Obama Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15

[AGirl]

years..


When Obama said this, I think he did mean that the republicans had some good ideas, and some bad ideas, he can’t really say they are a party of ideas if all their ideas are bad. I am not trying to distort anything Obama said, but that is how I interpret the sentence. Saying a political party has a lot of ideas and that’s why they were so successful suggest to me that the person who said it believe some of the ideas were good.

So what good ideas do you think obama is referring to?

[avaistheone1]

1. Ugh! The Reaganite ideas were all bad ideas.

:mad:

[featherman]

2. Let me approach this in a slightly different way

If the Republicans were so devoid of "ideas" or "themes" that resonated with the American voting public in the past couple of decades, then why:

-has a minority party like the GOP held the White House for 20 of the past 28 years?

-has the GOP held the House from 1994-2006?

-has the GOP held the Senate for most of the past 30 years?

I'd be the first to argue that "ideas" such as those expressed in the "Contract With America" were bad ideas but the proof is in the pudding. As Democrats we can whine and complain about how bad the GOP ideas have been but, for the most part in recent political history, the voting public accepted them by a plurality in election after election and rejected ours.

So there's that.

[AGirl]

3. thats a good and honest answer

too bad alot of people aren't honest like that.

[MyNameGoesHere]

4. Was not a lot of it

due to Democratic held congress getting a little corrupt? I seem to remember scandal after scandal involving a lot of Democrats. Now the RW mouth piece did an exceptional job of staying on message and making the Democratic party look bad. But to say that they did any better or resonated with the people? I don't know. I think it was scandal fatigue more than anything.

[AGirl]

5. The fact that we are arguing about how to interpret Obama’s comment

Is a clear indication that what he said was vague and it is not Clinton’s fault to question the vaguness.

When you say things that are questionable and you refuse to be explicit on your stance, than you are leaving it open for people to interpret what you said in their own way and I don’t think Clinton should be fault for that. This is the most important job anyone has to apply for and people should be responsible for what they say.

[chimpymustgo]

13. AGirl, you have made an excellent point that happens frequently with Obama.

So many questionable statements, open to vast interpretation. I do think his comments about Reagan and Republican ideas came out more admiring than not.

[MethuenProgressive]

6. That's a smear against Bill Clinton's Presidency. "While Bill was Prez, only the GOP had good ideas"

...

[ProSense]

7. Hillary on Reagan: "He played the balance and the music beautifully"

Hillary on Reagan: "He played the balance and the music beautifully"

[Hart2008]

8. Obama sounds like he had been reading Gary Hart's comments on the Clintons.

Obama has said several things that sound like he has been reading Gary Hart. His comments about the Republicans putting forth ideas are similar to Hart's comments from 2004:

Hart was the campaign manager for George McGovern’s quixotic 1972 campaign. The epilogue to his memoir of that campaign, “Right from the Start,” said, “The Democratic Party, under penalty of irrelevance and extinction, must bring forward a new generation of thinkers who are in touch with the real world … ”

That hasn’t happened. Hart says he doesn’t know why.

Bill Clinton did not bring forth this new generation of Democratic ideas. “He left no legacy,” Hart said. “I’ve known him for 30 years. He’s a tactician.”

On the contrary, Hart says that big, creative thinking about American politics for the past 20 years has been dominated by the healthy competition on the Right between neo-conservatives, Christian conservatives and Gingrichians.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/30/opinion/meyer...

Bill Clinton was and is a tactician for himself and his wife, not the pary as a whole.

[cali]

9. uh, no. he likely did not mean they had any good ideas

What he said is standard issue political analysis. kos wrote a great long piece about it comparing what Obama said and what kow himself said in his book "Crashing the Gates". It's the commonly held view that repukes during that era seized the "party of ideas" label by running up ideas such as school vouchers and privatizing Social Security.

[AGirl]

10. i guess HIllary should have read Kos then.

[FrenchieCat]

11. Obama was clear....privatization, outsourcing, Contract with America,

vouchers, elective war and other ideas from the Republican party were ideas that challenged the conventional wisdom.

Conventional Wisdom - Meaning,
Conventional wisdom (CW) is a term coined by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith in The Affluent Society, used to describe certain ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true by the public.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_wisdom

Halfway educated people would understand this statement.
People who are attempting to discredit what someone said, would try not to.

[Radical Activist]

12. Obama already answered this

He said he didn't think their ideas were good and actively fought against them. There's no reason to confuse the issue the way your post does.