Obama: I like Reagan's sense of timing in making big, transformative changes.49% Progressives: You mentioned Reagan without saying something negative!?! Whaddabout Philadelphia Mississippi? You can't mention Reagan without the Philadelphia reference! We've seen it on the internets for years, that must've been why Reagan won... blah blah blah.Thankfully,
Yglesias has the sense that God gave a billy goat, and can read and understand words.
Barack Obama tosses off a vague comparison between himself and Ronald Regan and Matt Stoller gets really pissed. I don't really get it. Obama is pretty unambiguously claiming that much as Reagan was a friendly, popular face of a much more conservative governing agenda than the country had seen before, he thinks he can be the friendly, popular face of a much more liberal governing agenda than the country has seen before.
Why do so many progressives set their sights on building 49% coalitions, and then try to stop a liberal candidate who is aiming much higher? Seriously. Do they have no comprehension of strategy? Isn't there something to be learned from non-incumbent Presidential candidates who win 44 states?
Labels: Dems, Obama, Reagan
22 Comments:
If you consider perpetuating a revisionist political history good strategy then you have a point.
I trust you remember the Reagan years. I do. I remember what Reagan voters acted and sounded like. Reagan won those 44 states by peeling working class whites away from the remains of the New Deal coalition on the strength of a hateful, racist, ideology which encouraged people to blame those poorer or darker than themselves for their own stagnating standard of living. It was the same phenomenon that made David Duke a popular candidate amongst Louisiana voters in the late 80s.
Now I realize that in Chris Matthews's world this kind of dismal hatred is what passes for "kind-faced optimism" but that is a gross distortion of what motivated people to support Reagan in the 80s.
Obama's pursuance of this myth is not only questionable on moral grounds for those of us who prefer to work against the perpetuation of media untruths, but it's also strategically stupid because it proposes to tap into a phenomenon that never really existed in the first place.
Jeffrey, quite simply, that is a false account of how Reagan won.
You remember the Reagan voters from 1980, do you? That's what we're talking about here. Reagan's CAMPAIGN appeal in 1980, and the electoral results.
I remember not only the Reagan years, but I remember the Carter years, too. If you think the "hateful, racist ideology" is what powered Reagan to victory in 1980, you are sorely mistaken. Sure, he capitalized on Nixon's Southern Strategy, and his Philadelphia speech may have consolidated his conservative bonafides among cultural conservatives-- especially in the south-- but if you think he needed that to win, or if you think that the swing voters (Reagan Dems... etc) voted for him because of those things, you are just absolutely wrong.
THAT IS NOT HOW HE WON.
With the economy about to go into the worst recession since WWII, Reagan sold himself on American optimism, "strong leadership" and against the problem of government.
THAT is what enabled his "mandate", that is what (white) voters took away from him. In 1980 he was a HOPE candidate, not a FEAR candidate. He was a CHANGE candidate during a time of widespread dissatisfaction. Fear usually wins campaigns, but sometimes the time is right for change and a hope candidate. (Did he consolidate his conservative base with racist appeals-- yes. But that is not how he won the general election. He positioned himself correctly, at the right time, and sold himself broadly.)
Do I agree with Reagan's ideology? Of course not-- neither does Obama. But we sure as hell understand "what motivated people to support him". If you think Reagan simply successfully sold David Dukism, you're profoundly misled. Reagan incorporated parts of Dukism into his campaign (read: welfare queen), but that is NOT why he won 44 states.
Obviously we have a profound disagreement about political history here. It's worth pursuing further but at the moment I can only leave it at Reagan was an ANGER candidate at a time of widespread dissatisfaction and FEAR and that only amounts to a "yes it is/no it isn't" argument.
Perhaps you and I had very different acquaintances among "Reagan Democrats" because the ones I grew up around (meaning practically every white person in the New Orleans area outside of my immediate family) had a decidedly ugly agenda that they firmly HOPED Reagan would push for them.
Actually, that's a good way to think of it. How would Reagan have done in 1980, if you subtracted his "Dukism"?
Does anyone want to argue that he wouldn't have still won overwhelmingly?
Jeffrey: I sort of admire your charming belief that people are chiefly motivated to vote by perceived policy agendas of candidates, but it's not true.
It SHOULD be true. I wish it were true. But it isn't.
But I like that, despite your congenital gloominess, you still seem to believe that this is the reality of our elections.
(I'm not being sarcastic here. I really do like that you think this.)
That's close but, as with everything, it's more complicated than that. Of course the key word in your description is "perceived" which is what I think makes the description close to accurate.
