Daily Kos Diary: Obama is freaking right

[Pirate Smile]

Obama is freaking right

by MBNYC
Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 07:57:20 AM PST

Here we go. Barack Obama, in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, said some things of Ronald Reagan that were not quite to the taste of some people who happen to support other primary candidates (as, indeed, I do as well). Long story short, the Illinois Senator credited Reagan with a fundamental re-alignment of American politics. Clearly, this witch must burn.

The background to the story is at TPM, here. Stoller has a transcript, here.

Now, predictably enough - it is the silly season after all - the lamentations of rival partisans rend the very heavens in their anguish. It is to weep.

MBNYC's diary :: ::
Let's make this as clear as is humanly possible. Obama did not extol Reagan's achievements, if that is the right term for what what the man left behind. His argument is political, and thus, very much worth listening to. Because, if we can face facts for a moment, Reagan crushed us. His defeat of Jimmy Carter ushered in twelve long years of republican rule, years in which the conservative movement grew and built that vaunted infrastructure that has more recently cost us so dearly.

This is what Obama is looking at. And guess what? He is absolutely, one hundred percent, right. America needs a movement President - the Progressive movement needs a movement President.

As Obama said:

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.

Damn right. Neither Nixon's nor Clinton's presidencies ushered in partisan realignments for their own parties, instead, both effected a swing to their respective oppositions. Nixon and Clinton did not challenge or change the prevailing ideology of their times; they reinforced it. In Nixon's case, the orthodoxy was liberal; in Clinton's case, Reagan-conservative.

Richard Nixon brought us the Clean Air Act and the EPA, even was kind enough to hand us expanded Congressional majorities and disgrace his party.

Bill Clinton brought us, drumroll, school uniforms, Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. Bill Clinton, through a combination of political ineptitude, unpopular policies and the sheer force of his personality, lost his party, our party, the House, the Senate, and a majority of governorships in 1994. The raw numbers are appalling: Democrats lost 54 House seats, giving the other party a majority for the first time since 1954. Prior to 1952, the republicks had not won a majority in the House since 1928. Bill Clinton changed all that, for twelve long years, freaking political genius that he is. Throw in eight Senate seats (including Al Gore's seat) and twelve shiny new republick governors (flanked by 472 new republick state legislators creating new majorities in 21 state chambers) and you have the building blocks of the Bush era.

Worse yet, from the standpoint of the Progressive movement, the Clinton era saw the withering both of the Democratic brand and of the Democratic party. Democrats in the Clinton era were those nice people who brought you NAFTA and 100,000 more cops on the street and ended big government as we knew it. Welfare reform and a new law that prohibited the Federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, signed with a flourish by a Democratic President and enthusiastically advertised during his re-election campaign. That's not how you build a movement.

You also don't build a movement, just to twist that knife, with reptilian Beltway bobble-heads like James Carville and Terry McAuliffe prattling away on the teevee and sucking up to millionaires for seven-figure checks. You especially don't build a movement by shutting out your own party's grassroots. If you really want to go for the gold in the how-not-to-build-a-movement sweepstakes, you construct a shiny new party headquarters in Washington, D.C., paid for by big donors, and completely screw up the unsexy stuff like, say, voter databases. The Clinton approach to party-building combines the charm of a top-down, center-periphery mindset with the stench of incremental (but ultimately massive) failure. What a winning team.

From a strictly partisan political perspective, candidate Obama has already done more for Democrats than, say, Bill Clinton's entire post-Presidency. The same can be said of John Edwards, my preferred choice, who has led the war of ideas. Edwards went to New Orleans to announce his candidacy - Bill preened in Davos and went on a tour with George Bush the Elder. Awesome way to create distinctions, Big Dog. It's not Bill or Hillary who fixed the damage to the Democratic Party their tenure inflicted; that credit goes, among others, to Howard Dean, the same guy they're going to get rid of as DNC chair and replace, presumably, with another odious DLC suckup like, say, Harold Ford.

If Barack Obama wants to be a different President than Bill Clinton, and do for our party what Reagan did for his, I'll re-consider voting for him. I want a movement President. This movement needs a movement President. Say what you will about Barack Obama, but he gets the grassroots - just look at the man's spectacular campaign. Just ask all those new voters he's bringing into the fold. The Obama independents (and republicans) are today's Reagan Democrats. That's your lasting Progressive majority, right there.

Eat your heart out, Taylor Marsh.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/17/105720/622/269/438076

[Colobo]

1. Precisely. Obama doesn't consider Reagan's presidency a "success".

He considers his electoral victories and the consolidation the power of the GOP under his administration a success.

