Innovators wanted

I'm hoping that at tonight's GOP debate in Florida the candidates will stop invoking the name of Ronald Reagan ad nauseum. The fact of the matter is Ronald Reagan would not approve. Why? Reagan was an innovator. He cut taxes and reversed the stagflation of the previous decade; he rejected detente and stood up to and defeated the Soviet Union; he understood the value of a strong military and rebuilt it in such a manner that when it was needed in the first Gulf War in 1991, it took ground troops less than 100 hours to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait; most of all, he restored our dignity, our hopes, and our optimism; the shining "city on the hill" that John Winthrop christened us back in the 17th century. Instead of being "Reagan Wanna-bes", this year's crop of GOP hopefuls need to be bold and innovative. While there's nothing wrong with wanting to model some of the things Reagan did, these men need to stand on their own and strike a course of their own on handling Iraq, the War on Terror, our current economic woes, health care, etc. Hopefully, we conservatives will begin to see a candidate emerge who will restore our dignity, our hopes, and our optimisn as their own man, the way Reagan did for us in 1980 and 1984.