Ronald Reagan

Right up until the very end of the 1980 campaign, when polls still showed Jimmy Carter running even with Ronald Reagan despite high unemployment and inflation and fading national confidence, it was taken as an article of faith among Democrats – and more than a few establishment Republicans – that the country would never turn to a candidate as “extreme” as Reagan. Election Day disabused them of this notion: Reagan won 44 states and his party posted a stunning gain of 12 Senate seats.

The New Deal and Great Society philosophies had become victims of their own success, as the new suburban masses, liberated from the dependence on government that had marked their parents’ lives, revolted against high taxes, big government and the Democratic Party that had come to symbolize them.  read more »

The New York Times' John Harwood makes a decent point today–that candidates with leads the size of Barack Obama's generally don't squander them in the final three weeks of a presidential campaign.

But this principle is even more iron-clad than Harwood seems to realize. He writes:

In the latest Gallup tracking poll, Obama leads Mr. McCain 50 percent to 43 percent among registered voters. Mr. McCain's deficit in that survey has remained seven percentage points or more for most of the last two weeks.

 

Since Gallup began presidential polling in 1936, only one candidate has overcome a deficit that large, and this late, to win the White House: Ronald Reagan, who trailed President Jimmy Carter 47 percent to 39 percent in a survey completed on Oct.

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ST. PAUL--Last night, George W. Bush spoke via satellite to the Republican convention for eight and a half minutes—with his speech timed to finish just before the broadcast networks began their blanket coverage of the ten o'clock prime-time hour.

This doesn't compare favorably with the treatment that the other two-term presidents of the television age received at their final conventions.

For comparison's sake, eight and a half minutes also happens to be the length of the above video, which was merely the introduction for Bill Clinton's speech at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles. When the Clinton video finished, delegates and television viewers (his tribute was carried in the ten o'clock hour) watched footage of the outgoing president making his way through a long hallway to the convention stage, while his various accomplishments scrolled across the bottom of the screen (this particular effect was only for those in convention hall, not on TV).  read more »

The prospect of Joe Biden joining Barack Obama’s ticket, which seems to have grown more real in recent days, raises an interesting possibility: another Biden presidential campaign.

Given how his campaign turned out this year, the idea of Biden ever seeking the White House again seems (and probably is) unlikely. But, at least in theory, a tour de force performance as the VP nominee – think Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 – could spark popular interest in a future Biden presidential campaign that was missing in this past one. If Obama were to lose, Biden (again, theoretically) might then have a shot at the 2012 nomination (much the way the ’92 nomination was essentially Bentsen’s for the taking after his ’88 performance).  read more »

The latest wave of polling has been an almost uninterrupted parade of good news for Barack Obama – widening leads in national surveys, solid advantages in most swing states, and startling strength in numerous Republican bastions.

It could all mean nothing, of course. Michael Dukakis led George H. W. Bush by 13 points at this moment in 1988, a margin that would swell to 17 points after the July Democratic convention only to evaporate by Labor Day, never to reappear.

But Obama seems a far more durable candidate than Dukakis, while John McCain leads a Republican Party that is in a state of disrepair unimaginable 20 years ago.  read more »

Obviously, Democrats want voters to be thinking about John McCain’s age and fretting over whether it might be eating away at his mental faculties. There’s no other reason why party’s anti-McCain talking points would call for surrogates to so prominently slip forms of the word “confused” into attacks on the soon-to-be 72-year-old Republican candidate.

In a Wednesday conference call that received much attention, Susan Rice, one of Obama’s national security advisors, talked about McCain’s “disturbing, even disconcerting, pattern of confusing the basic facts and reality that pertain to Iraq,” while John Kerry called his Senate colleague “confused” – a word he repeated several times in an MSNBC interview later in the day. It’s not the first time Democrats have played this card this year, and it surely won’t be the last.  read more »

Think Barack Obama can get away with an ad like this in the fall? 

Tomorrow night marks the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, D.C. Members of the press corps (including some Media Mob contributors who are already on their way—note low posting rate today!) will have a chance to clink glasses with the president and his cabinet and remind themselves that despite five years of war, an economy some are already calling a Depression, and a painful slog of an election season, it's all in good fun. L'chaim! To us!

This year's event will be emceed by CBS Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson, whom the W.H.C.A.'s president (and ABC News correspondent), Ann Compton, is really excited about: "Craig Ferguson is a fresh take on late night TV. As a new citizen, a first-time uncommitted voter and someone who has looked at American politics from the outside, I am looking forward to his unique take on our system."

