Reagan Kids Reject GOP Heirs to Father's Conservative Legacy

Feb. 8, 2011— -- Channeling Ronald Reagan has become an obsession of the nation's leading conservative political figures, including many who are likely candidates for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

Former Alaksa Gov. Sarah Palin considers herself a "western conservative in the spirit of Ronald Reagan."

Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, compares his Pennsylvania roots to Reagan's in Tampico, Ill. And, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, among others, credits Reagan as an inspiration to "fight for conservative causes."

But ask the 40th president's three surviving children -- Michael and Ron Reagan and Patti Davis -- whether any of their father's potential Republican successors could claim the Reagan mantle, and they say no way.

Is Sarah Palin the next Ronald Reagan?

"You've got to be kidding me," Patti Davis said in an interview with ABC News' "This Week."

"Sarah Palin has nothing in common with my father," said Ron Reagan, Davis' younger brother and a political liberal. "Sarah Palin is a soap opera."

Where does Gingrich stand?

"In some dank little basement somewhere or some fantasy world in his own head," he added.

"You must be kidding me," Davis said of the comparison of Gingrich to her father. "No!"

Michael Reagan, a Republican strategist, said simply that no one matches up.

"I'm not going to down that road because I don't see anyone in Ronald Reagan's image," he said. "He was one of a kind."

While the Reagan children have found the comparisons -- and the extent to which politicians will go to make them -- highly amusing, they say they are intrinsically contrary to Reagan's personal philosophy.

"I remember when I was a kid, my father saw an ad somewhere for 'real simulated diamonds' and he was chuckling and laughing about this. He thought it was so funny that they would put together those two words, real and simulated. And I remember him saying: 'You think people are stupid? Do they think people don't know what the word simulated means?'" Davis said. "I think he would have had the same reaction to people trying to imitate him."