The Newest Next New Reagan

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He’s taking on a sitting President. After that the parallels kind of trail off, but Reagan is where you seek Him.

Jacob Zuma is expected to win a convention vote for African National Congress party president Monday, defeating South African President Thabo Mbeki, and almost assuring that Zuma will succeed Mbeki in South Africa’s next election.

For some the segue from “California Here We Come” reagans-greatest-laughs.jpg to “Bring Me My Machine Gun” is hard, but a South African Business Day writer can’t resist the infectious optimist zuma-laughs.png of the Southern Hemisphere.

“Zuma will probably be okay. He’s our Ronald Reagan, a good ol’ boy, at home in a suit in the corridors of power or sipping home brew out of a paint tin with his cousins in the kraal at Nkandla. Reagan was arguably the most successful postwar US president. He didn’t so much energise America as relax it. We could do with that here, too.”

If Reagan doesn’t work for you, take heart. Zuma’s also been called the Comeback Kid.

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