The Gipper would have enjoyed celebrating his centennial on that most American of days when two football teams beat each other's brains out while the nation watches with barbecue and beer.
The actor who became President, Ronald Wilson Reagan lived all his life in an imagined country, starting as a sportscaster in a small room with a teletype that told him "GO 3B," from which, with recorded crowd noises, he would spin a breathless description of a hard smash down the left field line, the third baseman diving headlong to spear the drive and scrambling to his feet in a cloud of dust to beat the runner as his manager yelled from the dugout in protest.
From then on, through Hollywood years and two terms in the White House, Reagan creatively breathed life into grains of truth that would entertain, inspire and sometimes mislead millions. As he turns 100, Barack Obama tactfully notes:
"No matter what political disagreements you may have had with President Reagan--and I certainly had my share--there is no denying his leadership in the world, or his gift for communicating his vision for America."
As Sarah Palin keynotes a centennial dinner, what stands out in memory is not Reagan's politics but his persona, which changed the image of Republicans from a stuffy bunch in exclusive Wall Street clubs to the earthy middle Americans they always fleece.
To get elected, he played that part to the hilt, in 1980 demolishing Jimmy Carter's attack on his Medicare record with a genial, condescending "There you go again!" and, four years later, defusing the issue of his own advanced age by telling Walter Mondale that he wouldn't hold his youth and inexperience against him.
What the GOP now likes to remember is the "Morning in America" glaze Reagan put over eight years of White House playacting, crediting his "Tear down that wall!" line for the fall of the Soviet Union, which had been bankrupting itself for decades.
Harmless enough, but the former actor's truth-stretching is still bedeviling us with an iffy Star Wars missile defense and memories of the Iran-Contra scandal that led to talk of impeachment.
Yet Ronald Reagan's star power was a good fit for the 1980s, sandwiched between the clueless tenure of Jimmy Carter and that of George H. W. Bush, said to remind every woman of her first husband and, by his own admission, not good with "the vision thing."
Reagan had that in abundance for an era when Americans wanted a showman in the White House and could afford to have one there. As the Tea Party revs up its rhetoric now, it would be good to have him still with us, telling them, "There you go again."
Update: Sarah Palin, who also started as a sportscaster, auditions for a 21st century remake of "The Reagan Story" while modestly denying any interest in the role.
"Today there are a lot of people looking around for the next Ronald Reagan," she tells the centennial dinner at the Reagan Ranch center, "but he was one of a kind and you are not going to find his kind again. And the Gipper wouldn't want us to spend our time on that anyway."
She's probably right. The original spent decades in Hollywood learning his craft and, when elected governor of California, served out all eight years of his two terms. They used to call that paying your dues, not raking in your due on Rupert Murdoch's payroll.
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Monday, April 27, 2009
Wall Street's Welfare Queens
As the furor over AIG bonuses fades, Paul Krugman today points to a real outrage: "pay at investment banks, after dipping last year, is soaring again--right back up to 2007 levels."
Such a symbol for unquenchable Wall Street greed may serve a political turning point just as did Ronald Reagan's Welfare Queen who drove a Cadillac three decades ago--with a number of added ironies.
Unlike the Great Communicator's character who was never found to exist, today's investment bankers are all too real and, in the 21st century, are ripping off taxpayers on a scale never imagined in Reagan's wildest dreams. The Welfare Queen's $150,000 has morphed into billions.
As Krugman observes, "Wall Street is no longer, in any real sense, part of the private sector. It’s a ward of the state, every bit as dependent on government aid as recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a k a 'welfare.'"
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the level of Wall Street compensation has always been disproportionate to achievement but turned astronomic only in recent years, as Krugman notes, as "a reward for their creativity--for financial innovation...new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes."
But the reemergence of such greed may eventually prove to be as powerful a symbol for a new populism as Reagan's Welfare Queen was for the rise of conservatism in the 1980's.
Almost 70 years ago, Fred Schwed in his Wall Street classic "Where Are the Customers' Yachts?" noted: "The burnt customer certainly prefers to believe that he has been robbed rather than that he has been a fool on the advice of fools."
That feeling seems to be stirring again.
Such a symbol for unquenchable Wall Street greed may serve a political turning point just as did Ronald Reagan's Welfare Queen who drove a Cadillac three decades ago--with a number of added ironies.
Unlike the Great Communicator's character who was never found to exist, today's investment bankers are all too real and, in the 21st century, are ripping off taxpayers on a scale never imagined in Reagan's wildest dreams. The Welfare Queen's $150,000 has morphed into billions.
As Krugman observes, "Wall Street is no longer, in any real sense, part of the private sector. It’s a ward of the state, every bit as dependent on government aid as recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a k a 'welfare.'"
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the level of Wall Street compensation has always been disproportionate to achievement but turned astronomic only in recent years, as Krugman notes, as "a reward for their creativity--for financial innovation...new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes."
But the reemergence of such greed may eventually prove to be as powerful a symbol for a new populism as Reagan's Welfare Queen was for the rise of conservatism in the 1980's.
Almost 70 years ago, Fred Schwed in his Wall Street classic "Where Are the Customers' Yachts?" noted: "The burnt customer certainly prefers to believe that he has been robbed rather than that he has been a fool on the advice of fools."
That feeling seems to be stirring again.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
A President From Nowhere
After Barack Obama or John McCain leaves the White House, where will future generations go to tour the boyhood home that shaped a president? Hawaii? Indonesia? The Panama Canal Zone?
For a long time, I lived near Hyde Park, where FDR was born and spent his years before moving into the White House. "All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River," he said as he was making history, and American generations can still visit, see and touch the reality that formed him and told him who he was and could be.
For the candidates in this election there is, as Gertrude Stein said, no there there. "Obama and McCain," Peggy Noonan writes, "are not from a place, but from an experience" and the "lack of placeness with both candidates contributes to a sense of their disjointedness, their floatingness."
This 21st century identity gap started with George W. Bush, who was born in Connecticut, grew up in Texas and spent most of his life before politics trying to figure out who he was and where he belonged. No matter how often we see him cutting brush, our sense of who he is and where he came from remains hazy.
For Obama, lack of a geographical label may even be an advantage, George Packer claims in the New Yorker, asserting that "a black man who, unlike Obama, is deeply rooted in America is probably unelectable today. His rootedness would be inseparable from his blackness, an identity that has to recede far into the background for a black candidate to have a chance."
