Dionne; Why Obama is like Reagan

| February 29, 2008

I read with some measure of amusement this morning Washington Post’s EJ Dionne‘s column comparing Ronald Reagan’s critics to those of Barack Obama.

Like Reagan’s enemies, Obama’s opponents concede that he gives a great speech. Indeed, both Obama and Reagan came to wide attention because of a single oration that offered hope in the midst of a losing campaign — Obama’s 2004 keynote to the Democratic National Convention and Reagan’s 1964 “A Time for Choosing” address delivered on behalf of Barry Goldwater. But surely speeches aren’t enough, are they?

Yes, Obama gets his crowds swooning. So did Reagan. It’s laughable to hear conservatives talk darkly about a “cult of personality” around Obama.

But, lisping Dionne ignores, in his comparison, the fact that Ronald Reagan actually had a record of leadership and reform as governor of California before he made his first run at the White House in 1976. What has Obama done? He’s been a legislator – he’s always been one of the voices in the crowd, he’s never led a thing.

You can almost hear the Republican crowd shouting, “Yes, we can!” Reagan offered, well, change we could believe in.

Still, Democrats kept telling themselves, right to November, that voters wouldn’t fall for any of this. Charisma, eloquence, idealism and hope were no match for experience, realism, prudence and predictability.

Yeah, EJ, but the Republicans of 1980 didn’t chant “Yes, we can”, they didn’t swoon and collapse, they didn’t fall for language – they were seduced by a record of experience, wrapped in a language we could understand and backed by Reagan’s record of doing what he’d said he’d do. Reagan was the only President to ever run for office with a union card in his wallet, his stint as governor proved him to be a man of action, not merely words. All Obama has is words.

The reason voters “fell” for Reagan’s talk in 1980 was because we’d already had four years of Jimmy Carter and his scolding us for being ate-up with the dumbass – we were ready for change. As an entire nation, we were tired of the inept Jimmy Carter who followed through on not one campaign promise of the 1976 campaign – right down his promise to not give away the Canal. Do you think America would have voted for Jimmy Carter if he’d told us the first thing he was going to do was give amnesty to draft dodgers? Obama is following in Carter’s footsteps, according to the Liberty Pundit;

Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned.

Dionne continues;

Democrats in large numbers have reached the same conclusion that so many Republicans did in 1980: Now is the time to go for broke, to challenge not only the ruling party but also the governing ideas of the previous political era and the political coalition that allowed them to dominate public life.

See, there’s your problem, EJ. This is why you are consistently wrong on every prediction and every observation you make about politics – Democrats aren’t Republicans. You’d be more right if compared Obama’s campaign and empty rhetoric to Jimmy Carter’s run in 1976. But being right would be a new experience for you, wouldn’t it, Dionne?

Category: Jimmy Carter, Media

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