Ronald Reagan was more doctrinaire – and pragmatic – than you remember

I've been reading a lot about Reagan recently, watched a few of his debates. Politics has always been dirty, and I wouldn't say going backwards you get like gradually more serious, but I really miss the time when our Presidents got on stage and seemed to take ideas and policy discussions seriously. In some ways I suspect the post-world war 2 era in American politics was unique, I mean just after our founding up through the Civil War, congresspeople went as far as having duel's to the death.

I feel like I need to read a lot more to really understand Reagan and his legacy, but there are in general lots of things about the vision he painted for America that were inspirational. I'm very curious why it is in that two seemingly comparable times, division following the civil rights movement and the economic troubles of the 70's compared with today, Reagan was able to run on such a positive hopeful message (It's morning in America) and today Republican's seem to be running on just the opposite.