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The April 22 Pennsylvania primary breathed new life into an underdog presidential campaign that had been on the ropes, ensuring that the race would continue at least through the Indiana primary in two weeks and raising new concerns within the party about the front-runner’s ability to close the deal.

Yes, this is old news—28 years old, to be exact.  read more »

This year, Republicans have chosen to nominate for president a war hero and longtime senator with one losing White House bid under his belt. In 1996, the party put up a 73-year-old war hero and longtime senator who already had two failed White House campaigns to this name.

On this basis, it has become fashionable to compare John McCain to Bob Dole, the septuagenarian whose listless ’96 effort established the low-water mark for Republicans in the post-Goldwater era—159 electoral votes and 41 percent of the national popular vote.

Reflecting on Mr. McCain’s recent biography-themed campaign swing and a new ad, The Atlantic’s Ross Douthat wrote that the G.O.P. standard-bearer “pushes all my Dole-redux buttons.”  read more »

 As Ralph Nader becomes the Harold Stassen of the 21st century and a running joke to everyone except Al Gore, we sometimes forget that a generation ago (When Stassen was our perennial candidate for President), Nader was a founder of the consumer and environmental movement. How does someone evolve from one of the most credible policy advocates in the country, to a punch line on late night television?

When you buckle your seatbelts and when your air bag deploys—saving your life—you should thank Ralph Nader. The Clean Air Act, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act are at least partially due to Nader’s skill as an advocate in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

I mention the history because Nader did not build his reputation as a consumer and environmental advocate by pushing symbolism at the expense of results. He must know that his popularity is trending down.  read more »

It’s funny what conservatives will forgive.

Late last week, they treated John McCain to a chorus of jeers when he appeared before the Conservative Political Action Conference and dared to bring up illegal immigration—a very sore spot with an audience that believes McCain’s efforts on the subject have amounted to a bid to provide “amnesty” to 12 million or so undocumented workers.

But the next morning, the very same activists in the very same room serenaded George W. Bush with chants of “Four more years!”—even though it was Bush who made enacting McCain’s despised “amnesty” legislation one of his second term priorities.

Over and over this campaign season, we have heard about the right’s distrust of McCain, talk that reached fever pitch when he emerged as the likely Republican nominee and was promptly greeted by a band of talk show bloviators who suggested they’d sooner vote for Hillary Clinton than for him. How could they be so offended by McCain, but not Bush?  read more »

The bloodletting between the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was not stanched by the end of last night’s debate in Myrtle Beach. It continued in the spin room.

Ann Lewis continued to talk about Obama’s comments about the trajectory changing force of Republican ideas to a Las Vegas editorial board.

“He said that they were the party of ideas,” she said. “Clearly in contradiction to the Democratic Party.”  read more »

Supporters of Hillary Clinton reaffirmed in a conference call just now that they are outraged by Barack Obama's positive remarks about Ronald Reagan as a trajectory-changer in American politics.

"I was stupefied by the comments," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts. He added, "It's baffling to me that Senator Obama would speak so favorably of him."

The best line of the call though came from an angry Representative Corrine Brown of Florida.

"Every time I see a homeless person I think about Ronald Reagan," she said, before adding, "It is very important that young people know about the history."

UPDATE: The Clinton campaign e-mails to say that their supporters on the call were also taking exception to Obama's remarks to the Reno Gazette-Journal's editorial board, in which he said "I think it's fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."

To be fair, Obama did put this in the context of the Republican approach having "played itself out."

 

The day after Rudy Giuliani officially stepped down from the top position at Giuliani Partners because of ties to a nation accused of harboring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he takes his message to the airwaves with an ad that invokes Islamic terrorism and Ronald Reagan.

Neither Mr. Romney nor Mr. Giuliani can change the subject with a simple I-was-a-different-person-back-then dismissal, because neither of them can point to a conversion story like Reagan’s.  read more »

Steve Kornacki thinks Democrats aren’t looking at the real reason Reagan won in 1980—and it wasn’t his much-discussed, race-baiting speech in Neshoba.

Also from the Observer, Jennifer Rubin suggests Mitt Romney is going to have problems now that he's being forced to go into the specifics of his record.

Two decades after he left office, too many Democrats still refuse to face up to the very simple—but powerful—reasons why their clocks were so thoroughly cleaned by Reagan.  read more »

The battle over Reagan and race that had been playing out recently on the New York Times op-ed page appeared to have subsided by the end of last week.  But it received new life over the weekend when Reagan biographer Lou Cannon contributed a guest op-ed asserting that "Ronald Reagan was not a racist." 

