Channeling the Gipper
For inspiration, Obama looks to Reagan.
By Howard Fineman, Newsweek

A democratic president, you'd think, would stick to Franklin D. Roosevelt or Jack Kennedy as role models. Not Barack Obama. As he faces tough times—economically and politically—I am told that he and his advisers are turning to an unusual source for inspiration: Ronald Reagan. Looking back, it shouldn't be a total surprise. On the campaign trail in 2008, Obama said nice things about the Gipper. Reagan, Obama said, "tapped into what people were already feeling, which was: we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to a sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

At the time, Obama's ode to Ronald seemed nothing more than a jab at the Clintons (who were infuriated), and a bid for Republican votes. But now I see that it was Obama's tell: the clue to how he views himself, politics, and the presidency. He thinks he is Reagan in reverse—a patient, genial game changer for the ages—and his confidence helped soothe the economic panic of a year ago. But it isn't clear whether the president really understands the causes of the Old Man's successes, or the sobering lessons of his failures.

There are some remarkable affinities, personal and historical. Like Reagan, Obama shares a celebrity's sense of comfort on the (public) stage, a belief in sticking to the script, and a faith in the power of the written word spoken from an imposing rostrum. He also shares Reagan's reverence for the power of a narrative in politics—Reagan, because he was an actor; Obama, because he is a writer. Obama came of age politically when he arrived on the mainland in the Reagan years. He watched Reagan attack with bold ideas the Carter era's sense of hopelessness and "malaise"; saw him and his party get hammered in the first midterm election in 1982; saw him, during a severe economic downturn, rebound to a sweeping second-term "morning in America" victory in 1984. Around the White House right now—beset by a weak economy and dire midterm election prospects—the story of the Gipper is uplifting, at least to the man in the center chair at the cabinet table.

As much as anything, the Reagan-Obama harmonic explains the president's decision to launch his tenure with a mammoth health-care-reform bill in the midst of economic chaos and heavy military commitments. Health care is his statist remix of Reagan's first-term launch party: the antigovernment supply-side income-tax cuts of 1981. And although a massive "stimulus" bill wasn't part of Obama's campaign plan, the measure was folded into his Reagan-in-reverse strategy. Obama fully expects Democrats to get clobbered in 2010, and then, he hopes, a revived economy will validate his decisions and win him reelection in 2012.

But following Reagan's script is harder than it looks. It requires an obstinate clarity of message that the current president has not always achieved, and an outsider's agitating stance that does not fit Obama's equable insider mentality. And while mimicking Reagan may be politically shrewd, it may not be fiscally wise. The Old Man's sunny optimism had a dark underside: a penchant for insisting that 2 plus 2 equals 5, and a willingness to ignore inconvenient facts.

There are signs that Obama shares these Gipperish traits. Reagan proclaimed that he could simultaneously cut taxes, double defense spending, and balance the budget. This was impossible, of course, as even his budget director eventually confessed. When he left office, Reagan had not shrunk the size of government, but he did spawn a new era of scary deficits. A generation later, Obama insists that his $850 billion health-care-reform bill will "bend the cost curve" in the long run. Almost no one in Washington believes this. I am waiting for his budget director to confess as much.

Obama isn't looking to Reagan—but should—as he deals with global security dangers. Reagan was a hawk. Yet he was very cautious about deploying troops without a "clear mission or strong odds of success," as Obama's own secretary of defense, Bob Gates, said recently, It is a lesson Obama should remember in Afghanistan. He might also study Reagan's dealings with the Evil Empire. He cornered the Soviet Union by amping up defense spending, then cut a deal to unwind the Cold War. Today the pressing issue is Iran. If Obama wants to be Reagan in reverse, he must find a way to use his Nobel street cred to rally the world against the bullies of Tehran. That might make us all safer, and make Obama a role model of his own.

How Barack Obama Is Like Ronald Reagan | Newsweek Voices - Howard Fineman | Newsweek.com

God, Prunepicker is going to have a heart attack after reading this.

