Today as many of you know Reverend Jerry Falwell passed away. Your author will spare the reader a rehash of his account from a humble Virginia Baptist who would become an influential figure in American politics with his Moral Majority and later founding Liberty University. The reader can read his background in dozens of newspapers and much of it is common knowledge.

Upon hearing of his death your author’s first thought was ‘how long until the big media machine begins to credit Falwell with bringing the Republican Party back from the ashes and cinching a win for President Ronald Reagan in 1980'? Your author already began to form his own opinion about how the news machine would spin this assumption. Below is a snippet from today’s The New York Times written by Peter Applebome.

"In the 1980 election, the Moral Majority was credited with playing a role in Mr. Reagan’s election as president, and with affecting the outcome in dozens of Congressional races. The election reflected the potential influence of religious conservatives in politics, which both electrified religious conservatives and alarmed many others, who feared a movement of religious zealots voting en masse for the preachers’ designated candidates."

Now this bit will be written in similar fashion by other newspapers and proclaimed by dozens of pundits. Here is a following quote from Matt Foreman, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, "Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America's anti-gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation's appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation."

Your author has previously commented on what really fueled President Reagan’s response to AIDS during the early-mid 1980s. Foreman is not entirely correct but your author has already come to expect such responses.

What the press isn’t stating is the entire truth. Yes Falwell and the Christian Right did play a role in a Conservative political comeback. Yes many evangelical Christians do vote Republican. However in 1980 there were other reasons to vote for Reagan as opposed to the incumbent President Jimmy Carter.

In 1979 America’s inflation was 12.5% and at the end of that year prime interest rate was 15.25%. Economically speaking the mid to late 1970s were described as a period suffering from stagflation. In November of that year Iranian Islamic militants would kidnap 66 US diplomats and American citizens. Eventually 52 of them would be held for 444 days and were released on January 20, 1981, which coincided on the same day when Reagan was sworn in as President. Despite the economic data, many political scientists stand by the argument that it was because of the Iranian hostage crisis Carter would lose his reelection campaign.

Reader what has been just stated is the thrust on why Ronald Reagan won the 1980 Presidential election and the map provided tells the tale. Yes Reverend Falwell did play a hand but to fully credit him for Reagan’s win borders on a lie. It is also indicative of the American Left and the media machine of how they will never own up to the truth of Carter’s Administration