In a recent NYT column Paul Krugman said that Sen. Barack Obama wasn’t as progressive as he seemed. Does this interview suggest Krugman is correct? Or does it suggest something else? From Politico: http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs…. (Move the thingy up to 17:00 minutes):
Obama, in his interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal’s editorial board, made the case that his movement is as much about a national moment as about him as a “singular” individual, and he drew a rather odd analogy for a Democrat: Ronald Reagan.
“Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not,” he said, describing Reagan as appealing to a sentiment that, “We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism nad entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
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I’ve been waiting to see if Clinton or Edwards would pick up on this.
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p>Here’s Edwards today
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p>”I would never use Ronald Reagan as an example of change…
“He was openly — openly — intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country. He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment, you know, eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment…
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p>”I can promise you this: This president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change.”
What gets forgotten is that as Governor of California (where I grew up) Reagan destroyed the mental health system (releasing 1,000’s into the streets who ended up as homeless people) and the state Education system. But dam he did give a great speech so you felt all warm and fuzzy while he did it.
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p>For any Democrat to raise the specter of Reagan is Political Pandering of the worst sort and not a message of hope. Obama still not ready for Prime time.
If you don’t appreciate how much Reagan changed the entire tone and expectations of the public towards government’s responsibilities, you weren’t paying attention. Furthermore, there’s nothing in Obama’s language that indicates any endorsement of the actual content of Reagan’s “change”.
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p>If you think he’s being canny by a.) signaling to the left that he thinks it’s time for an large-scale ideological re-alignment towards our side, while also b.) name-dropping Reagan for the benefit of conservatives disillusioned by Bush … gosh, you may be right. That would be damn clever.
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p>Edwards is being dumb. He’s my candidate, but he’s just being silly in this case.
…it’s just a shame that the person he came up with as personifying clarity and optimism is a Republican figure. I wouldn’t expect Huckabee to agitate for a return to the humble and true religion of Jimmy Carter.
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p>Surely there are Democrats out there with the same image, and if Obama wants to promote the party he could have chosen one of those. Of course, Obama’s gotten this far thanks to unenrolled voters, not Democrats, so maybe he’s just courting his constituency.
Gee, it is not that hard to think of one (It might be hard to think of more than one without digging a little too deep in the history book for the memory of 2008 voters)Democrat who successfully emulated Reagan’s sunny optimistic style, if not his policies. I wonder why Obama is reluctant to mention that guy instead of a damned dirty Republican?
…that Ronald Reagan did his share of cross-party emulating. He often cited and quoted FDR and JFK as examples of and inspiration for his own optimism. Both parties have their visionary moments, but I agree with the previous poster who said that Obama was not indicating that he substantively endorses Reagan’s kind of change. As a community organizer in Chicago I’m sure Obama has had more than is share of first-hand encounters with the consequences of the Reagan legacy.
Heck, Harry Truman is second only to Reagan in terms of invocations by many Republicans. But Truman is safely and long dead, and there aren’t a whole lot of “Truman Republicans” wandering the hillside. He is quoted for the same reason that Democrats quote Lincoln — he belongs to the other party, but belongs more to history. Reagan’s movement is recent and fresh, in many ways still alive, and definitely Republican. A Democrat praising the genesis of that movement is indirectly giving succor to the myth of the modern Republican Party. There’s bipartisanship, and then there’s “thank you sir, may I have another”.
for the sunny optimism of Carter and Mondale.
Here’s the full quote, emphasis added:
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p>”I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. 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.”
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p>The problem I have with this statement is that Obama employs this right-wing frame which lays claim that Reagan swept into office to tamper down a bloated, liberal federal government and to unite the country.
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p>RR was not a uniter- he was a divider. He campaigned with nativistic and rascist undertones.
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p>And “Morning in America” was by no means characteristic of the Reagan administration.
Really, apart from creating one of the largest deficits ever and taking credit for the downfall of the Soviet Union when there were a whole lot of reasons for its downfall, what did he really do for America that was lasting? (Apart from firing all the air traffic controllers because he hated unions.) Ronald Reagan retored accountability? So what was that Iran Contra thing was all about?
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p>Bill Clinton, by the way, actually did decrease the size of government and got rid of the deficit. His administration did set the country on a better course and then GWB came in and screwed it up.
Reagan re-invigorated the notion that the government is a problem, not a solution. Unshackled the economy from oppressive regulation. Broke the stifling power of public sector trade unions. Major, major reform of the tax code, now largely squandered, alas. Moved the country past feeling bad about Vietnam. Sold Carter’s own defense policy better than Carter did, and made it his own. Completed the transition of the military from broken mess with no qualified officers to potent, professional machine (also now squandered, alas.)
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p>I like Clinton, but recognize that he needed a Republican Congress to actually decrease the size of government and eliminate the deficit. Hence my theory that the nation is best governed when it is divided: the executive to one party and the Congress to the other. This eliminates most or all of the power of the fringe element on either side and empowers moderates of both parties, while preventing either side from going too far with their own ideologically driven policies.
not least.
