In securing the Republican presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan bested some high ranking Senate Republicans, including the then-minority leader, a victory which would come back to haunt him. “Several of these senators had contested Reagan for the GOP nomination in 1980 and were unchastened by their rout, chiefly because they thought themselves better qualified to sit in the oval office,” Steven F. Hayward writes in The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989. “Reagan once remonstrated Howard Baker, ‘Remember, Howard, I’m president and you’re not.’”

Hayward, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, will be the featured speaker at Accuracy in Academia’s next author’s night on November 5, 2009 @ Armand’s on Capitol Hill from 6-8 PM.

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.