2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumPresident Obama: The Democrats' Ronald Reagan
Newsweek Magazine
President Obama: The Democrats' Ronald Reagan
by Andrew Sullivan
Sep 24, 2012 1:00 AM EDT
With his first term behind him, Obama is poised to be as significant a president as Reagantackling the deficit, spearheading immigration reform, and jolting the GOP back to sanity.
As the fall has turned crisper, a second term for Barack Obama has gotten likelier. This may, of course, change: the debates, the Middle East, the unemployment numbers could still blow up the race. At this point in 2004, one recalls, George W. Bush was about to see a near eight-point lead shrivel to a one-state nail-biter by Election Day. But one thing that has so far, in my view, been underestimated is the potential impact of a solid Obama win, and perhaps a Democratic retention of the Senate and some progress in the House. This is now a perfectly plausible outcome. It would also be a transformational moment in modern American politics.
If Obama wins, to put it bluntly, he will become the Democrats Reagan. The narrative writes itself. He will emerge as an iconic figure who struggled through a recession and a terrorized world, reshaping the economy within it, passing universal health care, strafing the ranks of al -Qaeda, presiding over a civil-rights revolution, and then enjoying the fruits of the recovery. To be sure, the Obama recovery isnt likely to have the same oomph as the one associated with Reaganwho benefited from a once-in-a-century cut of top income tax rates (from 70 percent to, at first, 50 percent, and then to 28 percent) as well as a huge jump in defense spending at a time when the national debt was much, much less of a burden. But Obamas potential for Reagan status (maybe minus the airport-naming) is real. Yes, Bill Clinton won two terms and is a brilliant pol bar none, as he showed in Charlotte in the best speech of both conventions. But the crisis Obama faced on his first daylike the one Reagan facedwas far deeper than anything Clinton confronted, and the future upside therefore is much greater. And unlike Clintons constant triangulating improvisation, Obama has been playing a long, strategic game from the very starta long game that will only truly pay off if he gets eight full years to see it through. That game is not only changing America. It may also bring his opposition, the GOP, back to the center, just as Reagan indelibly moved the Democrats away from the far left.
Looking back, of course, the comparison between Obama and Reagan seems -absurdeven blasphemous. There is, to begin with, the scope of Reagans reelection, winning 49 states in 1984-something Obama, in a much more polarized time, cannot hope to replicate. More fundamental is the mythology of Reagan as an unfaltering ideological conservative who galvanized the right and demoralized the left. But the reality of Reagan, especially in his first term, was very different. He was, in office, a center-right pragmatist who struggled badly in his first term, reversed himself on tax cuts several times, was uneasily reliant on Southern Democrats, -invaded Lebanon, lost 265 U.S. servicemembers, and then fled, and ran for reelection with a misery index of unemployment and inflation at 11.5 percent. (Obama is running for a second term with a misery index of 9.8 percent.) Reagan also got major flak from his right wing, as Obama has from his left. A classic excerpt in early 1983 from The Miami Herald: Conservatives may not back President Reagan for reelection in 1984 unless he reverses what they consider almost a stampede to the left in the White House. Reagans Republicans lost 26 seats in 1982, down 13 percent from their previous numbers. That same year, Reagans approval ratings sank to 35 -percentseveral points lower in his first term than Obamas ever reached. If you compare Gallups polls of presidential approval, you also see something interesting: Obamas first-term -approvalits peaks and valleysresembles Reagans more than any other recent president; its just that Obamas lows have been higher and his highs lower. Reagan struggled. By his reelection in 1984, hed been buoyed by a rebirth of economic growth and -lower -inflationbut it was in his second term that he became the icon he remains today.
Read More:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/23/andrew-sullivan-on-the-promise-of-obama-s-second-term.html
unblock
(52,243 posts)in any event i think it's premature to think that republicans will learn anything from obama or this election.
the long-term demographics will force them to return to some level of sanity at some point, but no necessarily before doubling down on the crazy. certainly the tea party will continue to thrive in the reddest of districts for at least a few more election cycles.
Autumn
(45,096 posts)I confess I didn't read the article, just the title but I just hate seeing Obama compared to that moldy old actor.
GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)I mean when was the last time we had a President who one could apply the label of "public intellectual" to without guffawing?