Steve Kornacki has an article at Salon about liberal disappointment with President Obama and calls to support a challenger to him in 2012 in which he uncovered an article from 1983 that I just want to highlight because I think it is interesting:

Hard-line conservatives will meet this weekend in Dallas to discuss complaints against the administration and perhaps lay some groundwork for challenging President Reagan if he seeks re-election in 1984. “We’ve either got to fish or cut bait,” said Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus. “Either we get some changes out of the administration or we have to go in a different direction.” Phillips said the purpose of the Dallas meeting of about 20 conservatives would be to “see if there is a consensus among conservatives about where we go from here.” Phillips and conservative publisher and fund-raiser Richard Viguerie are openly urging Reagan not to run again in 1984. “I would think the conservative cause and the Republican Party would be better served if the president doesn’t run for re-election,” said Viguerie. “If the president is not off the dime to turn this thing around in the next several weeks, I think there will be an all-out effort to persuade him not to run in 1984,” said Phillips.

To hear the Religious Right tell it now, Ronald Reagan was the greatest president this nation has ever known … but at the time he was in office, he was such a disappointingly feckless compromiser that conservatives weren’t even sure they could support him if he ran for re-election: