President 40 - Outsider

If there was ever any doubt, Ronald Reagan was not part of the Washington establishment. This is a case in which an outsider clearly took on an outsider (Jimmy Carter), and in which the outsider was heir to the legacy from a consummate insider (U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater). Throw in Reagan's switch from Democrat to Republican, and the differences between his words and his deeds, and you have a lot of things to deal with here.

But Reagan, like the predecessor that he defeated, clearly campaigned against Washington, taking advantage of foreign catastrophes and a seeming inability by Carter to deal with them. So today, there's a Washington area airport named after him - a true irony when one considers the air traffic controllers' strike. Go figure.

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