You mean the guy who tripled the national debt, tripled the deficit, and was so out-of-touch with what was going on around him that his own staff could commit treason in front of him without him knowing?

The real Ronald Reagan - who ran our economy into the ground and caused 243 Marines to die in Beirut for his hubris - was NOT the Ronald Reagan of popular lore. We are going to be attempting to recover from the first Ronald Reagan for the next 200 years, so the last thing we need is any new ones!

If we want to revive a Republican president, I can think of three worthy of the effort - not counting Abraham Lincoln.

The first is Theodore Roosevelt, conservationist, friend to animals, and all-around bad ass.

The second? Eisenhower, champion of public works.

The third will take some doing...what this country REALLY needs is an honest Richard Nixon. Hunter Thompson said, in Nixon's obit, that Richard Nixon was so corrupt he needed servants to screw his pants on in the morning. Which was true. Richard Nixon was...well, he may not have been the most corrupt president in American history but he's right up there. But while Nixon was occupied with bombing Cambodia and being an all-around son of a bitch, he also found the time to end the draft, create the EPA, sign Title IX, put Warren Burger and Lewis Powell on the Supreme Court, give 18 year olds the right to vote, and do quite a few other pretty decent things. If we could find a person with (don't laugh) the innate goodness of Nixon but without the overarching evil of the same bastard, we'd have an exceptional president. And Sanders isn't him. Neither is Hillary. Nor are any of the GOP candidates, although they've got the evil part down.

Reagan, horrible as he was, changed not just his party and the country but also the trajectory of our progress. Bernie has the potential to do the same.

I can forgive illustrating the point by using a president in our own lifetime. Not everybody is a scholar.

First problem: This isn't his party. He loathed the Democratic Party until he decided (seemingly nine months ago) to run for president, and he's already registered as an independent for reelection to his Senate seat.

Second problem: If you think Bush divided the country, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. Republicans aren't going to follow him and Democrats are divided into the "progressive change" camp headed by Hillary and the "it became necessary to destroy the village to save it" camp Sanders leads.

There's also the problem that Bernie is unelectable, but we'll leave that to another time.

Hillary has a lot better chance of uniting the country around her than Bernie does around him.

1. Irrelevant. The party is what the people say it is.

2. Nobody is more divisive than your candidate.

Or will be, if he gets the nomination.