“The Reagan Revolution” 807Reagan favored government aid to private schools run
by church groups, something dear to the Moral
Majority despite the constitutional principle of separa-
tion of church and state.
Reagan’s support was also drawn from blue collar
workers and white Southerners, constituencies that
had been solidly Democratic during the New Deal
and beyond. The president’s personality was another
important plus—voters continued to admire his infor-
mal yet firm style and his stress on patriotism and
other “traditional” virtues.
Most polls showed Reagan far in the lead when the
campaign began, and this remained true throughout
the contest. Nothing Mondale or Ferraro did or said
affected the president’s popularity. Bad news, even his
own mistakes, had so little effect on Reagan’s standing
that people began to call him “the Teflon president.”
On election day he got nearly 60 percent of the popular
vote and lost only in Minnesota, Mondale’s home state,
and in the District of Columbia. Reagan’s Electoral
College margin was overwhelming, 525 to 13.
Of all the elements in the Democratic New Deal
coalition, only African Americans, who voted solidly
for Mondale, remained loyal. The Democratic strat-
egy of nominating a woman for vice president was a
failure; far more women voted for Reagan than for
the Mondale-Ferraro ticket.
Reagan’s triumph, like the two landslide victories
of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, was a personal
one. The Republicans made only minor gains in the
House of Representatives and actually lost two seats
in the Senate.
“The Reagan Revolution”
Reagan’s agenda for his second term closely resem-
bled that of his first. In foreign affairs, he ran into
continuing congressional resistance to his requests for
military support for his anticommunist crusade. This
was particularly true after Mikhail S. Gorbachev
became the Soviet premier in March 1985.
Gorbachev seemed far more moderate and flexible
than his predecessors. He began to encourage politi-
cal debate and criticism in the Soviet Union—the pol-
icy known as glasnost(openness)—and he sought to
stimulate the stagnant Soviet economy by decentraliz-
ing administration and rewarding individual enter-
prise (perestroika).
Gorbachev also announced that he would continue
to honor the unratified SALT II agreement, whereas
Reagan, arguing that the Soviet Union had not
respected the limits laid down in the pact, seemed bent
on pushing ahead with the expansion and moderniza-
tion of America’s nuclear arsenal. Reagan sought funds
to develop an elaborate system of missile defenses. He
referred to it as the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI), although it was popularly known as Star Wars, a
reference to the 1977 George Lucas film. SDI would
consist of a network of computer-controlled space sta-
tions that would detect oncoming enemy missiles and
destroy them with speculative high-tech weaponry.
When the president realized that the Soviets were
eager for an agreement to limit nuclear weapons, he
ceased referring to the Soviet Union as an “evil
empire.” In October 1986 he met with Gorbachev in
Iceland in search of an agreement on arms control.
The chief sticking point was SDI, which Gorbachev
denounced as “space strike” weaponry that might be
used to wipe out Soviet cities. Gorbachev proposed
instead the elimination of all nuclear weapons—
including SDI. Reagan, however, was determined to
push Star Wars, and the summit collapsed.
Reagan pressed ahead with the Star Wars defense-
in-space system. After NASA’s spectacular Apollo
program, which sent six expeditions to the moon
between 1969 and 1972, the space agency’s prestige
was beyond measure. The Skylab orbiting space sta-
tion program (1973–1974) was equally successful.
Next, shortly after the beginning of Reagan’s first
term, the manned space shuttle Columbia, launched
by rocket into orbit for several days, returned to earth
intact, gliding on its stubby, swept-back wings to an
appointed landing strip. Columbiaand other shuttles
were soon transporting satellites into space for the
government and private companies, and its astronauts
were conducting military and scientific experiments
of great importance.
Congress, however, balked at the enormous cost
of Star Wars. Expense aside, the idea of relying for
national defense on the complex technology involved
in controlling machines in outer space suffered a fur-
ther setback in 1986, when the space shuttle
Challengerexploded shortly after takeoff, killing its
seven-member crew. This disaster temporarily put a
stop to the program.
Reagan’s basic domestic objectives—to reduce
the scope of federal activity, particularly in the social
welfare area; to lower income taxes; and to increase
the strength of the armed forces—remained constant.
Despite the tax cuts already made, congressional lead-
ers of both parties agreed to the Income Tax Act of
1986, which reduced the top levy on personal
incomes from 50 percent to 28 percent and the tax
on corporate profits from 46 percent to 34 percent.
Reagan advanced another of his objectives more
gradually. This was his appointment of conservatives to
federal judgeships, including Sandra Day O’Connor,
the first woman named to the Supreme Court. By 1988
Reagan had appointed three Supreme Court justices
and well over half the members of the federal judiciary.