And yet, anxiety about both candidates today may have much to do with the voters' sense that, as Noonan says, one of them is "from Young. He's from the town of Smooth in the state of Well Educated. He's from TV" and the other "from Military. He's from Vietnam Township in the Sunbelt state."
In the past century, Warren G. Harding campaigned from the front porch of his Victorian house in Marion, Ohio, which is still there for anyone who pays $6 to look at and wander through as is the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan in Dixon, Illinois, complete with a bowl of the popcorn he liked to munch before he went to California and invented himself first as an actor and then as a politician.
Our next president's defining home will not be geographical but a set of images on the Internet from all over the world, and we can only hope that that lack of a specific locale won't keep him from being grounded in reality.
For a long time, I lived near Hyde Park, where FDR was born and spent his years before moving into the White House. "All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River," he said as he was making history, and American generations can still visit, see and touch the reality that formed him and told him who he was and could be.
For the candidates in this election there is, as Gertrude Stein said, no there there. "Obama and McCain," Peggy Noonan writes, "are not from a place, but from an experience" and the "lack of placeness with both candidates contributes to a sense of their disjointedness, their floatingness."
This 21st century identity gap started with George W. Bush, who was born in Connecticut, grew up in Texas and spent most of his life before politics trying to figure out who he was and where he belonged. No matter how often we see him cutting brush, our sense of who he is and where he came from remains hazy.
For Obama, lack of a geographical label may even be an advantage, George Packer claims in the New Yorker, asserting that "a black man who, unlike Obama, is deeply rooted in America is probably unelectable today. His rootedness would be inseparable from his blackness, an identity that has to recede far into the background for a black candidate to have a chance."
And yet, anxiety about both candidates today may have much to do with the voters' sense that, as Noonan says, one of them is "from Young. He's from the town of Smooth in the state of Well Educated. He's from TV" and the other "from Military. He's from Vietnam Township in the Sunbelt state."
In the past century, Warren G. Harding campaigned from the front porch of his Victorian house in Marion, Ohio, which is still there for anyone who pays $6 to look at and wander through as is the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan in Dixon, Illinois, complete with a bowl of the popcorn he liked to munch before he went to California and invented himself first as an actor and then as a politician.
Our next president's defining home will not be geographical but a set of images on the Internet from all over the world, and we can only hope that that lack of a specific locale won't keep him from being grounded in reality.
Monday, August 04, 2008
The Inertia Issue
As much as Americans want something new in Washington, Barack Obama's promise of change is colliding with doubts, not all of them raised by attack ads, across the political spectrum.
A new poll reported by the Washington Post shows Obama with a 2 to 1 edge over John McCain among low-wage workers, but "many are unconvinced that either presidential candidate would be better than the other at fixing the ailing economy or improving the health-care system."
At the other end of the political spectrum, George Will in his Post column chides Obama for overblown rhetoric, while conceding that his hero Ronald Reagan was also "incorrigibly fond of perhaps the least conservative, and therefore the most absurd, proposition ever penned by a political philosopher, Thomas Paine's 'we have it in our power to begin the world over again.' No. We. Don't."
In classic conservative mode, Will claims "sweeping changes are almost always calamitous consequences of calamities...Wise voters...hanker for candidates whose principal promise is that they will do their best to muddle through without breaking too much crockery."
But after eight years that produced an unwise war and a damaged economy, both Will and his doubting low-income counterparts may want to look back to the time when Americans put their trust in a president who overhauled a failing financial system with the FDIC and SEC, saved farmers from the Dust Bowl and created Social Security for the destitute old, among other "changes."
Obama may turn out to be no FDR as McCain certainly wouldn't be, but this year is more like 1932 than Reagan's 1980, and "muddle through" won't quite cut it. Inertia is tempting, but it works better in a time such as Eisenhower's with a booming economy after winning a worldwide war. Now there is broken crockery to be swept up.
A new poll reported by the Washington Post shows Obama with a 2 to 1 edge over John McCain among low-wage workers, but "many are unconvinced that either presidential candidate would be better than the other at fixing the ailing economy or improving the health-care system."
At the other end of the political spectrum, George Will in his Post column chides Obama for overblown rhetoric, while conceding that his hero Ronald Reagan was also "incorrigibly fond of perhaps the least conservative, and therefore the most absurd, proposition ever penned by a political philosopher, Thomas Paine's 'we have it in our power to begin the world over again.' No. We. Don't."
In classic conservative mode, Will claims "sweeping changes are almost always calamitous consequences of calamities...Wise voters...hanker for candidates whose principal promise is that they will do their best to muddle through without breaking too much crockery."
But after eight years that produced an unwise war and a damaged economy, both Will and his doubting low-income counterparts may want to look back to the time when Americans put their trust in a president who overhauled a failing financial system with the FDIC and SEC, saved farmers from the Dust Bowl and created Social Security for the destitute old, among other "changes."
Obama may turn out to be no FDR as McCain certainly wouldn't be, but this year is more like 1932 than Reagan's 1980, and "muddle through" won't quite cut it. Inertia is tempting, but it works better in a time such as Eisenhower's with a booming economy after winning a worldwide war. Now there is broken crockery to be swept up.
Friday, August 01, 2008
GOP Dope Dealing
Three out of four Americans are depressed about the way things are going, according to a new CNN poll, the worst national malaise since 1980, the last days of Jimmy Carter's era of inflation, gas shortages and US diplomats held hostage in Iran.
Ronald Reagan came along back then with a vision of "Morning in America" and the dark clouds lifted, at least for those in the upper tax brackets. Now Reagan's spiritual heir, John McCain, is elevating our mood with inspirational commercials featuring Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, which have the added benefit of provoking nostalgia for the good old days of the OJ Simpson trial with debates over who is playing the race card.
In Congress, McCain's Republican allies, with cheerleading from the Lame-Duck-in-Chief, are raising our spirits with promises to drill for more offshore oil that, in decade or so, could lower gas prices by a few cents and cornering Nancy Pelosi into allowing a vote or being blamed for not taking action to relieve the pain at the pump.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama isn't doing much to cheer us up, dwelling on such downers as the economy, health care, education and chasing down terrorists in Afghanistan or Pakistan or somewhere just as boring.