Oyster, I have to get your back on this one. Yes, Ronald Reagan embraced Nixon's southern strategy and I frequently bring that up. However, he probably would not have needed that to secure a victory.
And speaking from experience I know for a fact that Progressives will often cut off their noses to spite their faces when it comes to supporting a candidate that can win in a conservative leaning district that would support Democratic ideals in general as opposed to a candidate who is "perfect" to them who would never win.
OK OK OK, Reagan won because he had Carter as an opponent. Does anyone remember that moron?
Even Habitath for Humans has been rated very low as for accounting where all the money goes.
Also, them Bozo movies clinched it.
(If this comment is ignored, I will be deeply hurt.)
I'd have to agree with Oyster, too.
I think Reagan's racially-motivated law and order rhetoric was mostly geared toward sewing up the support of the die-hards. The middle of the country he was able to capture by appealing as an optimistic patrician visionary.
You'd also have to admit this reality, Jeffrey:
Most Americans continue to hold Ronald Reagan in high regard and are still unable to see how damaging his policies were.
They wanted to put him on the dime, as you'll recall.
I think D-BB has a very impressive point there too, actually... but a little out of proportion.
Carter only won because his opponent was... the ghost of the revulsion the country felt at the Nixon abuses (which seem quaint by today's standards but that's neither here nor there)
Reagan swept Carter away riding a tide of reaction that began with the "Southern Strategy" and was only slightly delayed by Watergate. The tide, in fact, was only as large as it was because Carter had managed to temporarily usurp against the grain and thus provided an easy focal point for people's rising anger.
E, I think you've got it wrong, in fact. Most Americans do hold Reagan in high regard but are unable to admit how damaging he was.
I think we disagree here because you... and Oyster... seem to have a different opinion of where the feelings of the "middle of the country" lie than I do.
For the most part, people are fairly petty, selfish, and hateful. Not everyone... but most everyone. However, no one likes to think of themselves that way. (Okay maybe some people do... but lets HOPEFULLY consider sociopaths to be outliers.) So if you have a candidate... like Reagan... who makes petty, selfish, and hateful people feel confident about their petty and selfish hatreds, well then that indeed is electoral gold. It's not "optimism" by an objective definition... but I suppose the people experiencing it may like to describe it as such.
The point is there isn't a lesson for Obama in this because... as I said... it's something of a lie in the first place.
I think we're going to continue disagreeing here but I like this conversation because it gets to some fundamental assumptions we have about how politics in America works.
The comment thread at Yglesias' is deeply depressing. The residual Reagan hatred is so intense that they cannot bring themselves to admit that he was a really good politician. Policy wise, he was a train wreck, and as mean-spirited as Jeffrey maintains. But those were policies.
Wouldn't the ideal candidate be one who did that for a progressive agenda? Who took advantage of a deeply unpopular president to announce sweeping change while convincing those opposed to that change that he wasn't really their enemy? And went brass knuckles in the back room when necessary?
Republicans liked Obama in Illinois too, and it sure as hell wasn't because he had hateful policies.
It's at times like this that I understand the otherwise contemptuous DLC. The angry folk who love noble defeat more than victory -- the one that would lead to the actual enactment of their preferred policies -- drive me bananas.
Great comments, guys!
I'll try to put up some more posts outlining my general views of politics that will perhaps stimulate further debate.
For the most part, people are fairly petty, selfish, and hateful. Not everyone... but most everyone.
Everything you say depends on this unsubstantiated assertion. I'm no Pollyanna on human nature, and so would go with selfish, but petty and hateful are quite the reach.
Are you really saying that NO ONE voter for Reagan in 80 because they saw him as the positive change candidate for a struggling and humiliated America? It was all just petty hate? Sorry dude, but that's crazy.
Do they have no comprehension of strategy?
What make you think they care, Mark? You're assuming that deep down, they want to win.
Are you really saying that NO ONE voter for Reagan in 80 because they saw him as the positive change candidate for a struggling and humiliated America?
Of course not. I can't imagine there's any way of explaining how ALL voters make decisions in an election.
But it also strikes me as strange that you would actually read what I wrote to mean this in the first place. By your logic, I could ask you, "Are you really saying that EVERYONE voted for Reagan in 80 because they saw him as the positive change candidate for a struggling and humiliated America?" And that would sound just as crazy but would be just as distorted an interpretation of what is being discussed. Of course it may be that you just want an excuse to call me "crazy"... in which case I can furnish you with many many reasons which you don't have to make up.
Anyway, I am saying something about what I feel to be a major mover of votes and that is tied to some assumptions about human nature as is any presumed predictor of human behavior.
