Knox College Student Alex Uzarowicz is already looking at the 2016 presidential election, and thinks he has identified a good model for the GOP to use: President Calvin Coolidge.

Whenever Americans are asked to rate U.S. Presidents, they almost always crown Reagan, Lincoln, Clinton, and Washington as the clear victors. No argument here; these men served their country well and shaped our republic for years to come. They earned their popularity.

However, there is one man who is often ignored by the Gallup ratings, and sadly enough, by most Americans. But he is not ignored by historian and economist Amity Shlaes. She brings President Coolidge back in her latest, Coolidge, making him a very relevant president due to today’s rising national debt, unfair taxation, and massive government spending. Shlaes captures best in Coolidge. She grabs the readers’ attention by allowing Coolidge’s benevolent record speak for itself, literally. Coolidge was too shy for a politician.

Shlaes describes Coolidge’s rise in politics as anything but expected. A New England native, a Vermonter from rural Plymouth Notch, Coolidge had a surprising rise through the political ranks.

…Shlaes details Coolidge’s success. For example, Coolidge pushed to lower taxes for all Americans. He minimized the rate on the top earners to 25 percent lower than President Reagan’s 28, and 1.5 percent to the poorest Americans. He did all this without even raising the deficit and by increasing public revenues. He met with his installed Budget Bureau Director General Lord to cut spending on a daily basis. They cut in many different ways by reforming veterans’ pensions shaving off 13 percent of the program, $900 million from a $1.4 million flood relief, and many others. But the most telling piece of evidence is the major decline of federal government employees. The number plummeted from 66,290 in 1923 to 59,800 in 1927. He tops that of with 3.2 percent unemployment rate.

Conservatives like myself admire the fact that Coolidge left office with a smaller federal government than he inherited. Not many presidents can put that on their resumé. But that was his style, he spoke and delivered. That’s leadership, and that’s something to admire. While liberals will disagree with Coolidge’s policies, Coolidge sets an example higher than just good politics. He sets an example for all politicians to live up to what they believe and to, hopefully, serve the public good or the multiplicity of interests as the Founding Fathers believed.

That’s the platform our country needs and that’s the message Americans yearned for in 1928, and arguably so, a winning message for 2016.