McCain's mood medication is beginning to show some lift in the polls and, if he keeps it up, we should all be high as kites by fall.
Ronald Reagan came along back then with a vision of "Morning in America" and the dark clouds lifted, at least for those in the upper tax brackets. Now Reagan's spiritual heir, John McCain, is elevating our mood with inspirational commercials featuring Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, which have the added benefit of provoking nostalgia for the good old days of the OJ Simpson trial with debates over who is playing the race card.
In Congress, McCain's Republican allies, with cheerleading from the Lame-Duck-in-Chief, are raising our spirits with promises to drill for more offshore oil that, in decade or so, could lower gas prices by a few cents and cornering Nancy Pelosi into allowing a vote or being blamed for not taking action to relieve the pain at the pump.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama isn't doing much to cheer us up, dwelling on such downers as the economy, health care, education and chasing down terrorists in Afghanistan or Pakistan or somewhere just as boring.
McCain's mood medication is beginning to show some lift in the polls and, if he keeps it up, we should all be high as kites by fall.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Obama's Fifty-Percent Barrier
As the new Gallup Poll shows him leading John McCain nationally by 49 to 40 per cent, there is the question. "Where's the Bounce?" from his apparently triumphant tour of the Mideast and Europe last week.
"Why is he not doing better?” the Times' Adam Nagourney asks today. "Even Mr. Obama’s advisers say they are uneasy about his difficulty so far in breaking the 50 percent barrier--a reminder, in poll after poll, that there are many Americans who are not yet ready to cast their lot with him, and may never be."
Some analysts compare Obama to Reagan in 1980, following the unpopular Jimmy Carter but needing to persuade voters he was credible as a president.
“It took a long while for the American public to test and look at Ronald Reagan before they were willing to go with him,” a Democratic pollster points out. “And then, when the dam broke open, it broke open very, very wide.”
It may be too optimistic to equate the comfort levels of American voters over a former actor with those of an African-American with less than a full term in the US Senate, but then again Ronald Reagan didn't have almost two years of exposure in a 24/7 media and internet world to familiarize them with what kind of president he might be.
With more than three months and two national conventions to go, Obama's prospects are looking good, 50 percent or not. Reagan had Jimmy Carter running against him as a living reminder of what the choice was, but John McCain keeps showing voters that he is George W. Bush's heir.
"Why is he not doing better?” the Times' Adam Nagourney asks today. "Even Mr. Obama’s advisers say they are uneasy about his difficulty so far in breaking the 50 percent barrier--a reminder, in poll after poll, that there are many Americans who are not yet ready to cast their lot with him, and may never be."
Some analysts compare Obama to Reagan in 1980, following the unpopular Jimmy Carter but needing to persuade voters he was credible as a president.
“It took a long while for the American public to test and look at Ronald Reagan before they were willing to go with him,” a Democratic pollster points out. “And then, when the dam broke open, it broke open very, very wide.”
It may be too optimistic to equate the comfort levels of American voters over a former actor with those of an African-American with less than a full term in the US Senate, but then again Ronald Reagan didn't have almost two years of exposure in a 24/7 media and internet world to familiarize them with what kind of president he might be.
With more than three months and two national conventions to go, Obama's prospects are looking good, 50 percent or not. Reagan had Jimmy Carter running against him as a living reminder of what the choice was, but John McCain keeps showing voters that he is George W. Bush's heir.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Breaking Down Invisible Walls
Barack Obama in Berlin today talked about tearing down walls that separate nations, just as John F. Kennedy did in 1963 and Ronald Reagan in 1987, but there were differences. JFK and Reagan wanted to break down the physical barrier that symbolized a Cold War. Obama was offering himself as the symbol of a new century without political, ideological or psychological walls between people.
"I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city," he told a crowd of an estimated 200,000 Germans before recalling the common struggles during the Berlin Airlift and exhorting them to a comparable effort against terrorism, tyranny, nuclear weapons, poverty and AIDS and other threats to freedom today.
"Freedom is indivisible," JFK had said, "and when one man is enslaved, all are not free." Reagan had echoed him, proclaiming, "We in the West stand ready to cooperate with the East to promote true openness, to break down barriers that separate people, to create a safe, freer world."
Today, Obama acknowledged that "In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe's role in our security and our future.
"Both views miss the truth--that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe."
As the potential next American President, who in earlier times was considered the Leader of the Free World, Obama offered his prescription for a common future:
"Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more--not less.
"Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.
"That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another."
In the coming months, the Presidential campaign will be a crucial test of how willing Americans are to break down our own long-standing barriers between people.
"I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city," he told a crowd of an estimated 200,000 Germans before recalling the common struggles during the Berlin Airlift and exhorting them to a comparable effort against terrorism, tyranny, nuclear weapons, poverty and AIDS and other threats to freedom today.
"Freedom is indivisible," JFK had said, "and when one man is enslaved, all are not free." Reagan had echoed him, proclaiming, "We in the West stand ready to cooperate with the East to promote true openness, to break down barriers that separate people, to create a safe, freer world."
Today, Obama acknowledged that "In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe's role in our security and our future.
"Both views miss the truth--that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe."
As the potential next American President, who in earlier times was considered the Leader of the Free World, Obama offered his prescription for a common future:
"Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more--not less.
"Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.
"That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another."
In the coming months, the Presidential campaign will be a crucial test of how willing Americans are to break down our own long-standing barriers between people.
Friday, July 18, 2008
"Ich bin ein Berliner, Folks"
The vacillation over a speech site for Barack Obama evokes memories of previous fusses raised by American presidents in post-World War II Germany.
The Obama campaign has been searching for a suitable venue since Chancellor Angela Merkel deemed the Brandenburg Gate unseemly for a speech by a political candidate, and now the Victory Column less than a mile away seems to be the choice.
In 1985, there was a flap over President Reagan's visit to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to lay a wreath at the graves of German soldiers, including SS troops, over the protests of Elie Wiesel and other Holocaust survivors.
Before that, in 1963, President Kennedy made a stirring speech with the memorable line "Ich bin ein Berliner," followed by a semantic fuss about its translation, indicating that JFK may have unintentionally proclaimed himself, not a citizen of Berlin, but a jelly doughnut.