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p>If sides are honestly willing to compromise, then perhaps a divided government would work and the country could make progress. Unfortunately, what you describe is just as apt to lead to gridlock. Divided government is a recipe for inaction that results in elevating the trivial into big news. Because nothing is being done, attention gets focused on childish things. In the Clinton years, we had Travelgate and Whitewater and I can’t remember what else.
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p>The U.S. government might have gone down the toilet when Bush entered the White House, but the partisanship of the Republicans was a result of being shut out Congress. They haven’t cared about compromise in decades.
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p>A divided government leads to hyper-partisanship. When Clinton was in the White House with a Republican majority in Congress, the Republican party and its fringes did everything it could to destroy him from shutting down the government to finally impeachment. The Worst President Ever was just the apotheosis of a Republican strategy.
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p>Mark
It isn’t. It is a feature, not a bug. If the government is gridlocked, there can be no massive new entitlement programs pushed by Democrats, because Republicans block it. There can be no reckless tax cuts, because Democrats block it. The Republicans were nasty during that time, but they didn’t screw everything up. Indeed, they forced Clinton to take the steps to get to his vaunted balanced budget.
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p>You are correct that hyper-partisanship existed from 1994-2000. But it also existed from 2000-present, and the country was a heck of a lot better governed from 1994-2000 than it was from 1992-94, and certainly since 2000. Much of Republican strong arm tactics were payback for the tactics of the Democrats in the Rostenkowski years.
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p>I continue to believe that any sound policy-making by Congress is done by a majority of Party X with a significant plurality of Party Y, and I am therefore content with divided, gridlocked government.
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p>The Republican strategy of marginalizing the middle, rather then the wing is the essence of Bush/Rove. I suspect that this strategy will be re-evaluated in 2009 and 2010. I am concerned that the Democrats are headed the same way: the potential exists to play solely to the so-called progressives, which would be a mistake, and would end in grief, as the GOP expiriment in being ideologically pure is about to end.
Think of the word gridlock. It means nothing is moving. Well, sometimes things have to get moving. Stuff needs to get done. It doesn’t get done with gridlock. Global warming, energy dependence. No movement. Gridlock means two parties that don’t want to lose face pass legislation that moves almost imperceptibly forward or nowhere it all. If you want gridlock, you don’t want anything to happen.
I contend that the hyper-partisanship of the Republicans was a direct result of gridlock (aside from a genuinely nasty streak among some of its political stalwarts). If a congressman or senator has an agenda, which they were elected to carry out, which they may even believe in, they they have two choices: partisanship or cooperation. When the country is polarized, in crisis as we are now, there is little cooperation. That leaves (hyper)partisanship for those who want to accomplish something.
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p>Mark
But government is opposite world. The slower and more painful its movements, the better. When it moves aggressively, we wind up with 3-ton blocks of concrete hanging by a bit of glue and a paper clip. Heck, we wind up with that when it moves slowly, just less of it.
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p>Our fundamental difference in philosphy: When Reagan said that government was the problem, I believe that in some measure he was right. The progressive, I think, beleives this sogan of Reagan to be a slander upon the public sector. I think he was right not because government employees are bad people, but because they become part of a vast beauracracy, and beuaracracies are dysfunctional, expensive, and ineffective.
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p>That is why I don’t disagree with you when you point out the inefficiencies of haeth care financing as presently structured, or raj when he points out the idiocies at GM or GE. The difference is that, at some point, private beuracracies are mortal. US Steel died. GM just might follow. If someone figures out a way for me to change heath insurance companies without changing employers, I, along with everyone else, will shop for the Sam Walton who will wring that waste out of the system. Government beuracracies, on the other hand, are immortal, their potential for mischeif is proportionately greater, and their growth must therefore be resisted.
Tell that to Bangladesh when it goes under water from the global climate shift.
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p>Good lord, we need visionary and decisive leadership, not gridlock, right now.
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p>And deregulation only imposed a greater burden on Americans…conglomerates and monopolies which undermine the middle class by concentrating wealth in the top 1%. Ray-gun was no populist nor did his policies set this country in a better direction. Frankly, the regulations and tax burden on the top was so not onerous. It was probably actually in the healthy middle between the 91% tax rate of the mid century and the free for all we have now. In the wild wild west, wealth concentrates, and absolute wealth concentrates absolutely.
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p>And Ray-gun’s “popularity” is largely a myth. At the time, he led a divided country, which has remained so.
Wasn’t half his tenure with a Democratic congress?
he refused to bargain with terrorists, except for the arms for hostages part. He refused to raise taxes, until he raised. He did a great job in Lebanon (325 marines dead)and Central America (supporting right wing militias and death squad). He told Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall at least minutes before it happened. In WW II, he liberated concentration camps (oh, I forgot, he made that part up).
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p>One of my friends likes to say that Reagan made it okay for people to be selfish. I tend to agree.
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p>Mark