"There you go again" (the part you never hear)

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

I don't know how many times I've seen the clip of Ronnie making his quip played by folks like CNN's Bill Schneider and presented as one of the great debate moments of all time.

We hear endlessly about how it charmed Boomers, how Reagan reminded them of a "favorite uncle" (Schneider's favorite phrase) and how it destroyed Carter on substance.

What you never see in these beltway montages and replays of the moment is what Reagan was responding to.

The transcript:

MR. CARTER: These constant suggestions that the basic Social Security System should be changed does call for concern and consternation among the aged of our country. It is obvious that we should have a commitment to them, that Social Security benefits should not be taxed and that there would be no peremptory change in the standards by which Social Security payments are made to retired people. We also need to continue to index Social Security payments, so that if inflation rises, the Social Security payments would rise a commensurate degree to let the buying power of a Social Security check continue intact. In the past, the relationship between Social Security and Medicare has been very important to providing some modicum of aid for senior citizens in the retention of health benefits. Governor Reagan, as a matter of fact, began his political career campaigning around this nation against Medicare. Now, we have an opportunity to move toward national health insurance, with an emphasis on the prevention of disease, an emphasis on out-patient care, not in-patient care; an emphasis on hospital cost containment to hold down the cost of hospital care far those who are ill, an emphasis on catastrophic health insurance, so that if a family is threatened with being wiped out economically because of a very high medical bill, then the insurance would help pay for it. These are the kinds of elements of a national health insurance, important to the American people. Governor Reagan, again, typically is against such a proposal.

MR. SMITH: Governor?

MR. REAGAN: There you go again.

Carter was 100% correct on facts. Reagan did oppose Medicare. And his claim that Reagan was against national health insurance was proven true. These are easily verifiable facts.

Reagan was just an empty suit here. But it didn't matter to an image-centric nation.

Rather than replay this as some great moment in political history, pundits should show this as an example of precisely what is wrong with our system and how style always triumphs over substance.

[Kurovski]

1. K&R.

I hope I live long enough till the Reagan fans are so few that the press will no longer be ABLE to get away with all the blowing of smoke up all that fatuous RightWing arse.

[WCGreen]

2. That debate was held in Cleveland and I had just moved back here

after working for the Democratic Caucus in the Ohio House for 2 and a half years.

I called in a favor and got into the ballroom behind the Music Hall where the debate was held.

Remember there was a huge chunk of time when the mics went dead.

Anyway, all of us watching the debate on a big screen, not like today at all, thought Carter had kicked it and that reagan stumbled.

I guess we were wrong because all the pundits, there were far less of them back then, and so they spun it and people became convinced that Carter was a loser.

President Carter came through the hall after the debate to shake hands but I couldn't get near him.

It's strange, about ten months earlier, Jody Powell came to the Ohio Democratic Party's Holiday party and while he was speaking, the ice sculpted donkey crashed into the shrimp bowl with a huge crash just about the time in his speech when he was trying to whip up the party regulars to go out and work for Carter.

He quipped, I hope that isn't a sign of bad things down the road.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. Seems Democrats have foreboding moments like the last one you mentioned...

Remember when the balloons didn't fall at the end of the 2004 convention in Boston? For some reason, you could hear one of the crew on television freaking out about the balloons not falling.

In '88, Democrats decided to go with more pastel colors for the background and they were mocked for it.



What do you know...

[Major Hogwash]

26. Was that during the first debate between them?

I remember hearing that line, but I don't remember them having several televised debates.
It didn't matter to me, I was going to vote for Carter again anyway.

[WCGreen]

29. There were two, one without Carter where Reagan debated Anderson

and then the one without Anderson here in Cleveland.

[Ikonoklast]

32. I wonder how all thoseTeamsters feel now about Raygun and the Republicans.

I remember the Teamster affiliated company trucks with banners supporting Raygun all along I-71.

Then Raygun went on to fuck over the entire transportation industry, big time, including all the Teamsters whose leadership thought they'd buy a free pass on getting investigated by the Republicans if they supported them in that election.

Really smart political move on their part, and they've been in decline ever since.

[snot]

4. So I just decided to figure out how to use emoticons:

:puke:

[Enthusiast]

20. Appropriate emoticon. nt

[pnorman]

5. Here's the complete debate:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/debatingourdestiny/80debates/cart4.html

[The Doctor.]

6. He didn't have an answer at all.

I'll always be amazed at Americans' capacity for ignorance.

[livetohike]

7. That's the one legacy he left to the GOP - they never have an

answer and it seems to work for them most of the time.

[spooked911]

35. as long as they have some snappy quip, that's all that seems to matter to the f*&^ing media

F*&%ing corporate whores.

[StarsInHerHair]

44. it's because they run on charisma alone, they use emotions really well

and the audience falls for that

[CrispyQ]

13. I'm amazed at their shallowness.

I was so certain Carter would win cuz I saw Reagan for the empty suit he was. And when the hostages were released on his inauguration day, I knew the American people had been played. What's really sad is how many still are being played - voting for GOP & against their best interests.

[toddwv]

8. Carter is often demonized, particularly by the right.

However, many of the programs that he initiated, if left to fruition would have put us in a much better position in terms of energy sovereignty. Of course, instead, we got Reaganomics, an escalated "War on Drugs", a devastated middle class and the continuing deification of a destructive Presidency.

[lastone]

11. Carter was a visionary

and it took "negotiating with terrorists" by the fucking republicans to steal that election.
republicans=douchebags.

[etherealtruth]

16. + 1000000000000

[Enthusiast]

21. Plus one.

The American people didn't deserve Carter.