Whatever Obama decides to say to his German audience, he would be well-advised not to refer to John McCain as a hero, risking the possibility he might be understood to be calling the Republican candidate a big, fat overstuffed sandwich.
In languages as well as politics, it's easy for much to be lost in translation.
The Obama campaign has been searching for a suitable venue since Chancellor Angela Merkel deemed the Brandenburg Gate unseemly for a speech by a political candidate, and now the Victory Column less than a mile away seems to be the choice.
In 1985, there was a flap over President Reagan's visit to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to lay a wreath at the graves of German soldiers, including SS troops, over the protests of Elie Wiesel and other Holocaust survivors.
Before that, in 1963, President Kennedy made a stirring speech with the memorable line "Ich bin ein Berliner," followed by a semantic fuss about its translation, indicating that JFK may have unintentionally proclaimed himself, not a citizen of Berlin, but a jelly doughnut.
Whatever Obama decides to say to his German audience, he would be well-advised not to refer to John McCain as a hero, risking the possibility he might be understood to be calling the Republican candidate a big, fat overstuffed sandwich.
In languages as well as politics, it's easy for much to be lost in translation.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The Incredibly Shrinking Former President
Day by day, Bill Clinton is inducing more nostalgia for Ronald Reagan, whose post-presidency was a dignified retreat into Alzheimer's and public silence.
As Hillary and Barack do their reconciliation dance in New Hampshire, here is the former Leader of the Free World having a temper tantrum in London, telling friends that Obama will "have to kiss my ass" to get his support for the campaign.
This charming image evokes memories of previous anatomical inappropriateness on the part of the man for whom bands used to play "Hail to the Chief" but is now, in the words of Maureen Dowd, "in a self-pitying meltdown about not being Elvis anymore, trying to shake down Obama for more--more apologies for perceived snubs and more help paying off the $22 million Clinton debt."
Even Joe Klein, who must have thought he was telling the worst about the pre-presidential Clinton in "Primary Colors," seems taken aback.
"It's time for him to get over it," Klein says "or go off and do his charitable work. He knows the rules of the road. What's going on now is kind of strange. I think his behavior is really, really shocking."
In the 2000 campaign, Al Gore was criticized for keeping Bill Clinton in the closet. At the rate the former President's stature is shrinking these days, Barack Obama would be well-advised to try to keep him out of the continent.
As Hillary and Barack do their reconciliation dance in New Hampshire, here is the former Leader of the Free World having a temper tantrum in London, telling friends that Obama will "have to kiss my ass" to get his support for the campaign.
This charming image evokes memories of previous anatomical inappropriateness on the part of the man for whom bands used to play "Hail to the Chief" but is now, in the words of Maureen Dowd, "in a self-pitying meltdown about not being Elvis anymore, trying to shake down Obama for more--more apologies for perceived snubs and more help paying off the $22 million Clinton debt."
Even Joe Klein, who must have thought he was telling the worst about the pre-presidential Clinton in "Primary Colors," seems taken aback.
"It's time for him to get over it," Klein says "or go off and do his charitable work. He knows the rules of the road. What's going on now is kind of strange. I think his behavior is really, really shocking."
In the 2000 campaign, Al Gore was criticized for keeping Bill Clinton in the closet. At the rate the former President's stature is shrinking these days, Barack Obama would be well-advised to try to keep him out of the continent.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Package Deals of Prejudice for November
As vice-presidential searches start, Democrats and Republicans are in a position to offer voters full-course menus to express their fears and hatreds.
The growing clamor for a Clinton-Obama ticket would give mysogynists and racists a joint outlet, while ageism and anti-Mormon intolerance would be provided by McCain and Romney, who are sharing barbecue in Arizona this weekend.
When the issue of a Catholic president was up in 1960 or a divorced man in Reagan's 1980 run, discrimination was relatively primitive. Now, in the era of anything-goes, ballots can proffer demographic breakthroughs wholesale.
The only problem would be disentangling which prejudices drew the most votes for or against each ticket, but that will be a job for the pollsters and pundits.
The growing clamor for a Clinton-Obama ticket would give mysogynists and racists a joint outlet, while ageism and anti-Mormon intolerance would be provided by McCain and Romney, who are sharing barbecue in Arizona this weekend.
When the issue of a Catholic president was up in 1960 or a divorced man in Reagan's 1980 run, discrimination was relatively primitive. Now, in the era of anything-goes, ballots can proffer demographic breakthroughs wholesale.
The only problem would be disentangling which prejudices drew the most votes for or against each ticket, but that will be a job for the pollsters and pundits.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
McCain's Backward Media March
For a campaign in which he faces a quarter-of-a-century age gap with Barack Obama, John McCain has been busy searching for the media's Fountain of Youth, last night on SNL and with a forthcoming interview in Glamour.
Taking a leaf from his hero, Ronald Reagan, who was even older when running for reelection in 1984, McCain is making jokes about his age. In a presidential debate back then, the 73-year-old Reagan deadpanned about Walter Mondale: "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."
In a parody political ad on Saturday Night Live, McCain emoted, “Good evening, my fellow Americans. I ask you: what should we be looking for in our next president? Certainly, someone who is very, very, very old...I have the courage, the wisdom, the experience and most importantly, the oldness necessary."
He added that controlling government spending was about being able to look your children in the eye, “or in my case my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren and great-great-great grandchildren--the youngest of whom are nearing retirement.’’
Interviewed by Glamour, whose readers are young women under 35, McCain says he finds the website, ThingsYoungerMcCain.com., "hilarious." Told that Scrabble, the Golden Gate Bridge and area codes are on the list, he added, "Yes indeed. Not to mention the Internet and...maybe even color TV."
Technically, experimental color sets predate him, but not cable TV. More importantly, he is senior to the whole generation of Baby Boomers, who now make up the majority of older voters.
But that won't faze the potentially most ancient President ever to take office, who has been one of Jon Stewart's most frequent Daily Show guests. Next stop: Sesame Street.
Taking a leaf from his hero, Ronald Reagan, who was even older when running for reelection in 1984, McCain is making jokes about his age. In a presidential debate back then, the 73-year-old Reagan deadpanned about Walter Mondale: "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."
