I can’t figure Reagan out because I don’t know too much about the man but I think he was a cynic beneath the sunny optimism that he liked to portray. He was fine with the New Deal for a long time but he started drifting right around the time the Dems started championing the idea that the promise of the New Deal should be for all people. Now I don’t think his rightward move was exclusively racially based but you can’t tell me that Reagan didn’t have huge racial blinders.