[ProSense]

2. Nothing to add, except:

From left to right: Harold Ford, Jr. is chairman of the DLC. U.S. Sen. Tom Carper is vice chair of the DLC; U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is chair of the DLC's American Dream Initiative; Al From is founder and CEO of the DLC. (Not pictured: Bruce Reed is DLC president; Pennsylvania State Representative Jennifer Mann is chair of the DLC's State Legislative Advisory Board (SLAB); Columbus (OH) Mayor Michael Coleman is chair of the DLC's Local Elected Officials Network(LEON).)

link

[sniffa]

3. People are slobbering idiots.

And as I type this, a few more Obama fellates Raygun's dead corpse threads are being posted.

[NoBorders]

5. It's amazing how people completely miss the point

And just mindlessly launch into anti-Reagan screeds. As a progessive democrat, I completely agree that Reagan was a horrible president. But that is not the point. I guess for some people to hear the word 'Reagan' is like waving a red flag in front of a bull: they just mindlessly charge at it.

[ellacott]

6. True

[Usrename]

52. But. but, but....

none of it is true. You know that don't you?

Obama's rhetoric about how Ronald Reagan was the champion for smaller, more effective government, and how he ushered in the new era of personal responsibility..

You do understand that all this crap that Obama is claiming to be true about Ronald Reagan.. it's all a lie.. you know that, don't you?

This is getting scarey...

:hide:

[babylonsister]

57. Most of them aren't missing the point at all, they're just

poking sticks in the hornets nest to rile everyone up. They are supporting their own candidate and will use, by any means necessary, whatever works to drive a stake into Obama's campaign.
To me, that indicates they're threatened; that's a good thing, I guess, but it must suck to be them.

[Hello_Kitty]

17. Deliberately obtuse.

Oh and

GO LEE MERCER!!1!

[Laurab]

44. I do NOT slobber.....

much....:hi:

[NoFederales]

61. Extreme care is required when using buzz words and catch phrases

which have the potential to set off people's alarm buttons. People get conditioned to "go off" when they hear or see certain things: that's why propaganda is such a loathsome tool.

It is poor strategy to believe that esoteric and abstruse points will be followed by average citizens because they do not "think" first, or mull the content of a message. Reaction at low level thinking order processes is where most of us operate daily. Any teacher who wants above average participation at higher levels of thinking knows this and must adopt methodologies to achieve such. I do not believe a political campaign is the vehicle for such a desired outcome, if indeed, that was Obama's intent. Lament as we will the limitations of public's educational abilities, the reality is that this audience is "limited", and that strategic, intelligent candidates sure as hell better be innovative in delivering the intended understandable message. Obama needs to explain his remarks, and in the future avoid esoteric/abstruse pitfalls of communication.

NoFederales

On edit: attempting to clean up grammatical statement

[jefferson_dem]

4. Thanks for the perspective.

Obama will be the "movement president" this country needs.

:kick:

[Phx_Dem]

31. I guess

if moving towards the center is the goal.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

42. He is moving republicans and indeps toward the Left

not himself toward the center(his state and US senate record is clear proof of that )

[Maven]

7. LOL

Pathetic.

[ProSense]

8. Good

non-response!

[Maven]

11. No further response is needed.

It's obvious there's literally nothing Obama's followers won't defend. It's almost sad, the level of groupthink and denial.

[cali]

32. You are sad

and I don't think you read the diary- which, by the way, was a sharp piece of analysis. If you don't agree, simply saying silly dismissive things, doesn't actually make anyone think you're terribly bright. Stock accusations of groupthink are hardly a stellar example of your own ability to exercise critical thinking. the diarist gives exampls and uses history to make his points. You? Lame.

[Maven]

38. Oh, cali.

This is a rough day for you. Your flimsy sunshine salesman candidate is finally getting read on his ideas. And people don't like them.

My thoughts are with you, hun.

[NoBorders]

9. LOL

Pathetic.

[robbedvoter]

10. I'd buy this if it weren't for the book quotes:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4087189&mesg_id=4087491
snip

Nevertheless, by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster."

[Hello_Kitty]

15. I don't see what's wrong with that quote

Obama isn't saying Reagan's promises were genuine nor that he delivered on them. He's talking about the message, not the man himself.

[sandnsea]

27. If liberals had been able to muster a common purpose

Reagan wouldn't have won.

It's common sense. He's explaining the dynamics of the time. It's true. It's reality.

and so is..

"..and certainly liberals were right to complain that his domestic policies tilted heavily toward elites, with corporate raiders making tidy profits throughout the eighties while unions were busted and the income for the average working stiff flatlined."

:shrug:

His policies sucked but he was right in identifying some of the problems. Same as Clinton because Clinton continued with the same mentality, although not quite as bad as Reagan.

[rox63]

12. Amen!

Can I get an Amen, people?

