You could call the late President Ronald Reagan the patron saint of the modern conservative movement, as often as his name is invoked and lauded by right-leaning political pundits.

But for the past several months, our 40th president’s son has been carving out a growing niche on the radio by trying to discredit that same conservative movement.

Ron Reagan Jr., has hosted the Ron Reagan Show from the studios of Seattle’s KPTK-AM (1090) since September.

Initially, he took over an hour of the Rachel Maddow Show’s afternoon time slot as Maddow made the transition to MSNBC. But since January, Reagan has had a full three hours – his show airs live from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday – to deconstruct Glenn Beck, “tea baggers” and all things conservative.

The show is syndicated by Air America and Reagan is in more markets than any of the progressive radio network’s other hosts. And Tina Nole, Reagan’s New York-based producer, attributes part of that success to an approach that is more nuanced than usual in the shout-’em-down world of political talk radio.

“He’s not a sensationalist and he’s far more honest and open in terms of his knowledge base and where he’s coming than a lot,” observed Nole, a native of Tacoma.

“We approach the show with a lot of integrity,” she said. “We are kind to our callers. We don’t hang up on people. We don’t bash them.”

Recently, we sat in with Reagan, who is 51 and lives in Seattle with his wife, Doria. And between segments on Beck and the Henry Louis Gates controversy, we picked his brain about politics, progressive talk radio and his local roots.

But you know what we had to ask about first, right?

Your dad is a conservative icon, and people would say you fall a few notches further to the left.

Oh, I’m much further to the left, yes.

So how did that happen?

Just common sense, I guess. [He laughs.]

Well, my parents taught us all to think our own thoughts and speak our own minds and that sort of thing. So like many generations, I guess, you just find yourself opposing the parental generation in some respects.

I never really made much of a big deal out of it. Other people do for obvious reasons, but to me it just seemed kind of normal and not that remarkable.

I’m trying to picture dinner at the Reagan house. Did you talk politics?

Oh, yeah, we would talk politics. Particularly during the late ’60s, early ’70s, I guess. When the Vietnam War was still going on that would be a topic of conversation, and we used to argue about that.

I couldn’t understand exactly how you could say we were saving a country when we were bombing it into oblivion, napalming its citizens and deforesting its land. Saving them from what exactly here? So yeah, we would argue about that sort of stuff.

Were there issues where you found common ground?

Many people found fault with him for calling the Soviet Union an evil empire. I didn’t have so much of a problem with that. I knew people in Russia … who were being treated very badly by the state.

This was a totalitarian regime. I think speak truth to power no matter which side of the political spectrum it may come on. Frankly, at that point the far left meets the far right. Totalitarianism is totalitarianism no matter what sort of banner it’s flying.

You’ve been outspoken about how your dad’s image has been co-opted. What runs through your mind when you see – to take a random example – Sean Hannity, invoking his name on Fox News?

As far as I know, Sean Hannity has never met my father. He didn’t know my father. My father wouldn’t have known him if he stood up in his soup. So he’s got no call to be puttin’ words in my father’s mouth. I don’t even do that.

In a couple of extreme cases where he’s actually gone on record saying something that’s opposed to, say, a position of the Bush-Cheney administration I might say given this I think he would, let’s say, disapprove of torture. Since he called it an abomination over here, I’m guessin’ he wouldn’t be down with it as a policy a few years later under this administration. So I feel pretty comfortable with that, but generally speaking I just don’t put words in his mouth.

Are there instances where you think his world view has especially been distorted?

He famously said in one of his speeches that, in this instance – and he was talking about a particular policy – government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem. But he didn’t mean that globally. He didn’t mean that government as such is the problem whatever problem might arise.

And a lot of people in the Republican Party now are the “drown government in the bathtub” crowd. They actually want to destroy the social safety net. These are people who don’t believe in the New Deal. These are people who don’t believe in Medicare or Medicaid. They think everything should be privatized, including the military. … So a lot of statements are taken out of context and misconstrued. At least that one was.

Obviously, you chose a different path. You’ve had different callings, from dancing ballet back in the day and TV and radio. Have you ever had any aspirations …

[Shakes head, anticipating question] No.

So politics is totally out of the question.

