This is absolutely brilliant, NC. Thanks for sharing it. Fantastic piece.
There is very little to add to it. I think you hit the nail on the head, especially the point dealing with the difficulties with proposing truculent ideologies. Reagan knew he couldn't do so and remain effective; Gingrich didn't learn the lesson, though as an academic, he should have been a bit more in tune with Reagan's methods.
Reagan was intelligent enough, but more importantly he had the instincts and experience which develop political talent.
Policy wonks don't necessarily make the best Presidents, Clinton being the latest example. Clinton was undoubtedly "smarter" than Reagan, yet he did not achieve a quarter of what Reagan did, and left a scandal-plagued legacy. Who is the "smarter" one?
Instincts, judgment, and wisdom can't be measured in tests, are not handed out with Ph.D.'s, and don't always come out of Yale and Harvard. In fact, I suppose a case can be made for the proposition that the opposite is true. Like another great President, FDR, Reagan was reasonably intelligent. Their common path to greatness lay in possessing first class temperaments.
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