CNN.com - Reagan services begin with public viewing - Jun 7, 2004

Even though I think you can credit him for building the two-headed monster that saved the republican party by combining the "religious right" and traditional economic conservatives, I don't know if the fundies should get too choked up over losing the father of their movement -- he really never was. Embracing the growing evangelical culture in the early 80's was an atypically pragmatic move by an atypically ideological politician. In the end, he never really delivered the goods for Pat Robertson and his ilk, driving them to stage the state-by-state foot-soldier takeover that put them in the party's driver's seat by the mid-nineties. Great communicator. Absolutely. Historically significant? Unquestionably. Fundamentalist born-again evangelical? By no means.