As someone of Obama's age group (within 15 months) and what I believe to be a similarly progressive viewpoint, I find it particularly refreshing when he pisses off certain doctrinaire leftists by telling truths that veer from their playbook. The latest is Obama's comments on deceased former President Ronald Reagan.
While various DailyKos diarists are up in arms and even Open Left's Matt Stoller misleadingly entitles his post "Obama's Admiration of Ronald Reagan," I'm surprised and pleased to see Obama making a case I've been expressing for a long time:
I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.
Taking the first part of this statement, there's no way Al Gore would have lost in 2000 if Bill Clinton had been less selfish, had not had sexual relations with a 23-year old intern and been able to effectively campaign with Gore. Clinton left behind no enduring political legacy save his wife's subsequent political career. While Bill Clinton was President, the "Reagan Revolution" was completed when, in 1994, the House of Representatives turned over the Republican Party for the first time since 1931.
Next we have his statement on excesses. Again, correct. While Stoller reads this as, "Those excesses, of course, were feminism, the consumer rights movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and the antiwar movement," I beg to differ.
The fact was that when Jimmy Carter was elected President and the Democrats suddenly had control of both Houses of Congress and the Executive Branch, they didn't go progressive, they simply porked up. The more honest New Deal generation was gone and in the long years between 1932 and 1980 that old guard was replaced, as so often happens over the long haul in initially successful and popular organization, with hacks. Everyone felt safe, everyone got a piece, while the economy was going to hell. This on top of the, yes, excessive Vietnam War -- a war the Democratic Party escalated most heavily when Democratic President Lyndon Johnson was in office, with a Democratic House of Representatives.
The last part of this Obama statement is essentially his strategy for winning the Presidency and securing America's future. Jimmy Carter spoke of an American malaise which, even if true, came across as blaming the American people for it. Not a pro-active leader who made you expect a better day tomorrow. While you'll find few voters who despised the Reagan Administration more than I, or who yelled at the screen more when he gave a speech, I do acknowledge that America was hungry for a change, hungry to feel better about their nation and their prospects again, and the Dems were only delivering the "promise" of better, kinder management, a promise gainsaid by their performance at the time.
The fact is that the Democrats always lose when they run on "better management," which is why Hillary Clinton has, I believe, only illusory advantage in her competence/hands on differentiation claims this week. Sure, we don't want another George W. Bush working purely from his gut and taking little responsibility for the disasters of his team's making. But Obama is not only obviously smarter than Bush, he's clearly emerged from the progressive sphere, that of community organization.
What Obama does appear to have, then, is the proper positioning to win the Presidency. While Hillary and Bill were fast to co-opt his message of change after Iowa, suddenly plastering it over appearances, calling Hillary "Ready for Change", they've actually fallen victim to Obama's rope-a-dope.
Sure, Obama gave his Iowa victory speech surrounded by huge versions of the word, "Change," he's actually selling something more than that. His secret weapon is exactly the same as Ronald Reagan's. Obama is selling hope.
As he said in that speech, this isn't a passive form of hope. Like Reagan, it requires active participation and entrepreneurship. But he knows it's the kind of trajectory that can actually make Americans of different stripes feel better about themselves and their country. Just like it did in Ronald Reagan's electoral success.
Only this time, make no mistake about it, it's coming from the left.
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