With all 60 rambunctious pounds of First Dog Lucky tugging at his arm and Richard Wirthlin's soaring polls lifting his heart, Ronald Reagan jetted off last week to a rancher's Thanksgiving (turkey, monkey bread, horseback riding, wood splitting) in the California hills.
Lucky, having outgrown the White House, began an unfettered life among the cedar trees on Reagan's 688 acres above the Pacific. The President called it "dog heaven." Likewise, Reagan was entering, at least for the moment, some kind of political Promised Land. Wirthlin's findings showed Americans gave Reagan an 81% approval rating for his performance at the Geneva summit...