In a parody political ad on Saturday Night Live, McCain emoted, “Good evening, my fellow Americans. I ask you: what should we be looking for in our next president? Certainly, someone who is very, very, very old...I have the courage, the wisdom, the experience and most importantly, the oldness necessary."
He added that controlling government spending was about being able to look your children in the eye, “or in my case my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren and great-great-great grandchildren--the youngest of whom are nearing retirement.’’
Interviewed by Glamour, whose readers are young women under 35, McCain says he finds the website, ThingsYoungerMcCain.com., "hilarious." Told that Scrabble, the Golden Gate Bridge and area codes are on the list, he added, "Yes indeed. Not to mention the Internet and...maybe even color TV."
Technically, experimental color sets predate him, but not cable TV. More importantly, he is senior to the whole generation of Baby Boomers, who now make up the majority of older voters.
But that won't faze the potentially most ancient President ever to take office, who has been one of Jon Stewart's most frequent Daily Show guests. Next stop: Sesame Street.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Beatifying Bill Buckley
It is no disrespect to the memory of a remarkable man to marvel at the efforts of disciples he left behind to elevate him to conservative sainthood.
The latest gush is from William Kristol in today's New York Times, asserting Buckley "helped many of us realize there were far richer intellectual traditions available than 20th-century liberalism even dreamed of" and crediting him with the rise of Reagan followed by "victory in the cold war, a revitalized economy and a renewed nation."
Last week, David Brooks was almost at a loss for words, but not quite. "I don’t know," he wrote, "if I can communicate the grandeur of his life or how overwhelming it was to be admitted into it. Buckley was not only a giant celebrity, he lived in a manner of the haut monde. To enter Buckley’s world was to enter the world of yachts, limousines, finger bowls at dinner, celebrities like David Niven and tales of skiing at Gstaad...He took me sailing, invited me to concerts and included me at dinners with the great and the good."
In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan celebrated Buckley as a "complete American original, a national treasure, a man whose energy was a kind of optimism, and whose attitude toward life, even when things seemed to others bleak, was summed up in something he said to a friend: "'Despair is a mortal sin.'"
Among conservatives, only Andrew Sullivan spoke a truth rare among all the superlatives by asking, "(A)m I the only person who found Buckley close to unreadable a lot of the time? I never read his fiction, but his nonfiction was packed the endless sentences, ridiculously long words, and meaning that sometimes took several reads to excavate. I don't know how many times I finished a Buckley column with the thought: what on earth was he trying to say?"
For benighted liberals like me, there was an even more basic problem. For all the conservative blather about our latte-drinking elitism, Buckley was the most elitist figure of his generation, growing up in inherited luxury with a monstrous sense of entitlement and disdain for those who did not share it.
As he dazzled the likes of Kristol, Brooks and Noonan, the rest of us saw only brilliant rationalizations for the politics of selfishness and "Dieu and Mon Droit." Not quite "Let them eat cake," but not too far removed from it.
But speaking ill of the dead may be churlish and ungracious. Let Noonan have the last word about "the defender of great creeds and great belief": "Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels take thee to thy rest."
The latest gush is from William Kristol in today's New York Times, asserting Buckley "helped many of us realize there were far richer intellectual traditions available than 20th-century liberalism even dreamed of" and crediting him with the rise of Reagan followed by "victory in the cold war, a revitalized economy and a renewed nation."
Last week, David Brooks was almost at a loss for words, but not quite. "I don’t know," he wrote, "if I can communicate the grandeur of his life or how overwhelming it was to be admitted into it. Buckley was not only a giant celebrity, he lived in a manner of the haut monde. To enter Buckley’s world was to enter the world of yachts, limousines, finger bowls at dinner, celebrities like David Niven and tales of skiing at Gstaad...He took me sailing, invited me to concerts and included me at dinners with the great and the good."
In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan celebrated Buckley as a "complete American original, a national treasure, a man whose energy was a kind of optimism, and whose attitude toward life, even when things seemed to others bleak, was summed up in something he said to a friend: "'Despair is a mortal sin.'"
Among conservatives, only Andrew Sullivan spoke a truth rare among all the superlatives by asking, "(A)m I the only person who found Buckley close to unreadable a lot of the time? I never read his fiction, but his nonfiction was packed the endless sentences, ridiculously long words, and meaning that sometimes took several reads to excavate. I don't know how many times I finished a Buckley column with the thought: what on earth was he trying to say?"
For benighted liberals like me, there was an even more basic problem. For all the conservative blather about our latte-drinking elitism, Buckley was the most elitist figure of his generation, growing up in inherited luxury with a monstrous sense of entitlement and disdain for those who did not share it.
As he dazzled the likes of Kristol, Brooks and Noonan, the rest of us saw only brilliant rationalizations for the politics of selfishness and "Dieu and Mon Droit." Not quite "Let them eat cake," but not too far removed from it.
But speaking ill of the dead may be churlish and ungracious. Let Noonan have the last word about "the defender of great creeds and great belief": "Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels take thee to thy rest."
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Oldest New President Ever
John McCain had a senior moment in Texas the other day. “I’m a proud conservative liberal Republican,” he said in a speech, then catching himself up, “conservative Republican. Hello? Easy there. Let me say this: I am a proud conservative Republican...”
If he wins in November, John McCain will be 72, three years older than Ronald Reagan was when elected--in his own description, "older than dirt, with more scars than Frankenstein." A Gallup Poll shows voters are worried about that.
As his senior by a dozen years, I am duty-bound to offer advice and encouragement. "Old age is a shipwreck," Charles de Gaulle once famously said, but he wasn't talking about himself. He was president of France until he passed 88 and was forced out of office for trying to marginalize the Senate that was blocking his iron whims.
New research shows that age is not disabling if you stay active, and since he got out of that Vietnamese prison, nobody has accused John McCain of being sedentary.
Moreover, another study finds that, contrary to the belief that older people are more “set in their ways,” individuals age 60 and older change their attitudes on controversial issues more significantly than people under 40. McCain himself has been living proof of that in the past year, outdone only by Mitt Romney.
So here's to the septuagenarian Senator. I won't be one of them, but grumpy old voters may come out in force for him next November--if the weather isn't too bad.
If he wins in November, John McCain will be 72, three years older than Ronald Reagan was when elected--in his own description, "older than dirt, with more scars than Frankenstein." A Gallup Poll shows voters are worried about that.
