Reagan's legacy claimed on 100th birthday

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- As President Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday approaches, Republicans are trying to define his legacy and claim it.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was the keynote speaker at the Illinois Reagan Centennial Commission gala in Deer Park on Friday. He praised Reagan for tax cuts and for restoring U.S. confidence, the Northwest Herald said.

"His greatest legacy was that he was the best articulator of freedom in modern times," Gingrich told reporters before his speech.

Reagan was born Feb. 6, 1911, and died in 2004, 15 years after leaving the White House. On Sunday, he will be remembered at his grave and presidential library in California with a ceremony and wreath-laying, while the Super Bowl will include a tribute video, The Wall Street Journal said.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, speaking in Santa Barbara, Calif., Friday called Reagan "one of a kind," Politico said.

"He refused to sit down and be silent about an out-of-control, centralized government that overtaxed and overreached in utter disregard of constitutional limits," Palin said.

Sal Russo, a California political consultant who began working for Reagan as a driver in 1964, said he remains the Republican "lodestar."

"Reagan understood political reality, and his positions evolved -- and there's nothing wrong with that," Russo told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Lou Cannon, who covered Reagan's presidency for The Washington Post and wrote five books about him, said he might have trouble winning a Republican primary now. He said Reagan raised taxes when he realized cuts had been too big and negotiated an arms-reduction treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev.

"It's one thing to talk about Reagan, but what Reagan did was more practical and mainstream than what most people remember," Cannon told the Chronicle.