He appeals to the intensely religious conservatives drawn into the Reagan coalition on social issues.
The effort to seat a Justice also opened embarrassing fissures within the Reagan coalition.
Republicans gained support from the formation of the Reagan coalition in the 1980s.
Taxes, abortion, all the cracks in the Reagan coalition make it hard to fight this fight.
Each has a subliminal message that points to a more basic rift in the Reagan coalition.
But his candidacy illustrates the problems of keeping the Reagan coalition intact.
"There's no Republican who can hold the Reagan coalition together," he remarks.
Third, the Reagan coalition is splintering, with the factions going off in wildly different directions.
Many fear the collapse of the Reagan coalition, which united social, fiscal and foreign policy conservatives.
These groups became a significant component of the Reagan coalition as they grew more politically self-conscious in the 1980s.