If there is one item that corrals the Grand Old Party, placing ideological groups as diverse as Rockefeller Republicans, Libertarians, and Evangelicals under one brim, it's the cowboy hat. The Western skimmer brings the stately down to earth and elevates the common man. And what greater symbol of an American hero is there beyond the cowboy? Stetsons have seen a recent White House revival atop Bush 2 and friends, but the most iconic image of a politickin' buckaroo remains Ronald Reagan, a figure who continues to exemplify—and romanticize—his party's message the way FDR does for Democrats.

At the first '08 Republican debate this past May, held at none other than the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California, candidates referenced the Gipper—count 'em—19 times. "You don't win 49 states and not relate to a lot of voters," explains Library president Duke Blackwood, who oversees a collection of memorabilia that includes one of Reagan's original cowboy hats. (The on-site gift shop sells duplicates.) Reagan's boyhood fantasy was brought to life when, as a California senator in 1974, he purchased Rancho del Cielo ("Ranch in the Sky") in the sweeping valleys northwest of Santa Barbara. During his presidency, the homestead was dubbed the Western White House, and according to John Barletta, ex-secret serviceman and close friend to Reagan, it served as refuge from Washington's stuffy suit circuit. "We'd be at a black-tie function and he'd walk by me and kind of touch my lapel, and say, 'Well, John, in two weeks we'll be out of these store-bought clothes. We'll be in jeans and boots, and we'll be riding,'?" Barletta says.

The Economic Recovery Tax Act, the largest tax cut in U.S. history, was signed at del Cielo in 1981; policy pals like Margaret Thatcher were squired around the dusty grounds, as were the Gorbachevs in 1992. (This was after the fall of "the Evil Empire" and before Gorbachev posed for Louis Vuitton ads.) The world watched as the Great Communicator and Gorbachev exchanged gifts by the tack house: a book of Russian proverbs from the East, a Silver Belly Stetson cowboy hat from the West. A little-known snafu occurred when Gorbachev placed his token on his strawberry-marked forehead, backward. Reagan discreetly tried to correct him, but with the interpreter absent, Reagan didn't want to embarrass his guest in front of the press. The two just smiled and leaned against the fence for that famous photo op. "That was very nice of him," Barletta remembers. "He always was nice."

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