What Might Have Been

In his great book The New Reagan Revolution:  How Ronald Reagan's Principles Can Restore America's Greatness (2010), Michael Reagan says his father would have never ran for governor then president if Bobby Kennedy wouldn’t have had the General Electric Theater TV show cancelled.

According to Michael Reagan, President Reagan enjoyed working on the show and it was one consistently ranked in the top ten. He probably would have never quit and ran for governor of California. But because GE was negotiating a contract with the federal gov’t and Ronald Reagan criticized the JFK administration on the show in some of his speeches, Bobby Kennedy had GE cancel the show evidently for revenge. Hence the President had to look for work. You know the rest of the story.

This incident got me wondering. Let’s say in another parallel universe where the GE Theater was not cancelled who would have got the 1980 republican nomination in the primary? Probably George HW Bush. I am assuming of course everything else would have stayed the same. HW was second runner up in the primary race. Would HW have won the general election against Carter? It’s possible. He won against Mondale. So, instead of a strong conservative the country would have had a moderate. All this is speculative of course. GE could have cancelled the show in the far far future since it had good ratings and Reagan might still have ran for office later on.

Let this be a lesson to the vindictive Left. They might think getting a strong conservative fired from a TV show or radio show is a good idea but it might come back to haunt them. Their revenge might end up having Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck run for a major office. It would be better for the Left if they just leave those conservatives alone and let them keep their current jobs. Or would they rather have them as POTUS?