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> Social Issues. He is a hard conservative on every one. He is outspokenly opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment, in contrast to some of his rivals (Bush, as a Congressman, supported it). As Governor of California, Reagan signed a relatively liberal abortion law, but now says that was a mistake; he advocates a constitutional amendment forbidding all abortions except those necessary to save the lives of mothers. He proposes another amendment to permit "voluntary" school prayer: "I think we are a nation under God. I think we have too many people in this country today who are interpreting freedom of religion as freedom from religion." Marijuana is "probably the worst and most dangerous drug in America today."
Much of this message sounds less arrestingly different than it did in 1968 or 1976. The ideas that the Government causes most of inflation, that a balanced budget is necessary and that the U.S. needs a major defense buildup have become staples of political oratory, proclaimed not only by conservative Republicans but by many Democrats. Said Reagan to the New York Conservative Party in January: "Remember when we were a collection of little old ladies in tennis shoes and ultra-right-wing kooks? We've become respectable."
Not completely. To some Republicans, not to mention independents and Democrats, Reagan's ideas sound less than compelling. Deep tax cuts could soon swell the inflationary federal deficit, and though all Republicans want to reduce the size of the Government, some doubt that it can or even should be slashed as drastically as Reagan advocates. Wasteful and misguided as many of Washington's social programs are, some at least are aimed at genuine needs that states and cities are not equipped to meet. Hardly any energy executives think the U.S. can be self-sufficient in fuel in this century; just to keep imports of foreign oil from rising will require a determined conservation effort. The dangers of forcing confrontation with the Soviets are obvious.
Nonetheless, Reagan is clearly telling many Republicans what they most want to hear, and if others are now sounding almost equally conservative, Reagan has been preaching his views longer and louder than anyone else. So his audiences forgive him for, or do not even notice, some remarkable misstatements that make Reagan sound at best ill informed.
The most startling of these so far has been a Reagan assertion, in support of his contention that the U.S. could be self-sufficient in energy without Government controls, that Alaska alone has more oil than Saudi Arabia. It turned out that he was comparing oil already discovered in Saudi Arabia with oil that might someday be found in Alaska —and even on that basis he got the figures wrong. The highest guess for possible Alaskan reserves is 100 billion bbl., of which only 9.6 billion bbl. are considered proven reserves. Saudi Arabia has 200 billion bbl. in proven reserves alone, and perhaps as much as 530 billion bbl. in possible reserves.