I do not want to run for office. I’m somebody who’s congenitally unable to not speak my mind about stuff. I try and be polite about it. But nevertheless, I’m not somebody who can pretend to believe something I don’t. That often, I think, happens in politics. I’m just not good at it. I’m also not good at asking people for money.

Switching gears, when and how did you first come to Seattle?

Fifteen years ago. My wife and I moved up here in ’94. I’d been working in television down in Los Angeles. After the ’94 earthquake down there we just thought we don’t really like it much here that much anyway, and it’s not worth dying in the rubble. [He laughs.] So let’s move somewhere else.

But we’re West Coast people, so we looked up and down the West Coast. So we just settled on Seattle. I’d done some stories up here before, so I was familiar with the town.

It didn’t make working on television any easier. Of course, you’re taking yourself out of the loop. But, hey, show business is an up and down business anyway. My career has certainly been up and down over the 20 some odd years I’ve been doing that since I quit dancing.

How did you hook up with Air America?

They sort of approached me. I’m trying to remember. (Air America president) Mark Green or somebody called me. We must have had mutual friends. Anyway, I started doing some hits on his weekend show. … Gradually, I just kind of got more involved. Finally, when they needed someone to fill in that hour for Rachel (Maddow), there I was. I did some convention coverage for them in Minneapolis/St. Paul – the Republican convention. After that was when I started. That’s when they asked me, “Can you do a show for us – starting Monday?” It was a Friday afternoon. [He laughs.] Sure, OK. Do I have a producer? Would I know the person?

What would you say most consistently fires you up?

I think it’s important to bring the words of people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly and Michael Savage and all those folks to people’s attention. These are very popular figures in this country.

Millions of people listen to these people. Glenn Beck has become a kind of media phenomenon here. So I think it’s important that people know what these folks are saying. And what they’re saying often is ugly, stupid and dishonest. And they don’t often get called onto the carpet for it often. So in our own little way we do some of that.

You mention some of your counterparts on the right. For many people, right-leaning talk radio is still synonymous with political or talk radio in general. What needs to happen for progressive radio to gain the same sort of traction?

I don’t know that we really can get the same kind of traction as right wing radio – certainly not in the same way. I think a lot of conservatives need to be told what they already think. They need to just have their ideology reinforced constantly and repetitively over and over again.

You listen to some of these shows and it’s just the same palaver over and over again; you know, the “birther” nonsense or Obama’s a racist and he’s trying to tear down the country and it’s all about reparations. It’s just this stuff that just tumbles out of their mouths. It doesn’t have anything to do with reality, and liberals don’t like to hear that.

Liberals by and large – judging by my audience, anyway – tend to be more independent minded. I’ll get called on the carpet by callers coming from the left, coming from the right. And even people who agree with you, they’ll find something to disagree with you about in there somewhere. So we’re a much more contentious lot, I think.

In contrast, on television you can point to a couple of your peers having success. You’ve been on television before. Is that part of your game plan? Would you like to have a situation like Rachel Maddow?

It’s difficult to do TV nationally from Seattle, I’ve found. I did a show for MSNBC for a year or so from out here with a co-host that was in New York. It’s tough, and I don’t expect that any major cable network … is gonna come along and say, “Hey! Let’s give Ron a show and shoot it in Seattle.” And I live here. That’s the thing. I live here, and I’m not trading my life for a TV show.

I like radio, too. I haven’t done much of it, really – just the KIRO gig and this, so a couple of years’ worth maybe. But I like it. I like the intimacy and I like the freedom. You can pretty much say what you want. It’s your ball game, basically, which isn’t quite the same as in television where more people are looking over your shoulder all the time.

Is there a host that you admire or model yourself after?

Not really. I don’t listen to that much talk radio. I tend to be a person who picks up vocal patterns, a natural mimic kind of thing. And I don’t want to sound like somebody else or what somebody else does.

But the way they handle questions or issues for example.

Well, I think Rachel Maddow does a great job with that. … Dave Ross on KIRO is excellent. Thom Hartmann is like a walking encyclopedia. Ask him what time it is and he’ll tell you how to make a watch. I can’t do that. I’m not a walking encyclopedia.

Ernest Jasmin: 253-274-7389

ernest.jasmin@thenewstribune.com/rockcity

What: Ron Reagan Show

When: 3 to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays

Station: KPTK-AM (1090)