After the debate last night, Larry King had a special show devoted to Ronald Reagan. Here are some highlights [transcript edited for clarity]:

KING: Does any of this attention, the name Reagan being prominent again, surprise you? NANCY REAGAN, RONALD REAGAN’S WIFE: Well, I really didn’t expect it, you know. I suppose it does in that sense. I didn’t think — now we’re going into a campaign and by, gosh, they are going to talk about Ronny. KING: He’s back. N. REAGAN: He’s back. KING: Do you think — he would probably like that though, wouldn’t he, do you think? N. REAGAN: He would probably get a kick out of it. I think if he were sitting and listening to this now, he’d just smile.

And…

KING: How do you think he’d run now?
MICHAEL REAGAN, RONALD REAGAN’S SON: You know, as much as they talk about my father, it may be tough for him to get the nomination now because the party as you said there are so many fractures within the party.
KING: It is split.
M. REAGAN: And they so nit-pick what you did as governor and nit-pick this that they would try to find the Achilles’ heel in Ronald Reagan.

And Ronald Reagan as a moderate?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA: People mention his name because they hope that this will add some value to them, but in fact they are not really believing exactly all the things that Ronald Reagan believed. And he was wonderful, a wonderful leader because he represented all people.
He was not a right wing nut like some of those guys out there today in the presidential debate and mentioned Ronald Reagan’s name. Ronald Reagan was in the center.

I assume Arnold means Romney. More Arnold:

SCHWARZENEGGER: But I think that in a lot of cases maybe these candidates admire him. But if you admire him, then you should be clear of what you really admire because you can’t be–it’s not a grocery store where you can go and say the reason I admire Ronald Reagan is because he looked handsome. That’s why I mentioned his name. No, Ronald Reagan was Ronald Reagan, and there’s a whole package deal.

On getting shot:

KING: When it comes to the 2008 campaign, candidates aren’t just touting Ronald Reagan’s policies. Some are trying to capture his personality, too. What kind of man was he? Well, much has been written about his elusiveness, his inaccessible nature. Whether anybody really knew him is open to debate, but some felt that 1981′s assassination attempt offered a glimpse into Reagan’s core qualities, and many were impressed by what they saw.
I learned a lot about the former president when I asked him simply, What’s it like to be shot?
RONALD REAGAN: What it was like was I didn’t know I was shot. I heard a noise, and we came out of the hotel and headed for the limousine, and I heard some noise, and I thought it was firecrackers.
And the next thing I knew one of the Secret Service agents behind me just seized me here by the waist and plunged me head first into the limo. I landed on the seat, and the seat divider was down and then dived in on top of me which is part of their procedure to make sure that I’m covered. Well, as it turned out later, the shot that got me caromed off the side of the limousine and hit me while I was diving into the car and it hit me back here under the arm and then it hit a rib, and that’s what caused an extreme pain, and then it tumbled and turned instead of edge-wise and went tumbling down to within an inch of my heart.
UNKNOWN: Get down, get down.
RONALD REAGAN: But when I got to the emergency entrance, I got out of car and walked in, and the nurse met me and I told her I was having a little trouble breathing, and what I thought it was, and the next thing I knew then when my knees began to turn to rubber and I wound up on a gurney.
KING: Was there a period of time that you thought you’d lose him?
N. REAGAN: Oh, yes, oh, yes.
KING: It was a lot more serious than we thought it was, right?
N. REAGAN: Oh, much, oh, much.
KING: He was, how close would you say? How close, touch and go?
N. REAGAN: Yes, oh, yes. They couldn’t find the bullet. When they did find it, it was a quarter of an inch from his heart.
RONALD REAGAN: A lot of those people there at the hospital thought it could very likely be the end. They said that I was very near going into a state of shock, and I had also lost more than half the blood in my body.
G. H. W. BUSH: I didn’t think about the loneliest burden in the world, the job of the presidency falling on my shoulders. We didn’t know enough about what was happening. I thought that a friend had been shot.
DONALDSON: Well, I was standing five feet away from John Hinckley when he shot Ronald Reagan and three other people, and that day and the subsequent days in a strange macabre way helped make the Reagan presidency, because of the way he reacted: “Honey, I forgot to duck.” And to the doctors: “I hope all of you are Republicans today,” endeared him to people. They said, well, what courage, what ability to overcome this. This was a true American hero.

And the conclusion from Nancy…

N. REAGAN: There are people who told me that it gets much easier. Well, maybe for them but not for me. I miss him more now than I ever did.