Chicago Boyz Archive

“The Speech” — Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964

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Fifty years ago today Ronald Reagan made a famous televised speech in support of Barry Goldwater’s doomed presidential candidacy. The speech was entitled “A Time for Choosing” — but it came to be known simply as “The Speech”.

As Goldwater crashed and burned, Reagan ascended in a single bound to being the leader and embodiment of the American Conservative movement.

It was a spectacular launch to his political career.

Michael Barone has a good piece about The Speech today.

The text of The Speech is here.

Much of it could be read today and it would still apply, word for word.

UPDATE:

Here is a good article about The Speech and the rise of Reagan: Reagan, Goldwater and Rise of Conservatism, by Pat Horan.

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An orange Vespa scooter

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Just because.

From the awesome Urban Mod Girl.

Thank you to the Chicago Young Republicans

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MJL at CYR

(That is me on the far right, where I belong!)

My thanks to the Chicago Young Republicans, who invited me to speak to them last night at their monthly meeting. It was an enjoyable and educational event.

I was on a panel with the very distinguished Dan Proft of, inter alia, 89 WLS and Jonathan Greenberg of the Illinois Policy Institute.

The topic of discussion was the upcoming election. One theme was the concern that Bruce Rauner may end up losing to Pat Quinn, despite Quinn being an unmitigated disaster. Polls show Rauner slightly ahead, but the trends are bad. Rauner has not yet closed the deal with Illinois voters, who are upset and concerned about the direction the state is going, but who are not yet convinced that Rauner is the guy who can fix the problems. I hope Rauner manages to make that connection with voters before election day.

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Pictures by C. Coles Phillips

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Some cool old pictures by C. Coles Phillips.