The Republican presidential candidates will most likely mention Ronald Reagan more than any other GOP contender in Wednesday's debates, Reagan biographer Craig Shirley told
Newsmax TV.
"My guess is you'll hear Reagan's name more often than you'll hear Richard Nixon or George Bush's name, that's for sure," Shirley, the author of two best-selling books on the former president, told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth.
The two debates are being held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
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"This is the Reagan Library. He's probably surpassed Abraham Lincoln as the most popular Republican president," Shirley said. "He's certainly one of the foremost popular presidents to the American people alongside of Washington, FDR, and Abraham Lincoln.
"The elites say one thing about Ronald Reagan; the American people issued a different verdict — and they consider him to be an astonishing success and the record speaks for itself.
"It seems appropriate that they do have Republican presidential debates, because more or less we're all Reagan Republicans now," he said.
How would the 40th president advise the 16 candidates in the two debates?
"Be yourself," Shirley told Hayworth. "Be true to your principles, as Shakespeare admonished us. Be true to yourself.
"Remember the American Revolution, because the foundation of this country takes root, takes heart — and takes its intellectual drive and spirit from the framers and the founders of the American Revolution.
"All the answers to what goes on in this country are found in those documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution," he said. "Reagan considered the Declaration and the Constitution to be the two most important documents probably in human history."
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