As his senior by a dozen years, I am duty-bound to offer advice and encouragement. "Old age is a shipwreck," Charles de Gaulle once famously said, but he wasn't talking about himself. He was president of France until he passed 88 and was forced out of office for trying to marginalize the Senate that was blocking his iron whims.
New research shows that age is not disabling if you stay active, and since he got out of that Vietnamese prison, nobody has accused John McCain of being sedentary.
Moreover, another study finds that, contrary to the belief that older people are more “set in their ways,” individuals age 60 and older change their attitudes on controversial issues more significantly than people under 40. McCain himself has been living proof of that in the past year, outdone only by Mitt Romney.
So here's to the septuagenarian Senator. I won't be one of them, but grumpy old voters may come out in force for him next November--if the weather isn't too bad.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Raising Arizona, McCain and Goldwater
After Super Tuesday, John McCain told local supporters they were "a little bit closer to the day when mothers in Arizona might be able to tell their children that someday they could grow up to be president of the United States."
That wry comment has a history with relevance to McCain's situation today. Since Arizona became a state in 1912, the only other resident to win nomination for President was Barry Goldwater in 1964, who lost to Lyndon Johnson by a crushing margin.
His defeat marked both the mistrust of "extremism" at that time and the emergence of a conservative movement that culminated in Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 and is now in crisis after George W. Bush's two terms to start the new century.
As McCain moves toward becoming the second Arizonan to make a run for the White House, his candidacy reflects that history and raises questions about another turning point in Republican history.
Goldwater aroused the fears of his party that he was too conservative. McCain is facing doubts over whether he is conservative enough.
Their Arizona temperaments are part of the equation--plain-spoken, proud and independent. Goldwater was just as mistrusted by the Eastern Republican Establishment of his time as McCain now is by the Evangelical Base today.
Will his fate be different?
That wry comment has a history with relevance to McCain's situation today. Since Arizona became a state in 1912, the only other resident to win nomination for President was Barry Goldwater in 1964, who lost to Lyndon Johnson by a crushing margin.
His defeat marked both the mistrust of "extremism" at that time and the emergence of a conservative movement that culminated in Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 and is now in crisis after George W. Bush's two terms to start the new century.
As McCain moves toward becoming the second Arizonan to make a run for the White House, his candidacy reflects that history and raises questions about another turning point in Republican history.
Goldwater aroused the fears of his party that he was too conservative. McCain is facing doubts over whether he is conservative enough.
Their Arizona temperaments are part of the equation--plain-spoken, proud and independent. Goldwater was just as mistrusted by the Eastern Republican Establishment of his time as McCain now is by the Evangelical Base today.
Will his fate be different?
Monday, February 04, 2008
John McCain, Traitor
In the eyes of its diehards, the Republican Party will go a long way tomorrow toward nominating a candidate who has betrayed its principles.
On the far right's list of infamy, McCain is reviled for damaging free speech and the First Amendment for trying to curb the power of money in elections, harming free enterprise by advocating a patient's bill of rights and the importation of lower-priced socialized medications from Canada and, worst of all, refusing to crack down on illegal immigrants who might sneak across our unfenced borders for another 9/11 attack.
The tide of bile against John McCain is so high that right-wing realists are piling last-minute sandbags on the ideological dikes to avert a GOP Katrina.
In the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby argues that "the immaculate conservative leader for whom so many on the right yearn to vote is a fantasy. Conservatives who say that McCain is no Ronald Reagan are right, but Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan either. Neither is Mike Huckabee. And neither was the real--as opposed to the mythic--Ronald Reagan.
"The conservative case against McCain is clear enough...But this year, the conservative case for McCain is vastly more compelling."
The New York Times' new sage William Kristol urges far-right colleagues to overcome their "disgruntlement and dyspepsia" and not to "treat 2008 as a throwaway election."
Fellow senators, too, are having a hard time swallowing the idea of McCain as their standard bearer, the Washington Post reports, warning that "his tirades suggest a temperament unfit for the Oval Office."
McCain's offenses against collegiality, to an outside observer, seem motivated by outrage at blatant corruption, but we may not be attuned to the nuances of legislative free enterprise.
Tomorrow will be a test for all his detractors. Will they choose a chance to win in November with the treacherous McCain or go down in honor with malleable Mitt Romney?
On the far right's list of infamy, McCain is reviled for damaging free speech and the First Amendment for trying to curb the power of money in elections, harming free enterprise by advocating a patient's bill of rights and the importation of lower-priced socialized medications from Canada and, worst of all, refusing to crack down on illegal immigrants who might sneak across our unfenced borders for another 9/11 attack.
The tide of bile against John McCain is so high that right-wing realists are piling last-minute sandbags on the ideological dikes to avert a GOP Katrina.
In the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby argues that "the immaculate conservative leader for whom so many on the right yearn to vote is a fantasy. Conservatives who say that McCain is no Ronald Reagan are right, but Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan either. Neither is Mike Huckabee. And neither was the real--as opposed to the mythic--Ronald Reagan.
"The conservative case against McCain is clear enough...But this year, the conservative case for McCain is vastly more compelling."
The New York Times' new sage William Kristol urges far-right colleagues to overcome their "disgruntlement and dyspepsia" and not to "treat 2008 as a throwaway election."
Fellow senators, too, are having a hard time swallowing the idea of McCain as their standard bearer, the Washington Post reports, warning that "his tirades suggest a temperament unfit for the Oval Office."
McCain's offenses against collegiality, to an outside observer, seem motivated by outrage at blatant corruption, but we may not be attuned to the nuances of legislative free enterprise.
Tomorrow will be a test for all his detractors. Will they choose a chance to win in November with the treacherous McCain or go down in honor with malleable Mitt Romney?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Bedtime for Fred
He could have aced the part, but the rehearsals were murder, so Fred Thompson's agent can start fielding offers again. The Law & Order star announced today that he has stopped auditioning for the White House.
It was fun while it lasted. Before he declared his candidacy, Thompson was running second in the national polls, but the rigors of actually campaigning were too much.
He ran for President from a Barcalounger, as Dick Cavett observed in his New York Times blog, and gave new meaning to "laid back" until he bestirred himself in the South Carolina debate to deliver a few barbs for Mike Huckabee, who will no doubt benefit from his absence in the Florida primary.
