of a bitch to the curb.

Never happened. They still love him. The net wouldn't have made any difference. He was too experienced a pitchman and too many of us are gullible.

[AlCzervik]

3. Reagan at HUAC, he was a rat and a terrible president.

bad for many in several decades, that's quite a legacy.

[scheming daemons]

4. There was no nationwide right-wing talk radio either.... evens out

[Demeter]

5. They Might Not Have Left Iran/Contra Unscarred

Reagan and Poppy might have been impeached....look at how we have brought Shrub to his knees (of course, he helped a lot) and impeachment is on the menu, if not yet the table, again!

A sturdy Internet might have stopped W in his tracks. It didn't really get started until he did.

The World Wide Web needed a reason to get going. I guess that's the silver lining to Hurricane George.