After? I was thinking Prune might not make it all the way through the title, let alone the whole article.

lol i am gambling on Kerry....woohoo if that happens hot ding dang

I never really thought about this before, but it is notable that for all the sabre rattling, Reagan didn't start any wars. Grenada doesn't count although it was a good model for how to design a winnable conflict.

He gets too much credit for ending the cold war and not enough critisism for the intrigue of the Iran/Contra dirty mess.

However, he was smart enough to not get into multiple wars with too few troops and no defined objectives or end points.

I think the credit is well deserved, the contra thing was a mess, and we couldn't have known what supplying all those ass holes with weapons would have turned into 20 years later. He bankrupted and defeated the Russians without firing a single american bullet. No, occupation...didn't have to worry about a pull out plan, he funded people fighting for their own freedom.

He also gets a lot of flack for funding afghani rogue groups, who fire those bullets at us now. The enemy of my enemy is my friend doctrine is pretty sound though. Without Russian support we wouldn't have been able to take control of Japan and introduce to them the free market, or defeat the nazi's and vice versa. Just the way things are sometime, I think very highly of Reagan.

Sooner Liberal - we aren't falling for Saul Alinksky rules for radicals techniques. If Obama, and his newspaper supporters, think they can trick convservatives into think Obama is just the new Reagan they are nuts. Just like in the interview with Fox News last week, we know Obama didn't mean any of his answers. Conservatives are not interested in speeches - we want actions and results. You can't fake those for long.

Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

I voted for Reagan three times. Twice as governor of California and once for President until i finally figured out that supply side economics didnt work. Guess I am a little slow or the eternal optimist.

A great theory and i definately believe that the tax rates before Reagan were way too high. He just took it too far but was man enough to admit it and even raise them a little bit again.....just not enough.

Why George W. thought that he could do what Reagan couldnt is still a mystery.

OK Supply Siders Blast away but validated numbers would be much more impressive than theory which most of us understand already. Maybe we could agree on a tax rate for a limited time until we pay off the deficit and then a new tax rate which would keep our books in balance. As soon as we agree, I guess we could send it to Obama and Geither for implementation.

I also voted for Reagan, his 1st election as president when I was 17 I worked on the campaign,then voted for him on his second term.
But I voted for him in hopes we can get the fat and unsupervised spending under control.
Admittedly I am concerned about the recent stimulus spending and the issues surrounding it.

Verbatim of the Limbeck zombie.

<deleted due to duplication>

and is there a statement of any substance you are trying to make or just name calling someone again?

I think GM is saying Kerry cut & pasted that from Rush Limbaugh's web site. I put the first sentence of Kerry's post into Google and guess what the first hit was? Here's a hint, LOL! Obama Targets Insurance Industry, Attacks the Chamber of Commerce

Now, for some reason my web browser has a blue haze over RL's page and I can't read it all, but isn't it interesting that typing in Kerry's post gets a RL hit right out of the box?

Thanks for getting the duplicate deleted.
I have used both Cox and DSL, and I dont know which is less dependable.

Nice try GMWise - but learn how Google works before accusing someone of lifting quotes. If you are going to say I stole my first sentence then you have to put quotes around it. In the trillion pages on the internet no one has written that phrase. All you found where pages that used each word, regardless of word placement.

"we aren't falling for Saul Alinksky rules for radicals techniques".

When you do the search correctly here is what you get

No results found for "we aren't falling for Saul Alinksky rules for radicals techniques".


...and BTW, when I run the search your way NewsBusters is my first hit.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

Check this out Kerry: we aren't falling for Saul Alinsky rules for radicals techniques - Google Search

# 1 hit is RL's site.

It helps if you spell "Alinsky" correctly.

