What we forget about Ronald Reagan is that he was a practical politician. Ideological? Yes, but only to a degree. A party disciplinarian? Yes, but the main discipline he imposed was to dictate that “thou shalt not speak ill of any other Republican” - something that came to be known as the 11th Commandment.

He had started as a Democrat, and, even after he made the transition to the Republican Party, his role model remained Franklin D. Roosevelt. Republicans forgave him for it. Winners have a tendency to be forgiven.

The Republican Party today is in a struggle. It is a struggle to find its sweet spot, the delicate balance between ideology and inclusion. Reagan found that balance, but few others have. On the one hand you have the ideologists, checklists in hand, willing to drum anyone out of the party if they don’t conform to every sentence of the approved line. On the other hand you have the inclusionists, willing to take in everyone from the storm. They would take in Karl Marx if it meant an extra vote.

The genius of American politics has been its practicality. Parties that become intensely ideological narrow themselves out of existence. At the same time, the Republican revolution that brought Reagan to power was largely the work of ideologically driven conservatives.

Reagan’s regard for FDR may tell us something about a route to victory that preserves a party’s general identity, yet brings in the new and independent voters necessary for victory. For both Reagan and FDR had one thing in common - a sunny disposition, a sense of optimism, a notion that, as Reagan put it, “it’s morning in America.”

Both FDR and Reagan realized that attitude, personality, can cover a host of problems in politics. Neither FDR nor Reagan was a scold. Neither man demanded absolute conformity. Yet, each is known for taking the country in a specific direction.

The lesson: Americans love warm, optimistic leaders. They like leaders who believe in the American people and the American tradition. Simply saying “no,” or being against someone else, is not enough. Many Americans disagreed with policies espoused by both FDR and Reagan, yet voted for them. The Republican Party must relearn the lessons of positive optimism if it is to regain the White House in 2012. Neither rigid ideology nor simple-minded “inclusion” can do it. Nor can sitting on one’s hands while watching the Democrats go down. The Democrats are indeed going down, but the Republicans are no more popular than they were a year ago.

It would appear from any reading of American history that the single greatest thing a party can do to go in the right “personality” direction is to choose candidates who embody the spirit of FDR and Reagan. It is hard. They may not be available. But the choice of the person, of the candidate, as the Democrats painfully showed us with Obama, is the clearest key to victory. It is far ahead of anything else. Voters vote for the person. In an age of video, that persona is magnified.

What the Republican Party must do now is hold a job hunt. It must start the development of candidates at every level. And it must look for that positive optimism that places any candidate, especially one for the presidency, way ahead. It should study tapes of FDR, Reagan, and, yes, Obama, and learn from them.

Somewhere, in that mix of Republicans, there is a winner for 2012. But it is not a process that should be conducted by chance. Too much is at stake.

It will only be morning in America again if some candidate emerges to, through force of personality, make it so. Bob McDonnell won Virginia in a landslide this week because he projected the qualities America loves. Now it’s time to copy the formula.

URGENT AGENDA (WWW.URGENTAGENDA.COM)

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