Also... I love your "unsubstantiated aassertion" as to what non-Obama cultists want "deep down".
Well, then Jeffrey, how many do you think voted for Reagan because of hope/change? It must be a very small number, or all your revisionist accusations don't work. And your selfish/hateful paragraph seems to ascribe his success to just that. As does your earlier "Reagan won those 44 states by peeling working class whites away from the remains of the New Deal coalition on the strength of a hateful, racist, ideology" statement. I'll try to be more charitable, but there's not a lot of nuance there.
There are many non-Obama supporters who are sane and reasoned. Those who froth at the mouth at his mere mention of Reagan's positive attributes are not among them.
I would say yes it is a very small number. And also yes, you get my gist fairly well.
But expressing disappointment at Obama consciously enabling Reagan revisionists hardly qualifies as "frothing at the mouth". As I said above, I think it's as "strategically" damaging as it is dishonest.
Here.. a few minutes ago Krugman linked to Rick Perlstein. They both appear to agree with me on the main thrust of this business. It is a mistake to concede that Reagan was anything other than a hard right-winger. It's playing the game on your opponent's imaginary turf.
I'm sure you'll disagree with them as well but I hardly think anyone is "frothing at the mouth" in this discussion.... at least except when we're calling each other "crazy"
Also... "hope/change" depend upon what one is "hoping" will "change".
My frothing comment was referring to the posters at Yglesias. I'm commenting here instead due to the relatively froth-free environment.
Jeffrey, can you please point to one piece of evidence that supports your claim that Reagan won "those 44 states... on the strength of a hateful, racist, ideology which encouraged people to blame those poorer or darker than themselves for their own stagnating standard of living."
That Krugman/Perlstein piece merely argues that Reagan held such an ideology, not that he won because of it.
This brings up my point about Reagan during the 1980 campaign: his ideology was actually so far right that it became a hindrance; the crucial factors for his success included: offering a positive contrast with Carter== "optimism and change"; not being a complete airhead (which surprised many people), and breaking the Carter campaign's narrative that he was a mean arch-conservative bent on dismantling FDR's programs. How did he Reagan dismantle this campaign narrative? It wasn't through policy argument. It wasn't through "ideology". It was with smile and charm in front of the camera while forty million eyes were watching him.
When you say "It is a mistake to concede that Reagan was anything other than a hard right-winger" that's a straw man argument. We're not talking about what Reagan really was, we're talking about how he presented himself during the campaign, and what elements of that presentation resulted in electoral success.
If you took the time to view the entire Obama interview, you'd find that Obama said Reagan was extremely conservative, "100 percent red", as he inelegantly put it. He acknowledged how extreme Reagan was, but also made a point about his excellent timing. (And he got the newspaper's endorsement, btw.)
But, again, the reality of Reagan's presidential record wasn't Obama's point. It was about political timing to great effect. Purposefully confusing the two, actually, seems to me to be the real analytical mistake.
But if you want to rail against Obama-- who seems to understand what drives successful campaigns a helluva lot better than you do-- and his fellow "cultists", as revisionists, I'd like you to defend the above claim about what drove Reagan's electoral victory-- that his campaign feeding into people's pettiness and hatred was the decisive, overriding factor on election night.
oh snap oyster.
dead on.
jeffrey you have to admit that reagan did not RUN on what became his hate-filled neoconservative ideology, he ran to defeat an unpopular president during grim times with some of the patrician make-it-all better charm exhibited in the video above.
I still think he was an awful awful president. Maybe the second or third most awful.
----
wouldn't everyone like to see what progressives could do with a mandate?
how else are people going to get health insurance?
I mean i'm all stuffed up and my nose is running...
I got some extra horse yeast, if you want some.
Something to ponder...does Reagan still defeat Carter so soundly that he didn't actually need to employ the "Southern Strategy" (I notice no one here is arguing that this racist appeal HURT Reagan's chances any; only that he didn't NEED to use it because he "inspired hope") if the release of the Iranian hostages isn't delayed until after election day? The speculation has always been that Reagan's "people" made it clear to the Iranians that it would be "worth their while" to hold the hostages until after the election in order to deny Carter any hope of an "October Surprise" hostage homecoming.
The Iranians held up their end of the bargain, releasing the hostages exactly five minutes after Reagan's inauguration; Reagan held up his end of the deal as it was later found out that arms started to flow from the US to Iran via Israel only a few days later.
See, maybe the racist stuff was just insurance in case the terrorists turned out not to be trustworthy business partners in the whole "hopeful" endeavor....
