One of the more depressing, repeated ideas I’ve seen in the past year or so have been the swipes at Democratic candidates - mostly Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama - for supposedly being insufficiently partisan. That is, attacks on them for acknowledging some Republican person or idea as something other than the embodiment of all known evil. Right now some folks are trying to make the argument that Sen. Obama is betraying liberalism by comparing the incremental progress of the Clinton era versus sweeping change as embodied by Reagan.
Some are even trying to downplay Reagan’s popularity. Come on. I don’t like Reagan, what he stood for or his legacy, but it isn’t many world leaders that have had a national outpouring at their passing like Reagan did. He pulled some vile stuff, but in a historical context, it just makes you look silly to say that Reagan wasn’t well liked. For goodness sake, he’s the last U.S. president to win election in a landslide. Sure, he did it using fear, the southern strategy, etc. A lot of people believed in his rhetoric and its because liberals try to minimize the importance of that emotion and "gut" feeling to the electorate that has led to so many electoral losses.
But the heart of the matter is, these people aren’t running for chairman of the party - an explicitly partisan position. Speaking as someone who is proudly partisan, I dearly do not want another George W. Bush. Bush has governed as a Republican fighting for Republicans and as a result we’ve got a division in this country that is only superceded by the divisions we felt over the civil war. It is simply not a healthy way to run a democracy, and the presidency is weakened when it is seen as no more than a partisan institution.
This isn’t to say that the candidates should be non-ideological bowls of mush. Because a huge part of the job for the next Democratic president will be about pushing the party’s ideals, selling progressive solutions to the American people. But we’re fooling ourselves if we think the path to that is the partisanship of the Bush regime. We’ll just be trading one brand of gridlock for another. What’s the point then? Just having a Democratic president is not good enough if the very real ills of the world aren’t addressed.
If Barack Obama is going to be pilloried as a betrayer for simply acknowledging the tactical superiority of Reagan - and not endorsing a single one of his policies - then we’re in for a rude awakening.
Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I see the presidency as serving many roles: among those is leader of his party, but also he or she is our national leader - our representative as Americans regardless of our party affiliation or lack thereof. Ultrapartisanship is welcome in the party chairmanship, and even to some extent in the legislative bodies, but it minimizes the office of the presidency as George Bush has to make it all about sticking to the party 24/7.
Thank God for Oliver Willis.
NO ONE in the blogosphere could have put it better.
I would like to add something, you said it all.
I totally agree, Oliver. I’m pretty partisan, too, but I’m getting so sick of these diarists on Kos or MyDD calling Obama “Reagan.” HE WASN’T SUPPORTING RONALD REAGAN, YA GOOFBALLS! Man, sometimes I worry about left blogistan.
Obama is seen by the right as being moderate, but in actuality he’s very, very progressive. This is a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY for Democrats to have a well-liked liberal in the White House. He’s ONE OF US! He was against the war when it started! Clinton and Edwards weren’t! Sheesh, he’s been on the progressives’ side of this war since 2002!! Give the man a gol-dang BREAK, people!
I agree that Obama is probably smart to bring up Reagan as a bit of a dog whistle to the right-leaning members of the Democratic party (and left leaning, if it can be called that, Republicans)who worship at the foot of Saint Ronnie who otherwise might have issues with a liberal black candidate. It also, however, serves to promote the idea that Clinton was just a decent steward of the country and nothing remarkable (so why have a Clinton part Deux), thereby feeding into the idea that we all need “change.” Unfortunately, by undercutting Clinton Obama choose to bolster Reagan’s already hugely inflated myth. Forget whether Obama actually supports any of the policies of the Gipper, his invocation of him as an agent of change(Just like Obama! Yea! Not like Clinton! Boo!) is implicitly supportive. That type of almost sub-conscious alignment and support contributes to future Bush-esque candidates who promise to be the next Reagan (as is happening now) and keeps a significant percentage of voters only nominally aligned with the Left but ready in a heartbeat to go for a Reagan or McCain. Meanwhile, we chip away at our last successful President as nothing special. I have to think that right now the GOP is working on how they can twist this to their advantage, knowing full well that the vast majority of the idiocracy won’t dig for the deeper meaning and will only take away the simple message, “Obama supports Reagan.”
It’s unfortunate that while I relish the idea of either a minority or a woman taking the Presidency, I agree more with the policy positions of John Edwards, the traditional white guy, over both of them, despite his stupid vote for the war (which he has acknowledged as stupid, unlike Hillary). Obama may be playing good politics to get elected, but I can’t say I disagree with those people venting on dKos and the like over his invocation of Reagan. At any rate, I hardly think any debate over this issue on left leaning blogs is going to bring Obama down so much as a tenth of a percentage point. Everybody on the Left knows they will vote for “anybody but a Republican” in the Fall.
I don’t have a problem with mentioning Regan, but I do have a problem when Democrats bringing up disproved Republican talking points, whether its Obama and Social Security or Clinton on the Iranian threat. It hurts progressive causes when they do that.