Disclosure: I voted for Obama in the primary and strongly prefer him as our next president over Clinton.
I was not around to witness the Jack and Bobby era first-hand, but before this latest wave of JFK comparisons I felt that in Obama I was witnessing a phenomenon akin to JFK/RFK. Yet, the more I hear the ‘Obama as the Black Kennedy’ meme, the more suspicious I become.
And since Caroline and Teddy have made overt their feelings about the Obama/Kennedy connection, more people have jumped on the bandwagon and each day a different old-Democrat war horse comes out and echos the “I knew JFK and Mr. Obama is a new JFK” theme. In Kristoff’s New York Times column, we see this:
“I’ve worked for three presidents and known two or three others,” said Michael Blumenthal, who started his public career under President Kennedy and served as Treasury secretary under President Carter. “And Obama is just about the only politician I’ve ever seen who compares to Jack Kennedy.”
My question is this: is this nation-wide Obama/Kennedy comparison an organic, genuine feeling? Or is this the Dems taking a page out of the Republican play book? Is JFK the Dem Reagan? The Republicans act as if Reagan was ten feet tall and his tears cured cancer. Each Republican candidate has dug up the corpse of the Reagan mythos and made sweet love to it in stump speeches and televised debates. There’s a whole generation of people who have no information about Reagan, yet the Republicans have done such a fantastic job fabricating the new Reagan brand that people think he is second only to Jesus Christ himself in terms of American salvation. It doesn’t matter who McCain chooses for VP, he wants people to think Ronald Reagan is his running mate.
It makes me wonder: did the Dems feel they needed their own dead president with which to enter the realm of political spiritual warfare? Is this Obama/Kennedy comparison a cooked up, coordinated effort so that the ghost of JFK could do battle with the ghost of Ronald Reagan in November?
I said above that I do feel the Kennedy comparison is valid. However, I think pro-Obama Democrats are laying it on thick the same way Republicans lay their love for Reagan on thick. If Obama wants to run against Clinton on the “It’s the past versus the future” campaign theme, overuse of the JFK comparison might not be the best idea.
Obama has never made the Kennedy comparisons himself and to be fair the Kennedys for whatever reason see themselves in his candidacy and thats all well and could if thats their reason to support him, ill take anyone to support my candidate. But personally as a young guy born right when Reagan left office and long after JFK got popped I don’t really give a damn about resurrecting their legacies and one of Obama’s bests assets is that he is a fresh face.
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p>I am tired of living the bulk of my life under the yoke of two incompetent political families that have ruined this country. And as far as I recall from my historical understanding Reagan really screwed this country up, gutted social programs, forced me to pay for his expanded military, and did little to help the American people. JFK frankly was too tepid on civil rights, too ignorant about Vietnam (yes folks we wouldve lost that war even if he didnt die), and died too early for history to properly judge his presidency but it seems that he did too little to get the credit he does.
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p>I see in Obama someone with a fresh perspective on the issues, new ideas, a commitment to end this foolish culture war thats been going on since the 60s, a commitment to actually solving problems, a commitment not to fight for the sake of fighting, and a soaring unique rhetoric that is truly a wonderful uplifting sound in these dark times.
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p>So in the sense that he is young, fresh, and makes me optimistic about my country I guess he is similar to Reagan and JFK. But hopefully he will govern a lot longer and a lot better than they did.