worse. the catalogue of sins we believe the president has committed is too long to recapitulate here. but krauthammer tells me he privately wanted reagan to beat his old boss, walter mondale. but i had worked for mondale in 1980. i liked him and had respect for him. and as a personal matter, there s a kind of a matter of honor. i didn t want to vote against a man for whom i had respect and affection. so you have a vote reagan or mondale. that s the only presidential election where i left that line blank. left it blank? but if i had been, you know, the swing vote, i would have obviously have voted for reagan. it was a turning point in krauthammer s transition from the political left to the political right. and just a few months after the election, i wrote something called the reagan doctrine. it was a time magazine column, and it was provocative. for awhile krauthammer had praised reagan on a number of
excoriating the nuclear freeze that caused the largest number of canceled subscriptions in the history of the magazine, which i was very proud of. [ chuckles ] what was his writing like? it s always been extremely step by step logical. if you can read a column by charles about something and you can still disagree with him after you re through with it, then you know you must have a pretty good argument. [ chuckles ] those arguments had conservative columnists like william f. buckley wondering why krauthammer and the new republic were not supporting reagan s reelection in 1984. what buckley was writing was, why don t you give up on the democrats, and i was still one of those who wanted to sort of save the soul of the democratic party and maintain this conservative element of which the magazine really was. krauthammer fired off a letter to buckley, writing, reagan still had a lot to answer for on foreign policy, and his domestic policy was far
so help me god. the new president was promising big changes, even starting the world anew. reagan s inaugural truly signaled a great clash of ideas. in this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. government is the problem. and the new republic was right in the midst of it. well, it was overwhelmingly liberal. the writers were the best of that era. i was still a democrat at the time, a traditional liberal democrat, a great society liberal, but i was pretty hard lined on the soviets. it s hard for people to believe now, but the democratic party had a very powerful wing that was very anti-soviet. but those democrats were a dying breed, and krauthammer found himself agreeing more with president reagan than with his liberal readers. i ended up supporting just about every element of the reagan foreign policy, and boy, did we get reaction from our liberal readership. i wrote one editorial
it s hillary clinton or anyone else, the democrats held the white house for eight years, it s very hard. ronald reagan was the rare exception, he was able to help elect george h.w. bush to what they called in the day reagan s third term. president clinton couldn t accomplish this for gloal gore. dwight eisenhower couldn t manage it for nixon, and he was a pretty popular president. it s a hard row to hoe for hillary clinton i think. it s going to be interesting months ahead. thank you very much for joining us. reporter: thanks for having me. still to come on cnn newsroom, typically it s the female presidential contenders who face scrutiny for what they wear. now the tables have turned. why marco rubio is copping flack for his footwear. the booties that went viral ahead. we stop arthritis pain, so you don t have to stop. because you believe in go. onward. today s the day.
so help me god. the new president was promising big changes, even starting the world anew. reagan s inaugural truly signaled a great clash of ideas. in this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. government is the problem. and the new republic was right in the midst of it. well, it was overwhelmingly liberal. the writers were the best of that era. i was still a democrat at the time, a traditional liberal democrat, a great society liberal, but i was pretty hard lined on the soviets. it s hard for people to believe now, but the democratic party had a very powerful wing that was very anti-soviet. but those democrats were a dying breed, and krauthammer found himself agreeing more with president reagan than with his liberal readers. i ended up supporting just about every element of the reagan foreign policy, and boy, did we get reaction from our liberal readership. i wrote one editorial