[Octafish]

9. Stolen Debate Briefing Book helped craft that line of swill.

http://www.openleft.com/diary/21123/george-will-rewrites-presidential-history-novdec-2000

[lastone]

10. the same idiots

that worship palin cause they either want to fuck her or look like her worshiped regan - we are a nation of simpletons. I remember thinking at the time (I was a freshman in high school) how could an actor ever be elected, its obvious hes playing a part. Makes me sick to this day.

Link to video of text above.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi9y5-Vo61w

[Zoeisright]

12. Reagan's response was so childish and immature.

And that got all the press. And how many people have died since? Tens of thousands per year times thirty years. I consider Reagan guilty of murder by that simple-minded statement.

[Enthusiast]

22. These sort of "slogans"

can be oddly effective in a presidential election. Take the 1840 presidential election for example.

[rasputin1952]

14. Carter was pretty easy on him...

he could have had his people out there describing how Reagan had virtually destroyed the economy of a very wealthy state through his practice of looking through everything through the Hollywood lens..."it all works out in the end."

Instead, he pushed the ball that started the country on a spiral into fiscal hell. Reagan was an idiot...and was daft long before Alzheimer's took it's savage toll. The man was little more than a prop...and never realized it.

Damn fool...and bush II paved the road to disaster that Reagan hacked out...:grr:

[howmad1]

31. And lets not forget........

....who our current president seems to idolize.

[The Doctor.]

43. Love to see you back that one up with substance.

[Poboy]

15. Its the elevation of snark/attitude over substance.

[Enthusiast]

17. "There you go again" was comparable to

"Tippecanoe and Tyler too" in effectiveness. Although the song and slogan Tippecanoe and Tyler too was actually more substantive than Reagan's quip. William Henry Harrison was elected president because this simple slogan and song became stuck in the minds of the American electorate being repeated many times by millions of potential voters.

Actually William Henry Harrison was also more substantive than Reagan. Reagan, you know, being no more than an average actor and puppet president.

Harrison defeated a confederation of Native Americans under Tenskwatawa(the Prophet)at the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers in what was later to become the state of Indiana. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison

[Frisbee]

24. An average actor?

You're too kind! :rofl:

[Enthusiast]

41. I know.

I know I should have said "poor actor".

[mariawr]

18. K and R nt

[Enthusiast]

19. In electing Reagan president in 1980,

the American people were effectively 'hoodwinked' into voting against their own best interests.

[teabaghater]

23. Reagan awakened me

to politics and the role it plays in our lives. All the problems we face today can be attributed to Reagan, in one way or another. He is maybe, at the very top of my "most hated" list. I wish he could die of alzheimer's for eternity.

[Urban Prairie]

25. Reagan was elected twice during the Cold War between the USSR and the US

Leonid Breshnev, the KGB's Andropov, briefly Chernenko, and then Gorbachev were the USSR's Premiers...and IMO, many people voted for St.Ronnie, out of "nuclear" or "Red Dawn" fear, and we in the US had to have who appeared to be as big of a fearsome and scary asshole running the country as the USSR had. Obviously Jimmy Carter appeared to be more of a pacifist, to those grumpy old Soviet warhawks in comparison.

[JI7]

27. i always wondered what was so great about the "there you go again" line

and seeing this makes that line even worse.

fuck the media and anyone else who celebrate such ignorance.

[rhett o rick]

28. The gullibles detest facts. They love talking points or cute come backs like Reagan's. nm

[Tuesday Afternoon]

30. love K&Ring this stuff on the anniversary of his b'day

perhaps, I take too much glee :shrug:

nawh.

:bounce:

[benld74]

33. THIS is WHERE the GOP MACHINE BEGAN,,,,,,,

I recall it well, and wondered where the country was going to wind up when I was in my 50's

Well we are here, and it is worse off, except for 8 years. BUT 8 years out of 30 IS NOT enough!!!!!!

[spooked911]

34. THANK YOU!

This so perfectly crystallizes how frustrated I always felt with Reagan and the way the media dealt with him.

[Martin Eden]

36. That is what I call a perfect illustration ...

... of the difference between perception and reality in American politics.
Big K&R:kick:

[klook]

37. It was an anti-intellectual moment

Carter was obviously a brainiac, and moreover a brainiac with a conscience and a soul. Reagan -- who couldn't have cared less about providing for people unable to provide for themselves -- didn't really even understand what the fuck he'd just heard, so he pulled a cute boyish cowboy grin and uttered a soundbite that millions of self-centered anti-intellectuals responded to.

[tridim]

38. Government isn't the problem, but politicians like Reagan are.

[The_Casual_Observer]

39. rayguns was a shithead

case closed

[Tsiyu]

40. The fact that the media continue to play this clip

and try to pass it off as some moment of oratory brilliance ought to tell everyone just who and what our media are.

They have been playing the same game Reagan played that night: dismiss anything that makes sense for the American people; make light of the real problems seniors and sick people face; confront facts and intellect with childish, schoolyard taunts.

Reagan was elected by people who did not want to think.

He was the ultimate Magical Sky Daddy who made them feel all safe and snuggly and who allowed them to go on being stupid fools without feeling the consequences of their foolishness.

K&R.

[moondust]

42. Style over substance.

Is for dummies. And we got a lot of 'em.

[packback]

45. beginning of Reagan revisionist history

Same revisionist history that has been going on with their god Reagan for years. They cherry pick things to praise about him and the only reason they feel the need to do it is because they can't admit they were ever wrong, not even for a second all throughout the history of the country. I can't wait until they start doing the same thing to the Bush administration in their "head in the clouds" approach to history. It has already begun actually with the "Miss Me Yet" billboard campaign. Yeah, I will never miss Bush.

[cordelia]

46. Kick