This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, August 28, 2009. I'm Caleb Brown.

Though it was heresy among Democratic primary voters when Barack Obama said that Ronald Reagan changed the

trajectory of the United States, the evidence is hard to deny.

Stephen Hayward is author of the new book The Age of Reagan.

We spoke following a forum for the book held yesterday.

Well, I think what you have to understand

is that Reagan was utterly unique in whatever label you want to give him, a conservative,

you know, a fusionist, of traditionalist and libertarian instincts.

Remember, the other thing he used to say that drove Russell Kirk and George Will

and other conventional conservatives out of their mind was when he would quote Thomas Paine's remark that we have it within our power to begin the world over again.

You know, George Will said anytime, any place that is nonsense.

And Russell Kirk just couldn't believe that a supposedly conservative president would quote

Thomas Payne.

In fact, I think that the part of Reagan's Libertarian streak was his openness about the future, his belief in the dynamism of American society,

an understanding that it would bring change.

He understood that most change from open markets and individual freedom would be changed for the good.

I think he, you know, there wasn't something of a nostalgic streak in Reagan, so he probably

understood what Russell Kirkus liked about open markets in a dynamic world is that it

undermined authority and tradition.

That was Kirk's complaint.

And Reagan certainly was a friend of family values, although he wasn't really a culture

warrior in the way we think of people today like Mike Huckabee for example just to pick one name.

...