LOL - I guess that is proof I didn't copy and paste. I await your apology.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

Wrong. Dude, you're a Rush-bot because that means you quoted it from memory from the words of your hero....you just didn't spell-check. Go on and admit it. It's OK. We won't think any less of you. (as if that were possible)

What have liberals done for America? Here are some items to ponder:
- Lead America out of the great depression

- Lead America and the world to victory in WWII

- Stood firm against communism in Berlin, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam

- Spoke out against racism and fought for the right of ALL Americans to vote

- Landed a man on the moon

- Negotiated peace between Israel and its former enemies Egypt and Jordan

- Gave America social security and Medicare to ensure that ALL Americans would have the right to retire without fear of living in abject poverty

- Elected presidents have balanced their budgets or at the very least reduced the deficits of their Republican predecessors

- Led the United States into becoming the most powerful political, economic and military power in human history
Or perhaps this list from the Umatilla County Democrats
1919—Women’s Suffrage Ratified [Wilson]

1920—Annette Adams, First Woman Appointed To An Administration Position
[Wilson]

1933—Federal Deposit Insurance [FDR]

1935—W.P.A. [FDR-put people to work during the depression]

1935—Social Security Act [FDR]

1938—Fair Labor Standards Act [FDR]

1944—G.I. Bill Of Rights [FDR]

1947—Military Desegregated [Truman]

1947—Marshall Plan [Truman-Rebuilt Europe after WW II]

1961—Peace Corps [John F. Kennedy]

1964—Civil Rights Act [Johnson]

1964—Medicare And Medicaid [Johnson]

1964—Fed Dept Of Housing And Urban Development [Johnson]

1965—Head Start Created [Johnson]

1968—Occupation Safety Act [Johnson]

1987—Clean Water Act [Dem Congress override of Reagan veto]

1990—Americans With Disabilities Act [Democratic Congress]

1993—Family Leave Act [Clinton]

1993—AmeriCorps [Clinton]

1996-- Largest expansion of college opportunity since the GI Bill [Clinton]

1997-- Converted the largest budget deficit in American history to the
largest surplus [Clinton]

1999-- Longest economic expansion in American history & Lowest
unemployment in 30 years [Clinton]
A list of 10 things the conservatives have done for the US:

• Raised taxes on wages and lowered taxes on unearned income

• Three Quarters of federal debt accumulated by three Conservative Presidents

• Massive devaluation of the dollar by the logical outcome of their belief in invisible hands and cronyism

• Massive and expensive expansion of the military to fight nonexistent threat; one at the expense of social goods like infrastructure maintenance and care for the least among us.

• A distribution of wealth approaching Latin American levels.

• Largest number of homeless and unemployed ever.

• The judicial murder of people later found innocent.

• Imprisonment of almost 2 percent of the national population including those who committed no crime against property or persons.

• Wrecking in turn each industry that they have deregulated.
Banks, Airlines, Energy and other deregulated sectors fail then require regulation.

• Wars for irrational beliefs that are against the national interest.

• Self-destructive and irrational fear, hate and ignorance.

To which I will add

- Were in charge during three of the greatest financial crises of the 20th century: The Great Depression (Herbert Hoover), the S&L crises (Ronald Regan) and the Great Recession (George W. Bush)

- Deny citizens their rights based on their sexuality

- Sanctioned the use of torture by the United States

- Took us off the gold standard and put us on the petrodollar (Nixon), thereby tying the value of our currency to foreign oil

- Had lots and lots and LOTS of sex scandals.

- Looked the other way while their Saudi friends trafficked in child sex slaves (George W. Bush)

- And, oh yea, not only created Timothy McVey, but were in charge of our national security on 9/11

Now, which party has proven better for this country?

Nice list GMWISE - care to throw federal bankruptcy on that list.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/bu...qFJQvK2vIsaAJQ

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

So of what GOOD have conservatives done for America? Would former Oklahoma Senator Nickels' Federal Marriage Protection Act count for a for instance? It could really be that hard to think of anything good conservatives have done, other than perhaps maintain the status quo on what already was good.

Religious conservatives founded this country and you are going to ask what good they did for America. The left has been trying to undo it for 200 years. Conservatives want to place responsibility on the individual. An ever increasing federal government, and the bankruptcy it leads to, is the province of liberals and moderates.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

No, actually classical liberals founded this country. Look it up. Do you think repeating the same incorrect phrase over and over will somehow make it true?

