That's debatable. There was a lot of discussion during Reagan's tenure about him sleeping through cabinet meetings and being a puppet to his back room guys which by the way included names like Rumsfeld and Cheney. Oh, and McCain would be older than Reagan when he took the Oval Office.

The guy took over for the shambles of a defeated and embarrassed country left behind by Jimmy Carter, tamed the interest rate monster, restored the US Military to its place of honor, lowered unemployment to a level not seen in a decade, revised the income tax structure resulting in 19 million new jobs, continually reminded Americans of the greatness of their heritage and stature in the world . . . but a few left wing dingbats start a rumor about him falling asleep in cabinet meetings and all the empirical stuff goes out the window and the focus becomes his age. Why is it so difficult to acknowledge a job well done when it is so obvious, everyone is still trying to "out-Reagan" each other to this day? And, danger of dangers . . . McCain will actually be OLDER!!! than Reagan was!!! History Fan is, as usual, correct with her original statement.

I'm not so sure that the shambles of post-Viet Nam/Watergate America can be entirely laid at the feet of Carter. Carter's 4 year term saw interest rates of between 8% and 15%, during Reagan's first term they spiked to around 21% and then came back down to around 10% when he left office, so whose monster did he tame? The honour that Reagan restored to the military had the effect of running the federal deficit up from 2.5% of the GDP to 6% of the GDP. The greatness of America's stature isn't really something tangible that you can measure, but I'm sure that the country felt pretty good about itself for defeating the Soviet Union, even if it did nothing but watch as it sank under the weight of its own bloat. Golden years indeed.