Ronald Reagan couldn't figure it out. He was stumping California as governor, boasting to loyal fans of the money he saved taxpayers.

Every time he mentioned saving a hundred million dollars here and a hundred million dollars there, all he got from the audience were glassy stares and polite applause.

Then one day he told a group of businessmen in San Francisco that the state saved $200,000 by sending motorists their license renewal notices before a postal rate hike.

Suddenly the audience was on its feet roaring with approval.

"Two hundred thousand dollars they could visualize," he wrote later. "Two hundred million, they couldn't."

It was another lesson learned by the Great Communicator about the importance of empathy — putting yourself in another's shoes, seeing things as they see it.

Reagan, who would have turned 96 today, served six terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, two terms as California governor and two terms as U.S. president.

He left public life as the most admired man in America, credited with restoring the nation's confidence, reviving its economy, rebuilding its military and facing down the Soviet Union to win the Cold War.

Reagan wasn't just a great communicator. He also studied the issues, backed policies that people wanted and delivered results.

He owed his start in politics and his success as a leader to his ability to communicate his optimistic vision of America.

Illinois Days

Reagan was born on Feb. 6, 1911, in Tampico, Ill., and grew up in Dixon. His father was a store clerk. His religious mother believed that everything happened for the best, according to a divine plan. Reagan would say later that her optimism "ran as deep as the cosmos."

Reagan was a bright and bookish boy. He taught himself to read by following his mother's finger along the lines as she read to him. By age 5, he was reading the newspaper.

Reserved and introverted, he loved movies and was prone to daydreaming. He did well in school. He tried to keep up with his older brother in sports, but poor eyesight kept him back. He excelled only at swimming and worked seven summers as a lifeguard.

His mother was an amateur thespian who involved her boys in local plays and public readings. He would later say that the applause after his first speech changed his life.

Reagan worked his way through college, studying economics. Then he talked himself into a job as a radio sportscaster.

His mother had stressed the importance of connecting with people. "Look people straight in the eye," she told him. "Remember people's names. Let them know you care."

To connect with his audience, Reagan imagined he was talking to friends huddled around the radio at the barbershop.

Reagan schemed and networked to get started as an actor. He talked his producer into sending him to Southern California to cover spring training involving the Chicago Cubs and White Sox. Once there, he looked up a friend from Iowa who sang in nightclubs.

The friend set him up with an agent, who set him up with a casting director at Warner Bros. In a matter of weeks, he was on the payroll.

Reagan worked hard at acting, but he easily joined causes that made him a spokesman.

He spoke out in defense of Hollywood friends accused of being communists. Then he spoke out against those in Hollywood he knew were communists.

Before long his fame as a speaker overtook his fame as an actor. After signing on to host TV's weekly "General Electric Theater," GE hired him to tour its plants for talks. Reagan visited all 139 plants, giving two or three speeches a day.

At first, he talked mostly about Hollywood, but soon the issues of the day took over. He chatted more and more about the growth of government and the threat of socialism.

He didn't believe in reading speeches, but he couldn't memorize his many deliveries. So he developed his own shorthand, stressing key words and transitions on 4-by-6 note cards, which he could easily slip into a coat pocket.

"Looking back now, I realize it wasn't a bad apprenticeship for someone who'd someday enter public life," he wrote.

Reagan's GE tours helped him perfect his speaking style and kept his face before the public.

They also showed him what other Americans were thinking and deepened his understanding of the issues that mattered to them.

"Those GE tours became almost a postgraduate course in political science," he wrote. "I was seeing how government really operated and affected people in America, not how it was taught in school."

The importance of staying in touch with the people stayed with him. Before deciding to run for California governor in 1966, he toured the state to feel out the people.

When his rival, incumbent Gov. Pat Brown, dismissed him as a talking head, Reagan shifted to a question-and-answer format. He'd give his main message, then ask for questions from the audience.

That proved his grasp of the issues and helped him keep his finger on voters' pulse. It also helped him win in a landslide.

After his triumph, Reagan's knowledge surfaced at his first meeting with Edwin Meese, his future chief of staff as governor and attorney general as president.

"He talked about things I knew a lot about, which was criminal law and law enforcement, and I was amazed at how much he knew about them," Meese told IBD. "I was so impressed that at the end of the interview, when he offered me the job, I accepted on the spot."

As governor, Reagan would sometimes sneak out for secret meetings with private citizens. That way he could hear what they were saying without turning the meeting into a media event.

Acting coaches had taught him to imagine things as his character would see them. As a speaker and negotiator, Reagan applied the same insight to his audience.

"By developing a knack for putting yourself in someone else's shoes, it helps you to relate better to others and perhaps understand why they think as they do," he wrote.

After two terms as governor, Reagan challenged President Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976, but lost.

White House Road

After Jimmy Carter beat Ford in the election, Reagan kept busy by giving speeches and radio chats.

While writing 680 commentaries, he deepened his understanding of the issues and filled out the details of his vision for America.

He ran again for the White House in 1980, this time beating Carter.

Once in office, he shared his vision in talks with Cabinet heads and in his speeches.

"His policies, his vision, his objectives and his principles were all very clear, so that people were carrying them out almost without realizing they were doing what he wanted them to do," Meese said.

Reagan made sure those under him understood his priorities. He handled the hot issues when he had to, "but he kept coming back to a half-dozen big issues that most concerned him," Martin Anderson, a Reagan adviser now writing a biography of Reagan, told IBD.

Reagan, who left office in 1989, died in 2004.
BY BRIAN MITCHELL