What goes around...

While it's true that the Republicans didn't succeed in capturing both houses of Congress during Ronald Reagan's Presidency, I think it's inarguably true that Reagan was instrumental in putting the wheels in motion that eventually rolled the Democrats out of their Congressional dominance.

Wouldn't it be perfect if his passing became the turning point in Democrats recapturing the Congress? Yep, I'm talking about the Ronald Reagan Medical Research Act of 2004 again.

Much has been made of Ron, Jr.'s 'endorsement' of John Kerry (he seems resolved not to say that name, though), and his criticism of the Bush war policy. That's fine as far as it goes, but the most sympathetic figure in the Reagan family right now - and I never imagined I would write these words - is Nancy Reagan. While Ron's sometimes pungent criticism of Bush get a lot of play in lefty circles, Nancy Reagan testifying on behalf of embryonic stem cell reseach in front of Congressional committees with appropriate legislation on the table would sell to Americans of all but the most extreme ideological stripe. Republican congresscritters who would vote that legislation down, or a Republican President who would veto it, would be exposed as heartless, anti-scientific tools of that extreme ideology.

Nancy Reagan is a zealot on the issue, and is convinced, according to her son, that her position would have been her husband's as well. Nothing Ron Reagan has said in any of his recent interviews has struck me as holding more opportunity than this exchange with CNN's Judy Woodruff.

WOODRUFF: What -- what do you think -- I mean, have you talked to your mother about this? Does she -- what does she say about it?

REAGAN: Well, we don't talk about politics all that much, particularly electoral politics. We talk about stem cell research, for instance, embryonic stem cell research, which she's very involved in and I think will continue to be very involved in.

This is something she takes very seriously, something I take very seriously, too. And it's shameful this administration has played politics with an issue that ... could be the biggest medical breakthrough in history. This could be bigger than antibiotics. This administration is pandering to the most ignorant segment of our society for votes and throwing up roadblocks to this sort of research. It's absolutely shameful.

****

WOODRUFF: Recently Reagan administration national security adviser William Clark wrote in The New York Times that there is no doubt Ronald Reagan would be urging the country not to move ahead with this kind of research because he said the former president felt so strongly about the sanctity of life.

REAGAN: No, he's wrong. William Clark has no right to speak for my father. My father is not here to speak for himself. I'm not going it speak for him. I can speak for my mother, who knew his mind pretty well.

I showed my mother that article when it came out and I asked her what she thought about it. She thought that William Clark was absolutely wrong. She thought that her husband, my father, would be all behind embryonic stem cell research.

Are you listening, Democratic Congress? (Or the staffers I know read this thing, anyway.}

The Ronald Reagan Medical Research Act of 2004.

Write the bill. Hold the hearings. Conduct the vote.

Or force the R's to refuse.

And make Nancy Reagan the centerpiece of the effort. She'll help you help her on the issue, and it can only help at the polls.