[Inuca]

19. Amen :-) n/t

[Bread and Circus]

13. Obama is extremely prescient on this issue...

What did Bill Clinton leave us:

A great economy?

- sorry, that bubble busted in more ways than one
- outsourcing
- nafta
- everything made in china
- America trends more pro-corporate, anti-worker, anti-working class

A progressive shift?

- You gotta be kidding

Health Care Reform?

- Insurance company and drug company profits through the roof.
- Soaring drug and health costs

Media improvements?

- try deregulation, corporate concentration of information of power

An heir?

- try George Bush

A unified country?

- America more divided than ever

There may be some lasting good things of Clinton, but I can't think of any that are significant or would last any test of time at the moment. Please relieve me of that depressing notion.

[Maven]

18. An heir - try George Bush

You mean the George Bush Obama praised as a "likeable, shrewd and disciplined" man trying to do what's best for his country?

http://www.time.com/time/2007/candidates_books/obama/

That George Bush?

[Bread and Circus]

21. I mean that George Bush, Clinton's heir....

I noticed you couldn't come up w/ any lasting good things, which is the point.

[Maven]

23. So you agree with Obama that Bush is "likeable, shrewd and disciplined"

and that he just wants what's best for America?

[Bread and Circus]

37. I agree that you can't address the point at hand one bit.....

[leftynyc]

28. I'll give you two

Stephen Breyer and Ruth Ginsberg.

[Bread and Circus]

40. Yes, that's excellent but that's just a matter of opportunity

he got the opportunity to name 2 justices. Naturally, that is a built-in legacy feature of any presidency. This is nothing special about Bill. True they are good decisions though, so credit given where credit is due.

Anything else?

[leftynyc]

43. Don't you understand that judges

Supreme or federal are the only real lasting legacy of most presidents? Clinton put dozens of great judges on the bench. Reagan had 3 opportunities to satisfy is base and only managed to get one rabid conservative on.

Crime statistics plunged during his administration, minority (and majority) unemployment went down, home ownership went up, he left with a giant surplus that got squandered. If you want to think he was a bad democratic president, knock yourself out. If you think we would have fared better under George senior or Dole, there is nothing I can say that will deter that dream.

[question everything]

54. Do you really think that Obama, or anyone else, can reverse these?

Unless we follow Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs and just shut the borders and do not import or export anything, we can reverse this.

But globalization is a fact. And people buying cheap made in China at Wal Mart is a fact. And the population migration from the liberal Northeast to the conservative South and Southwest is a fact.

And the shift from a manufacturing to a service based economy is a fact. This is why a "stimulus" will be sending some $300 again, so that we can go and spend it on things that we don't need. Just as papa Bush did in 1992, purchased a pair of socks.

Things have changed since Clinton took office and I doubt that Obama can or even wants to reverse the above.

[robbedvoter]

14. Reagan offered Americans a sense of common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster."

quote from Obama's book
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4087189&mesg_id=4087491

also why it's a bad idea anyway
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4088845&mesg_id=4088845

[mnhtnbb]

30. That common purpose was an appeal to their narcissism.

[Inuca]

16. Excellent, excellent diary n/t

[Mountainman]

20. I'm not a supporter of any candidate but I agree with Obama here.

I don't think Jimmy Carter deserves all the blame for the way things were in this country and the world during his administration but be that as it may, he and the left were blamed for it and that is why Reagan became president. The people were ready for change just as they are now. It doesn't take Obama to fill that need though. Who ever is the next president be he or she a Democrat will be expected to bring about that change.

[Clarkansas]

22. This Reagan thing is one of the biggest non-issues ever to earn 1000 threads on du. eom

[Luminous Animal]

24. Reagan's optimistic racist campaign

Reagan's campaign united bigots in a backlash against gains in civil rights and social and economic justice (those so-called excesses of the 60s and 70s. I have no problem with characterizing Reagan as transformative, I do have a problem with characterizing him as an optimist. He decidedly wasn't. Rather, Reagan campaign was an appeal to fear of women and minorities rising. Reagan, quite simply, united the bigots of both parties. I have a problem with characterizing the gains made in the 60s and 70s as excesses. As important as they were, they didn't even come close to the advances in the social contract enjoyed by most of the rest of the western nations.

My question to Obama and his supporters is this. What specifically were those excesses that Reagan, with clarity and optimism, rallied "us" against?

The following is a peek into Reagan's "clarity" and "optimism":

http://hnn.us/articles/44535.html

"A full account of the incident has to consider how the national GOP was trying to strengthen its southern state parties and win support from southern white Democrats. Consider a letter that Michael Retzer, the Mississippi national committeeman, wrote in December 1979 to the Republican national committee. Well before the Republicans had nominated Reagan, the national committee was polling state leaders to line up venues where the Republican nominee might speak. Retzer pointed to the Neshoba County Fair as ideal for winning what he called the "George Wallace inclined voters."

