Okay, I took "who to motivate and when" referred to him personally motivating those around him, as in staff, department heads, and legislators. I meant LBJ-style, rather than LBJ-level of effectiveness.
Reagan was a good media politician and a mediocre manager. He let intra-administration feuds fester, delegated almost all of the legislative heavy lifting to other people (the Bakers, Dole and Rostenkowski, for example), and didn't accomplish much of his platform.
If you meant he was choosing which parts of the electorate to motivate and when to do it, I can only scratch my head. He won with the same coalition Nixon did (mythical Reagan Democrats aside), and made speeches when he wanted to push a major part of his agenda or get elected. If Reagan transcended politics for some people, it says way more about them than anything he accomplished.
