Steele Invokes Reagan to Argue that the GOP Should Never Look 'Backward'

Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress at 8:49 AM on May 19, 2009.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is set to give a speech today at a gathering of RNC officials in Maryland, in which he will call on the party to “focus all of our energies on winning the future.” As part of his call for looking forward, Steele did what Republicans always do and looked back to Ronald Reagan:

Despite those setbacks (or perhaps because of them), Steele will insist that the future of the GOP lies not in looking back but in pushing forward — using the tried and true example of conservative icon Ronald Reagan.

“Ronald Reagan never lived in the past,” Steele will say. “Ronald Reagan was all about the future. If President Reagan were here today he would have no patience for Americans who looked backward.”

Earlier this month, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said that the party needed to get over Reagan “nostalgia.”

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