Reagan’s children feel no Republican can claim their father’s political legacy

LONDON - Late US President Ronald Reagan’s three surviving children have rubbished efforts by Republican presidential hopefuls to claim his mantle as a conservative reformer.

Speaking at a dinner to honour the 40th president, Sarah Palin had said she considered herself a “western conservative in the spirit of Ronald Reagan”.

While Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who is also considering a run for the White House compared his Pennsylvania roots to Reagan’s in a small town in Illinois.

He said man who ended the Cold War would have handled the turmoil in Egypt with much more certainty than President Barack Obama.

Other potential candidates have lavished praise on Reagan, who died in 2004, and cited him as their chief inspiration.

But Reagan’s only surviving daughter, Patti Davis, did not think much of Palin being the potential successor to her father.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the Telegraph quoted her as saying.

Ron Reagan, her younger brother, added: “Sarah Palin has nothing in common with my father. Sarah Palin is a soap opera.”

Compared to his father, he said that Gingrich would stand “in some dank little basement somewhere or some fantasy world in his own head”.

Even Michael Reagan, easily the most conservative of the three, was unable to draw any favourable parallels between his father and current would-be successors.

“I don’t see anyone in Ronald Reagan’s image. He was one of a kind,” he told ABC News.

“Everybody’s trying to out-Reagan themselves. They’re quoting my father, which is wonderful. But they’ve got to find their own voice and who they are,” he added. (ANI)