Since everybody else is playing Ronald Reagan in this campaign, Thompson's road-show performance won't be missed.
It was fun while it lasted. Before he declared his candidacy, Thompson was running second in the national polls, but the rigors of actually campaigning were too much.
He ran for President from a Barcalounger, as Dick Cavett observed in his New York Times blog, and gave new meaning to "laid back" until he bestirred himself in the South Carolina debate to deliver a few barbs for Mike Huckabee, who will no doubt benefit from his absence in the Florida primary.
Since everybody else is playing Ronald Reagan in this campaign, Thompson's road-show performance won't be missed.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Et Tu, Barack?
As the campaign reaches fever pitch, the candidates are slipping toward caricatures of themselves--Huckabee's piety, Hillary Clinton's control-freakiness, John Edwards' angry man act, and now Barack Obama gives us too much audacity about hope in praising Ronald Reagan for "clarity...optimism...a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."
True enough that Reagan rode to the White House on "the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s," but it was Nixon's resentful Silent Majority that propelled him there to express, behind the "Morning in America" façade, a social meanness that cut taxes for the very rich and falsified a "trickle down" effect for everyone else.
After his Iowa victory, Obama said, ""The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face...who won't just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know."
In this campaign, there has been very little of that, but Obama has showed some signs. Tuesday night, for example, he dared to suggest that one way to cut American dependence on foreign oil is to consume less energy:
"We are going to have to make our buildings more efficient. We're going to have to make our lighting more efficient. We're going to have to make our appliances more efficient. That is actually the low-hanging fruit if we're going to deal with climate change...
"And there's no reason why, with the kind of presidential leadership that I intend to provide, that we can't make drastic cuts in the amount of energy that we consume without any drop in our standard of living."
Not exactly a call for blood, sweat and tears, but amid all the pumped-up promises of no-cost change, Obama has here and there dropped a hint that it will take more than optimism to cure the economy. It's disheartening to hear him praise the false hope of the 1980s in an attempt to "bring us together" and pick up some votes from surviving Reagan Democrats.
True enough that Reagan rode to the White House on "the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s," but it was Nixon's resentful Silent Majority that propelled him there to express, behind the "Morning in America" façade, a social meanness that cut taxes for the very rich and falsified a "trickle down" effect for everyone else.
After his Iowa victory, Obama said, ""The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face...who won't just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know."
In this campaign, there has been very little of that, but Obama has showed some signs. Tuesday night, for example, he dared to suggest that one way to cut American dependence on foreign oil is to consume less energy:
"We are going to have to make our buildings more efficient. We're going to have to make our lighting more efficient. We're going to have to make our appliances more efficient. That is actually the low-hanging fruit if we're going to deal with climate change...
"And there's no reason why, with the kind of presidential leadership that I intend to provide, that we can't make drastic cuts in the amount of energy that we consume without any drop in our standard of living."
Not exactly a call for blood, sweat and tears, but amid all the pumped-up promises of no-cost change, Obama has here and there dropped a hint that it will take more than optimism to cure the economy. It's disheartening to hear him praise the false hope of the 1980s in an attempt to "bring us together" and pick up some votes from surviving Reagan Democrats.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
There Goes the Log Cabin Vote
"Mike Huckabee," the AP reports, "once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could 'pose a dangerous public health risk.'"
If the preacher is planning to go Reaganesque in his surge toward the GOP nomination, this news will not sit well with the 47 chapters of the Long Cabin Republicans, who got their start in California in 1977 when the Great Communicator opposed an anti-gay ballot initiative against teachers and helped defeat it.
Reagan wrote a letter outlining his views, in which he said, "Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this."
In contrast, answering a questionnaire when he was running for the Senate in 1992, Huckabee wrote: "It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents."
The former Arkansas governor won't be making any new friends in Hollywood either when they learn he opposed federal funding for AIDS research and suggest that celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna who support it do so "out of their own personal treasuries."
But as a candidate this year, Huckabee did a little flip-flopping on his web site: "My administration will be the first to have an overarching strategy for dealing with HIV and AIDS here in the United States, with a partnership between the public and private sectors that will provide necessary financing and a realistic path toward our goals."
Huckabee and Mitt Romney might have bumped into each other racing toward new positions on gays from opposite directions. But he could make a new friend in Lou Dobbs, who wants to treat illegal immigrants as lepers, too.
If the preacher is planning to go Reaganesque in his surge toward the GOP nomination, this news will not sit well with the 47 chapters of the Long Cabin Republicans, who got their start in California in 1977 when the Great Communicator opposed an anti-gay ballot initiative against teachers and helped defeat it.
Reagan wrote a letter outlining his views, in which he said, "Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this."
In contrast, answering a questionnaire when he was running for the Senate in 1992, Huckabee wrote: "It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents."
The former Arkansas governor won't be making any new friends in Hollywood either when they learn he opposed federal funding for AIDS research and suggest that celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna who support it do so "out of their own personal treasuries."
But as a candidate this year, Huckabee did a little flip-flopping on his web site: "My administration will be the first to have an overarching strategy for dealing with HIV and AIDS here in the United States, with a partnership between the public and private sectors that will provide necessary financing and a realistic path toward our goals."
Huckabee and Mitt Romney might have bumped into each other racing toward new positions on gays from opposite directions. But he could make a new friend in Lou Dobbs, who wants to treat illegal immigrants as lepers, too.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Huckabee Is Ready for His Closeup
His lead in the Iowa polls has propelled Mike Huckabee into the Republican top tier, making it a certainty he will be cover-storied, 60-Minuted and commented-on ad nauseam this month.
For a start, a reporter who covered him for years in Arkansas, John Brummett, insists the former Governor is, by nature and experience, less a preacher than a huckster, "more decidedly a media man than a pulpit man," that his success "comes via a disc jockey's shtick rather than a pastor's...more Don Imus than Billy Graham."
Like the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan, Huckabee got his start working in radio, reading news and weather at the age of 14 before going off to seminaries and coming back to work for a TV evangelist.
As a preacher, he supplemented his income on cable TV and, even as lieutenant governor, guest-hosted for a radio talk show host. That would explain Huckabee's ease with pop cultural references, such as complaining last spring that his campaign was drawing less attention than "Britney Spears getting out a car without underwear."
