WASHINGTON WATCH: THE SPEECH THAT CHANGED AMERICA

"The Speech" was given 30 years ago tonight, but its words resonate even stronger today. The central theme was the preservation of individual liberty in the face of government's growth."Either we accept the responsibility for our own destiny, or we abandon the American Revolution and confess that an intellectual belief in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."

The speaker was Ronald Reagan, and the event was a keynote address to the nation in support of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Goldwater went on to lose in a landslide to Lyndon Baines Johnson, but Reagan and his message were not to be forgotten.

When Johnson led the country into the failures of the Great Society and Vietnam, individually inspired Reagan supporters began to organize. It was the beginning of an astonishing movement that 16 years later carried the former actor and his ideas about limited government to the highest office in the land.

As president, Reagan failed to reign in the growth of government as much as he promised. The reason was in large part having to work with a Congress his party didn't control. But what he did get done -- especially in hindsight -- was considerable. His beliefs drove policies that put more taxpayers' money back into their pockets and fueled the largest peacetime economic expansion in history (including the creation of 19 million new jobs and thousands of new businesses). He did this while also helping to bring about the end of Soviet communism and the Cold War. Today, Reagan's beliefs about limited government are more prevalent than when he was president. And not just among Republicans. Turn on the television in Nebraska and you are likely to see Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey in one of his campaign commercials saying, "The government is the most formidable enemy of all, sometimes. They can put a family out of business." Or cross into Tennessee, where Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper, seeking Al Gore's Senate seat, boasts that he "stood up to a president (Clinton)" who was seeking to expand too far the powers of government.

Political themes like a balanced budget amendment and line-item veto receive support from over 70 percent of the population. Other Reagan themes like welfare reform, school prayer and school choice are also surging in a grass-roots groundswell.

Curiously, while most candidates today in America talk like Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton is attacking him. It is a high-risk gambit on the president's part, and so far he is losing. In the comparison between Reagan's ideal of a smaller, more efficient government and Clinton's bigger, more activist one, the American people seem to be siding with Reagan. Indeed, so dramatically has Clinton's gambit backfired that for the first time in over 40 years, Americans indicate they favor a generic Republican House candidate over a Democrat by six to 12 percentage points, depending on the poll."

Stop putting faith in the false god of bureaucracy," intoned Reagan 30 years ago today. "Trust the genius of the American people again. Return to the principles of the Founders ... limited government, free enterprise and respect for family, community and faith."

As constant as his convictions, Reagan's message never faltered. Today, as the American people assess the questionable accomplishments of a president who would make government bigger and even costlier, it is stronger than ever before.

Jon K. Rust is a Washington-based writer for the Southeast Missourian.