Reagan LP

Reagan's Operation Coffeecup and the Phonograph!

For her closing remarks in the 2008 Vice Presidential Debate (Biden vs. Palin), Sarah Palin paraphrased Ronald Reagan. Who would have guessed that the source of Palin's words were from a 1961 Reagan Phonograph record. Did Sarah Palin listen to this recording when she was in Sedona for her debate boot camp?

Paul Krugman wrote the following in his October 3, 2008 New York Times column:

It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.

When did he say this? It was on a recording he made for Operation Coffeecup — a campaign organized by the American Medical Association to block the passage of Medicare. Doctors’ wives were supposed to organize coffee klatches for patients, where they would play the Reagan recording, which declared that Medicare would lead us to totalitarianism. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Album Released in 1961

Length 10:06

The full speech from this record is on-line from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

For more information about this recording see Wikipedia's Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine

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