...

On July 31st, just days before Reagan went to Neshoba County, the New York Times reported that the Ku Klux Klan had endorsed Reagan. In its newspaper, the Klan said that the Republican platform "reads as if it were written by a Klansman." Reagan rejected the endorsement, but only after a Carter cabinet official brought it up in a campaign speech. The dubious connection did not stop Reagan from using segregationist language in Neshoba County.

It was clear from other episodes in that campaign that Reagan was content to let southern Republicans link him to segregationist politics in the South’s recent past. Reagan’s states rights line was prepared beforehand and reporters covering the event could not recall him using the term before the Neshoba County appearance. John Bell Williams, an arch-segregationist former governor who had crossed party lines in 1964 to endorse Barry Goldwater, joined Reagan on stage at another campaign stop in Mississippi. Reagan’s campaign chair in the state, Trent Lott, praised Strom Thurmond, the former segregationist Dixiecrat candidate in 1948, at a Reagan rally, saying that if Thurmond had been elected president "we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today."

...

Throughout his career, Reagan benefited from subtly divisive appeals to whites who resented efforts in the 1960s and 70s to reverse historic patterns of racial discrimination. He did it in 1966 when he campaigned for the California governorship by denouncing open housing and civil rights laws. He did it in 1976 when he tried to beat out Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination by attacking welfare in subtly racist terms. And he did it in Neshoba County in 1980."

[Pirate Smile]

25. kick

[ShortnFiery]

26. Excellent analysis and commentary.

:thumbsup:

[mnhtnbb]

29. Reagan Democrats are part of a lasting Progressive majority?

What kind of twilight zone thinking is that? Another attempt to redefine history?

[Seabiscuit]

58. You beat me to it - sums up my first reaction to this article too.

WTF is a "Reagan Democrat" beyond an oxymoron?

[David Zephyr]

33. Good writing.

:thumbsup:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

34. Obama is extremely intelligent and also politically shrewd

Obama is about 10 steps ahead of the pack

[debatepro]

35. Very well put!!!!

I was thinking the same thing but didn't say it as eloquently. Obama "extol" reagan's policies or ideology... he says what is fact... reagan built the republican party (majority)... he was so good at it you have many americans that vote against their interest. If we could create a counter movement to get people to vote their interests... we could have national healthcare!

[mckeown1128]

36. kick

[Thrill]

39. Anyone who would actually look at the video

instead of making a damn fool of themselves would see that Obama was talking about Regan's election campaign and not his success as a President. But of course people usually don't listen

[BenDavid]

41. the daily kos is the daily cuss and old kos did not mind

taking all those thousands of dollars from the hrc campaign and then leap a ton of down right bullshit just to side with obama cause he was against the war in iraq.....

but as joe wilson said, : i looked to the left of me and to the right of me and I did not see obama anywhere.So, what happened a day after the vote was taken, HRC and Robert Byrd went down and submitted amother bill which further restricted, atempted to restrict the apply for the president to act. The american people were sold on this resolution NOT because the president wanted to go to war, becasue he said publicly, I do not want this resolution to go to war. I want a resolution so I can get to the united nations and get intrusive inspections.

THE GREAT BETRAYAL OF THE AMERICA PEOPLE IS NOT IN THAT RESOLUTION. IT WAS THE PRESIDENT NOT ALLOWING THE INSPECTIONS TO REACH THEIR NATURAL CONCLUSIONS.....

[Tennessee Gal]

45. Sorry, ain't buying it.

[Horse with no Name]

46. He INVOKED Reagan

for one reason and one reason only. To sway those that LOVED everything Reagan to vote for him.

[Flabbergasted]

47. Great! Thanks. KR

[Leo 9]

48. Well said!

And well worth repeating.

[Flabbergasted]

49. kick

[bratfavre]

50. There are a zillion different diaries with different opinions in Daiy Kos

Why do people post the ones that are favorable to their favorite candidate?
Why not post our own opinion in DU?

[Pirate Smile]

51. kick

[ChiciB1]

53. Note... He Said Edwards Was His Preferred Candidate! n/t

[dkf]

55. Bill Clinton was bad for the Democratic brand

He left us hurting bad with minorities in the house senate and governorships.

He had us defending infidelity and lying.

Why do we want to go back there?

[BringBigDogBack]

56. I just saw this.

K&R

[HamdenRice]

59. One of the best posts in months

It surely is the silly season of distorted gotchas. This analysis is spot on.

[mopinko]

60. NEW VOTERS- that would be the important part here, people.

NEW VOTRERS. obama is bringing in NEW VOTERS. there are lots and lots of them laying around, ya know.