First Read has obtained a resoultion being e-mailed around to Republican National Committee members for comments that proposes a conservative litmus test of sorts.

This comes on the heels of a rift in the party that was exposed in the once-obscure special election in Upstate New York's 23rd Congressional District, in which national conservative leaders, including Sarah Palin, clashed with national establishment Republicans. The so-called GOP civil war threatens to derail moderate Republican candidacies in heated 2010 Republican primaries already underway. Florida's Senate race is perhaps the best and most prominent example.

The "Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates" outlines 10 conservative principles the group of signees wants potential candidates to abide by. The principles include support for:

(1) Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill
(2) Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) Workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check
(5) Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat
(8) Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership

"President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent," the resolution states.

But if a candidate disagrees with three of the above, then the group wants the RNC to withhold financial assistance and an endorsement from that candidate.

It's not yet clear that the resoultion will actually be formally introduced.

RNC Committeeman Jim Bopp, Jr., is the author of this resolution and general counsel to the National Right to Life.

He confirmed that he and others are considering proposing this resolution at the winter RNC meeting, which will take place in late January.

"The goal of the resolution is to take a position ... towards reclaiming the Republican Party's conservative bona fides," Bopp said, adding that there are some Republicans who favor the bailouts, spending, etc.

Another goal is to "demonstrate that we are open to diverse views," he said, "but you have to agree with us most of the time."

When asked if Ronald Reagan -- who raised taxes and increased the deficit during his presidency -- would be considered a conservative nowadays, Bopp responded, "I don't know any conservative who doesn't think that Reagan's presidency was a conservative presidency."

For some perspective, it's likely that Olympia Snowe (R-ME) would meet just seven of the 10 criteria, if she ends up voting for health care. The three exceptions: health care, immigration, and the stimulus.

Lindsey Graham (R-SC) meets eight of 10. The two exceptions: cap-and-trade, immigration.

Here's the text of the resolution:

Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should support and espouse conservative principles and public policies; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan also believed the Republican Party should welcome those with diverse views; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies and Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama’s socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies is necessary to restore the trust of the American people in the Republican Party and to lead to Republican electoral victories; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee shares President Ronald Reagan’s belief that the Republican Party should espouse conservative principles and public policies and welcome persons of diverse views; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee desires to implement President Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates; and

WHEREAS, in addition to supporting candidates, the Republican National Committee provides financial support for Republican state and local parties for party building and federal election activities, which benefit all candidates and is not affected by this resolution; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy position of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee; and be further

RESOLVED, that upon the approval of this resolution the Republican National Committee shall deliver a copy of this resolution to each of Republican members of Congress, all Republican candidates for Congress, as they become known, and to each Republican state and territorial party office.

Chief Sponsor:
James Bopp, Jr. NCM IN

Sponsors:
Donna Cain NCW OR
Cindy Costa NCW SC
Demetra Demonte NCW IL
Peggy Lambert NCW TN
Carolyn McLarty NCW OK
Pete Rickets NCM NE
Steve Scheffler NCM IA
Helen Van Etten NCW KA
Solomon Yue NCM OR



It is ironic to note some who would have failed the test. George W. Bush would have failed and been deemed ineligible for support from the Republican National Committee. He increased the size of government, ran enormous deficits, endorsed cap and trade, allowed North Korea and Iran to become more serious security threats, rejected the right's line on immigration and had guns seized in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) of Maine would easily fail this test and be made ineligible for support from her own party because she voted for health care reform, the stimulus and amnesty for immigrants.

The most notable Republican that would fail, ironically, is Ronald Reagan. Reagan presided over the biggest increase in government spending and the deficit before Bush, he increased the size of government, he increased taxes, he supported amnesty for illegal immigrants, he withdrew troops from Beirut, he sold weapons to Iran, he opposed California's anti-gay marriage proposition six, and he signed the Brady bill which placed restrictions on gun ownership.

Here again, I figured this thread was a joke.

Oh wait! It was! Har har hardy har!

Obama like Reagan. C'mon, you're killing me. Next thing you know people will be calling for the decriminalization of meth and crack! LOL