Sugarcoating Reagan By Michael Mechanic

Kind of old news, but still relevant...

Win one for the Gipper? Hell, try winning 3,067 for the Gipper. That's the goal of a powerful group of Ronald Reagan fans who aim to see their hero's name displayed on at least one public landmark in every county in the United States.

A conservative pipe dream? The intrepid members of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project don't think so. Launched in 1997 as a unit of hard-line antitax lobby Americans for Tax Reform, the project's board of advisers reads like a who's who of conservatives; it includes, among others, staunch GOP activist Grover Norquist, supply-sider Jack Kemp, and Eagle Forum chief Phyllis Schlafly. To this crew, the Great Communicator is the man who almost singlehandedly saved us from the Evil Soviet Empire, made Americans proud again, and put the nation on the road to prosperity through tax cuts that helped the poor by helping the rich help themselves.

Buoyed by an early success in having Washington National Airport renamed in Reagan's honor in 1998, the project started thinking big. In short order, they convinced Florida legislators to rename a state turnpike. From there, it was a logical step to the push for a Reagan memorial just about everywhere. "We want to create a tangible legacy so that 30 or 40 years from now, someone who may never have heard of Reagan will be forced to ask himself, 'Who was this man to have so many things named after him?'" explains 29-year-old lobbyist Michael Kamburowski, who recently stepped down as the Reagan Legacy Project's executive director.

So far, the efforts range from pedestrian -- office buildings, city streets, conservative fellowships -- to appropriately martial: A nuclear aircraft carrier will be christened in Reagan's honor this weekend, and a ballistic missile test site is slated to be named for a president who sent US military spending skyrocketing during the '80s. The island nation of Grenada -- not quite a US county, but close enough -- has issued a commemorative Reagan stamp collection. And the former actor, once disparaged as the "nuclear cowboy," is now cast in bronze at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. The namesakes currently total just 38 -- or 39, if you include the fact that Rep. Jennifer Dunn of Washington named her son Reagan....

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