Writing recently in the Washington Times, Raleigh’s Garland S. Tucker III, author of The High Tide of American Conservatism, urged Republicans to think about more than just Ronald Reagan’s example as they choose their standard bearer for the 2012 presidential election.

Tucker suggests this country also could benefit from the types of policy prescriptions pursued by the winner of the 1924 presidential election:

Coolidge embodied the classic New England virtues upon which the republic was founded: hard work, independent thinking, lack of pretense, sense of duty, perseverance, scrupulous honesty – they were the bedrock upon which he had been raised in rural Vermont and upon which he built his political career. In a decade of rapid social change, Coolidge’s somewhat old-fashioned virtues resonated with the American public. Coolidge inherited the unsavory scandals of his predecessor, Warren Harding, but so transparently honest was Coolidge that the stained Harding legacy never tarnished the Coolidge presidency.

How could such a seemingly simple man as Calvin Coolidge, who adhered so closely to traditional virtues and conservative, Jeffersonian government, have captured the respect, admiration and even affection of the American people? After pondering the Coolidge phenomenon for eight years, Walter Lippmann finally concluded at the end of Coolidge’s tenure, “Americans feel, I think, that they are stern, ascetic and devoted to plain living because they vote for a man who is.”