As Thanksgiving approaches, it remains unclear who will emerge as the GOP presidential nominee. The standard methods of prognosticating have come up short in this year’s muddled primary field. But there may be another way to sort through the candidates and predict the eventual winner. In politics, the most disciplined candidate typically wins. As Ronald Reagan’s one-time campaign manager John Sears put it, “Discipline is nine-tenths of politics.”

Candidate Reagan put Sears’ dictum into action, running a relentlessly focused communication operation that kept to its message of the day, often to the consternation of the reporters following the campaign. This approach continued into Reagan’s presidency. As the authors of All the President’s Spin put it: “Ronald Reagan’s administration broke new ground with its message discipline and image control.”

Read the article “History Is Clear: It’s Discipline That Wins Presidential Races” on observer.com.