Reagan didn’t eke out a 49 percent plurality, as Bill Clinton did in 1996, or a 51 percent win, as Bush and Obama did in 2004 and 2012, respectively. He won 59 percent of the popular vote while carrying 49 states. He got virtually all the Republican votes (after expanding the GOP itself), most of the independents, and millions of moderate Democrats.

So that’s the blueprint, and it didn’t happen by accident—and it certainly didn’t happen by constructing the narrowest possible ideological appeal to voters. Cruz understands this, at least in theory, because he often says Republicans must sound more “aspirational,” which is to say, more Reaganesque in their appeals. But that’s not an easy trick to pull off.

In 2012, Rick Santorum, the last movement conservative standing in Mitt Romney’s unhappy march to the nomination, told Iowa Republicans that when it came to drawing the contrast on Obamacare, Massachusetts’ “Romneycare” program made Romney the worst standard-bearer Republicans could choose. It was a valid point, one that Santorum promptly undermined by doing things like telling New Hampshire high school students (who couldn’t vote anyway) that he wasn’t cool with contraception. That’s not something Ronald Reagan would have done.