But the Gipper was popular among blue-collar Democrats as well as his own party.
He and his wife, Shelley, have no children, but they have a cat named Gipper.
The Gipper must have approved, because Wheldon ended up winning one of the most thrilling Indy races ever.
This is interesting, because at first Gipper lost value in the collectors' market, at least for a few years.
Mr Bush decided from the first to model himself on the Gipper rather than on his father, George Bush senior.
John Heubusch, director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, on why the New Jersey governor may be the next Gipper.
And, to be sure, we are likely to see traces of the Gipper or his legacy in just about every candidate on stage.
President Reagan tapped him for a photo op during his re-election campaign swing through Boston (the Gipper took blue state Massachusetts that year).
When the former California governor challenged Ford for the GOP nomination in 1976, the Gipper's economic centerpiece was to slash federal spending by 25%.
American conservatives have seized on this reversal of fortune: Arthur Laffer, a Reaganite economist, hails the Texan model over the Gipper's now hopelessly leftish home.
It has more football tradition than anyone, from George Gipp and Knute Rockne (win one for the Gipper) to the fight song and touchdown Jesus.
So, OK. We tell and retell the true and false legends of Knute Rockne and winning one for the Gipper and all that, but we don't really mind.
But he does offer an interesting alternative electoral strategy to that pursued by the contemporary right and embodied by the mythically consistent Ronald Reagan ( the Gipper was more moderate than his fans admit).
If you are old enough to remember, when Ronald Reagan gave his first State of the Union, The Gipper, the old actor, stood up and appeared to speak for almost an hour, or so I recall.
Like Ronald Reagan in 1980, he has shown that he has a clear sense of where he stands on the big themes and, though hardly in the Gipper's league, that he can even communicate fairly well.
And the Gipper inherited a worse economy.
FORBES: Forget What The Media Say, Republicans And Minorities Are Made For Each Other
My guess is that Ronald Reagan the national leader would express similar horror at what is happening to his beloved conservative movement as some in its ranks seek to sever from its agenda the priority "the Gipper" consistently gave to the national security.
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