Let me take you back to another Aug. 15 so as to put to bed a meme prevalent on the Right today — namely, the idea that the only way to win politically is to be mean and to be willing to go low against opponents. The meme is claptrap.

When then-President Ronald Reagan approached the podium of the Republican National Convention 36 years ago, his vice president, the elder George Bush, trailed Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis by 17 points in the polls. Reagan’s address that night, his last-ever great political speech — he made good speeches afterward, but of a more unifying or elegiac nature — jump-started what had seemed like a moribund campaign. Bush ended up winning in a 426-111 Electoral College landslide.

The speechwriter and political consultant who worked with Reagan on that speech, Ken Khachigian, released last month a memoir of his time writing for both Reagan and former President Richard Nixon, but the Reagan chapters predominate. What comes across most clearly is that Reagan, the biggest political winner in modern American history, showed toughness and firm personal agency while still being a remarkably nice human being. Nixon repeatedly expressed worry to Khachigian that, in one iteration among several, he should “not let Reagan carry the nice guy thing so far,” but Reagan knew that bedrock toughness could easily co-exist with human decency.

In Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan and Nixon, one of Khachigian’s most fascinating accounts is about his meetings with both Ronald and Nancy Reagan in preparation for that 1988 speech. Nancy wanted the speech to be “visionary and emotional. … This is not the place of a hard political speech, but to play on the emotions of the day and to show a lot of love.” It was the president, though, who wanted something that drew sharper contrasts with the Democrats who were tearing down his administration’s accomplishments and belittling Bush.

Khachigian agreed: “I could write it either way, but it was contradictory to deliver a nonpolitical speech at a political convention, especially when the president clearly wanted a vigorous defense. … I didn’t invent Reagan the ‘tough guy.’ His indignation and combativeness for issues about which he cared” were “honed” for decades.

What emerged was a tour de force, combining Reagan the uniting visionary with Reagan the policy advocate and promoter of his vice president to finish the job. Whether sitting in the New Orleans Superdome that night, at least in the parts where the sound system wasn’t bad, or watching on TV, listeners were treated to a Reagan classic.

“Facts are stubborn things,” he kept repeating, striking sledgehammer blow after blow, with specificity, for his conservative results against the disasters under Democratic predecessor Jimmy Carter. Inflation was way down, employment way up, interest rates down, manufacturing up, tax rates down, bureaucratic red tape cut immensely, the Soviet Union in retreat, and international freedom on the march. Reagan limned it all quite brilliantly.

Yet amid all this, Reagan’s tone wasn’t harsh, nor was his mood of anger. He appealed not to his countrymen’s fears and resentments, but to their better selves.

“When our children turn the pages of our lives,” he said, “I hope they’ll see that we had a vision to pass forward a nation as nearly perfect as we could, where there’s decency, tolerance, generosity, honesty, courage, common sense, fairness, and piety.”

Also, there was the prototypically sweet Reaganite anecdote, about a letter he received from “a young boy” who wrote that he loves America “because you can join the Cub Scouts if you want to. You have a right to worship as you please. If you have the ability, you can try to be anything you want to be. And I also like America because we have about 200 flavors of ice cream.”

What’s amazing is that when sounding so charming, Reagan, the actor, was not just acting a part. As Khachigian details all his speechwriting episodes with Reagan, the Gipper comes across as a man both thoughtful and kind. In his diary after his very first week with Reagan, Khachigian writes “he’s genuinely a nice man.” Reagan usually made sure to thank Khachigian for his work, even in instances when Reagan himself rewrote much of it. When the rewrites were substantial, Reagan would offer words to “soften the blow” to Khachigian’s pride of authorship. And on one big occasion where Reagan had not done his usual major editing, and the speeches went wonderfully, Reagan made a special cross-continental phone call to Khachigian, the president’s voice like “sunshine traveling over a phone line” saying, “I want you to know how grateful I am for the help you gave with the speeches for the European trip.”

And Reagan was genuinely a sentimentalist, too. Two days before his first inauguration, he confessed that at a ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang so beautifully that he was crying — and that he worried if he could “keep his eyes dry” during the inauguration itself.

Reagan also was unpretentious: When Khachigian and wife Meredith were at Camp David so the writer could work on a speech, the Reagans invited them to dinner, where Reagan happily chowed down on simple corned beef while telling a funny story about how he ruined the actress’s makeup the first time he had to execute a Hollywood screen kiss.

This was the man who stared down a seemingly all-powerful Soviet Union against decades-entrenched Democratic opposition at home that he defeated in two straight wipeout elections while leading the longest-lasting economic recovery in U.S. history.

Yet with this evidence of the biggest political winner of all being a kind and decent man, too many on the Right insist that anger and vicious tactics are a necessary political feature. The myth is that the main reason Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney lost in 2008 and 2012, respectively, was that they were “too nice.” Nonsense. McCain had a big heart in many ways, but he was wildly irascible and willing to play hardball against anyone. And every single major Republican opponent of Romney’s in 2008 or 2012 would agree that the Romney campaign was easily the most cutthroat operation in the primary field both times.

McCain lost largely because, with the polls dead even, he was hit with Republicans being blamed for the worst financial system crisis (short-term) since the Great Depression. Romney lost largely because his own healthcare policy in Massachusetts made him the only Republican in the field with no good way to argue against incumbent Barack Obama’s biggest Achilles’ heel, namely the Obamacare program that at the time was monumentally unpopular. Niceness had nothing to do with it.

Instead, what Reagan proved was that people are both tough-minded and aspirational. Yes, stirring up their angry inner ids can move votes at times, but successful appeals to nobler sentiments, if grounded in a practical reality where “facts are stubborn things,” can draw together much bigger majorities, vast in scope, and accomplish greater things.

In the closing paragraphs of that 1988 convention speech, Reagan described how “fed by passionate ideas and convictions … we’ve fought for causes we love. … Our freedom must be defended over and over again — and then again.”

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Then, he said, while he would retire to his ranch, “I’ll leave my phone number and address behind just in case you need a foot soldier. Just let me know, and I’ll be there, as long as words don’t leave me and as long as this sweet country strives to be special during its shining moment on Earth.”

That was Aug. 15, 1988. Today’s politics is missing that grandly generous spirit. We must revive it.