LOS ANGELES (AP) – Nancy Reagan spent decades protecting the legacy of her husband, but some of President Ronald Reagan’s famous political advice appears lost among the White House candidates who embrace him as a guiding light.
It’s known as the 11th Commandment: Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican.
The former first lady’s death Sunday in Los Angeles closed the Reagan era at a time when crude insults, appeals to extremism and locker-room braggadocio have shaped the party’s 2016 presidential primary, a clashing image with the sunny “Morning again in America” theme Reagan employed as a candidate a generation ago.
The 40th president didn’t author the advice about restraint on the campaign trail, and he didn’t always follow it to the word, but he recognized the GOP needed to avoid infighting that could lead to a splintered party and a November defeat.
A former California Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, coined the phrase in the mid-1960s to tamp down bickering between political factions in Reagan’s first run for governor. A similar split between conservatives and moderates contributed to Barry Goldwater’s defeat in the 1964 presidential election.