Mural of Ronald Reagan, a Great American
Cookeville, Tennessee
When Tennessee's Putnam County Republican Headquarters set out in 2011 to fill its blank exterior wall with a mural, it faced a problem. It couldn't use Middle Tennessee's most famous politician, former Vice-President Al Gore, a more appropriate mural candidate for the county's Democratic Party HQ. And it didn't want to use the always-polarizing George W. Bush, even though he'd bested Gore in the 2000 election, winning the Tennessee popular vote (and reprised the drubbing in 2004, against Kerry). So the Party went back in time to Ronald Reagan, who had left the Presidency 22 years earlier and had been dead since 2004 -- but who had been born in 1911, which provided an auspicious centennial. The mural, professionally painted by Ron Sweeney, was dedicated on July 4.
Within a month some malcontent had painted a Hitler mustache on Reagan.