Now the attention is there. In the Los Angeles Times yesterday, Huckabee was pictured playing his electric guitar and quoted as saying, "I drink a different kind of Jesus juice."
Out front now with the leaders now, he will be drawing fire for lack of ardor in tax-cutting by the Grover Norquist gang, softness as a self-styled Second-Commandment Christian and other perceived shortcomings by the Religious Right, possibly even Willie-Horton attacks for commuting the sentence of a rapist who later killed a woman.
.
But Huckabee's amiable MC manner may be concealing a much tougher campaigner. Nobody should underestimate the determination of a man who dieted and sweated off 110 pounds to save his health and now regularly runs in marathons.
Those cover stories won't be dull.
For a start, a reporter who covered him for years in Arkansas, John Brummett, insists the former Governor is, by nature and experience, less a preacher than a huckster, "more decidedly a media man than a pulpit man," that his success "comes via a disc jockey's shtick rather than a pastor's...more Don Imus than Billy Graham."
Like the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan, Huckabee got his start working in radio, reading news and weather at the age of 14 before going off to seminaries and coming back to work for a TV evangelist.
As a preacher, he supplemented his income on cable TV and, even as lieutenant governor, guest-hosted for a radio talk show host. That would explain Huckabee's ease with pop cultural references, such as complaining last spring that his campaign was drawing less attention than "Britney Spears getting out a car without underwear."
Now the attention is there. In the Los Angeles Times yesterday, Huckabee was pictured playing his electric guitar and quoted as saying, "I drink a different kind of Jesus juice."
Out front now with the leaders now, he will be drawing fire for lack of ardor in tax-cutting by the Grover Norquist gang, softness as a self-styled Second-Commandment Christian and other perceived shortcomings by the Religious Right, possibly even Willie-Horton attacks for commuting the sentence of a rapist who later killed a woman.
.
But Huckabee's amiable MC manner may be concealing a much tougher campaigner. Nobody should underestimate the determination of a man who dieted and sweated off 110 pounds to save his health and now regularly runs in marathons.
Those cover stories won't be dull.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Mixed Feelings About the Sixties
Suddenly we are back in the 1960s with Hillary Clinton citing virtues for what she did back then, Barack Obama claiming he is of a new generation above the divisiveness of those days and Tom Brokaw, as usual, writing a book to explain it all.
At her alma mater, Wellesley, this week, Clinton said, "I need your help to make the calls and knock on the doors and talk to your friends and family. That's what I did back in 1968 when a group of my dear friends and I jumped in a car…and would drive from Wellesley to Manchester, New Hampshire, stuffing envelopes and walking precincts for Eugene McCarthy. He was running for president on a platform of ending the Vietnam War. I am running for president on part of a platform of ending the war in Iraq."
In Iowa, Obama is telling voters, "Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s. It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done. And I think that's what people hunger for."
Politicians hype everything about themselves, including the accident of when they were born, but the 1960s were formative years for today's America, exposing fault lines in our national life that still divide us.
From my ancient perspective, what happened back then goes too deep for glib generalizations and political pandering.
On the one hand, the first generation of Americans not entirely driven to outdo their parents materially turned to moral superiority--about war, race, gender. In the 1950s movie, "The Wild One," biker Marlon Brando, asked what he's rebelling against, answers, "What have you got?"
There was awakening from complacency to challenge injustice and try to create a better society. But there was also self-righteous and self-serving acting out by draft-card burners, culminating in the chaos of the 1968 Democratic convention where anti-war protesters and delegates, including me, were tear-gassed.
We started the decade with JFK's "Ask what you can do for your country" and ended up with Richard Nixon and his dirty tricksters in the White House.
The culture wars began. People Nixon called "The Silent Majority" were appalled by privileged kids publicly trashing their traditional values at Woodstock and elsewhere, paving the way for Reagan's revival a decade later of the fictional feel-good America he lived in as an actor in 1940s movies.
In looking ahead to 2008, it would be a mistake to overuse the 1960s as a template. America was going through social and political growing pains back then that are not quite parallel to what we face now, but at the same time, there is no virtue in dismissing all that and assuming we can just turn to a blank new page in our history.
If Republicans are living in a nostalgic past, Democrats can't just push ahead to a fantasy future. There are enough questions to answer about what we do now in today's world.
At her alma mater, Wellesley, this week, Clinton said, "I need your help to make the calls and knock on the doors and talk to your friends and family. That's what I did back in 1968 when a group of my dear friends and I jumped in a car…and would drive from Wellesley to Manchester, New Hampshire, stuffing envelopes and walking precincts for Eugene McCarthy. He was running for president on a platform of ending the Vietnam War. I am running for president on part of a platform of ending the war in Iraq."
In Iowa, Obama is telling voters, "Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s. It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done. And I think that's what people hunger for."
Politicians hype everything about themselves, including the accident of when they were born, but the 1960s were formative years for today's America, exposing fault lines in our national life that still divide us.
From my ancient perspective, what happened back then goes too deep for glib generalizations and political pandering.
On the one hand, the first generation of Americans not entirely driven to outdo their parents materially turned to moral superiority--about war, race, gender. In the 1950s movie, "The Wild One," biker Marlon Brando, asked what he's rebelling against, answers, "What have you got?"
There was awakening from complacency to challenge injustice and try to create a better society. But there was also self-righteous and self-serving acting out by draft-card burners, culminating in the chaos of the 1968 Democratic convention where anti-war protesters and delegates, including me, were tear-gassed.
We started the decade with JFK's "Ask what you can do for your country" and ended up with Richard Nixon and his dirty tricksters in the White House.
The culture wars began. People Nixon called "The Silent Majority" were appalled by privileged kids publicly trashing their traditional values at Woodstock and elsewhere, paving the way for Reagan's revival a decade later of the fictional feel-good America he lived in as an actor in 1940s movies.
In looking ahead to 2008, it would be a mistake to overuse the 1960s as a template. America was going through social and political growing pains back then that are not quite parallel to what we face now, but at the same time, there is no virtue in dismissing all that and assuming we can just turn to a blank new page in our history.
If Republicans are living in a nostalgic past, Democrats can't just push ahead to a fantasy future. There are enough questions to answer about what we do now in today's world.
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