I agree with Peter that Bush and Reagan have very different philosophical approaches to the role of government (anyone have a list of Reagan vetos of spending? I can provide the list of Bush vetos: zero).

But I must say that this statement by Jpod is one of the best and most succinct summaries of the Reagan’s role for conservatives: “The thing is, many conservatives say they like Reagan. But what they like about Reagan is what Reagan mirrored in them, not what he actually was.”

This was hammered home for me when I worked at AEI. I wrote about it

here. The relevant excerpt:

Anyway, when I was a policy peon there AEI was a Reaganite government in exile. One Friday, Joshua Muravchik, Muravchik probably the premiere neocon foreign-policy intellectual of his generation, was giving what used to be called a “brown-bag lecture” (I believe they now call them “Friday Forums”) on the current state of neoconservatism. A who’s who of Reaganite intellectuals were in attendance. During the Q&A I asked [him] to explain what exactly a neoconservative is. His answer was a surprisingly unsatisfying bit of sophistry — something like “neoconservatism is the body of beliefs held by people who call themselves neoconservative.”
However, in the course of his answer, Muravchik said that the Reagan movement was primarily a foreign-policy cause united around defeating Communism. He suggested (and this is largely from my memory) that the foreign-policy neocons permitted the religious and economic neocons to sign on to their cause.
At this assertion, an “au contraire” was offered from Irwin Stelzer, a highly regarded economist, famous neocon, and adviser to Rupert Murdoch. He said that Reaganism — of the neocon variety — was essentially an economic philosophy and while anti-Communism was surely a vital part, foreign-policy activists were simply another wing emanating from the core of the true Reagan coalition. Seconds after Stelzer had made his comments, my friend Michael Novak — one of America’s premiere theologians and social thinkers and an NRO contributor — begged to differ. While, of course, fighting for free markets and against the Red menace was vital to Reaganism, these policies were largely outgrowths of a moral and religious vision, which is why the Reagan movement was essentially a religious cause. An intellectual brouhaha ensued — and, I’m proud to say, I started it. Now, one of the things I need to stress is that all of these people spoke of Reaganism as an explicitly neoconservative movement and phenomena. This points to the Reagan’s FDR-like political genius for convincing various factions to each see him as their undisputed standard-bearer. But it also points to the fact that even the leaders of the “neoconservative movement” — whatever that meant or means — could not agree on what neoconservatism is.