ABSTRACT
Ronald Reagan's emergence as a Cold War warrior and big government basher, who knew how to address an audience, led to his surprising success as a Goldwater advocate in 1964. Reagan's shining city was an exceptional place, a beacon, as he and most Americans saw it, "for all those who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness toward home". At the 1988 Republican convention Reagan remembered his most famous movie role as Notre Dame great George Gipp, a football hero who died young. Reagan's White House could carefully choreograph much of what the nation knew as news, but Bill Clinton crisis coverage showed this was no longer the case. The January 1998 scandal that led to Clinton's impeachment erupted in a communication universe where the democratization of information through cable and the internet created new challengers in disseminating the news of the day.