Today, Paul Krugman responds, arguing, as he has before, that Reagan used racist appeals for political benefit.  Referring to Mr. Cannon and Times columnist David Brooks, he notes: "Reagan's defenders protest furiously that he wasn't personally bigoted. So what? We're talking about his political strategy. His personal beliefs are irrelevant."

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Republican angst has created an opening for Fred Thompson.  read more »

Sensing their own smallness, contemporary politicians often seek to puff themselves up by appealing to myth and legend.  read more »

In this week's paper, I wrote about the efforts of supermarket magnate and Clinton bundler John Catsimatidis to ingratiate himself with local Republicans in advance of his prospective bid for mayor.

The fact that he's a Democrat, he stressed, shouldn't be a big deal.

"I was a Republican in the 1980's--a Ronald Reagan Republican," he said. "I donated to the Republican library. I supported George H.W. Bush. I helped build the chapel at Camp David under George H.W. Bush, and then I was chairman of the New York County dinner two years out of five under Roy Goodman. I've done a lot of Republican things. "And I'm baaaack."

-- Azi Paybarah

He’s still got it, Mario Cuomo. Remember him?    read more »

Barack Obama launched his Presidential exploratory committee this week as a top-tier Democratic Pres  read more »

It was only a matter of time until someone dug this up.

It's an old video of recently conservative presidential candidate Mitt Romney at a debate against Ted Kennedy in 1994 in which he (passionately) defends abortion rights and affirmative action and distances himself from the policies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

I'm thinking the McCain people are going to have fun with this one.

-- Josh Benson

Rick Santorum explains the security situation in Iraq and how it affects the safety of Americans, using lessons he learned reading (or watching) The Lord of the Rings.

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum said. "It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."

It's the next logical step after Ronald Reagan's Star Wars defense plan, right? Daily Gotham thinks it's just crazy. More Santorum-Mordor musings are here.

-- Azi Paybarah

Readers of the October issue of The Washington Monthly may have rubbed their eyes when they read the  read more »

WASHINGTON—For Democrats in this swampy, overheated capital—where the Starbucks are closed by 8  read more »

WASHINGTON—For Democrats in this swampy, overheated capital—where the Starbucks are clos  read more »

Who is the bottle blonde on the cover of the current issue of National Review?  read more »

Who is the bottle blonde on the cover of the current issue of National Review?  read more »

Rudy Giuliani, who says he's "seriously considering" running for president, wants people to help him help others.

In a new blast email soliciting donations of between $25 and $500 for candidates in federal races this year, Giuliani urges recipients to rally around the White House and the Republican Congressional majority:

"I learned the virtue of strong Republican leadership when I had the honor of serving President Ronald Reagan in his Justice Department. His optimism helped inspire our nation as he led us to victory over communism.

Today, President Bush faces a similar challenge. In the middle of a war on terror, we need to remain focused on furthering Republican ideas more than ever before. We can't turn back now."

Giuliani ends the note by asking readers to go to the Solutions America website -- "so that I can be on the forefront of helping our Republican candidates in these important 2006 elections."  read more »

-- Josh Benson

How long can this last?

KT McFarland spends yesterday being trailed by reporters asking her to respond to her brother's assertion that she's "evil."

Then, at a fundraiser last night, KT supporter"Bud" McFarlane tells Ben that all the personal stuff coming out about his Reagan administration colleague is the Post's fault. Ed Rollins backs him up.

And today, well, there's more.

"Off-message" doesn't really do it justice.

-- Josh Benson

Keith Wright and Harlem activists protest housing court cases brought against tenants by Pinnacle Corp. at 1 Penn Plaza.

Norman Siegel will hold a news conference concerning filing of legal challenge to public school cell phone ban at 60 Centre Street.

Robert "Bud" McFarlane, national security adviser in the Reagan administration, will join K.T. McFarland at a kitchen talk in Brooklyn.

—Nicole Brydson

K.T. McFarland, who continues to soldier on with her Kitchen Talks after a tough week will be fund-raising in Manhattan next month with a bunch of Reagan era generals and security officials.

On July 13, Henry Kissenger will be among the chairs at a swank event at Cipriani's with the hopes of raising about $200,000 for McFarland. Featured speakers will include General PX Kelley, former commandant of the Marine Corps, Robert Carl "Bud" McFarlane, National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan, and John F. Lehman, the former Secretary of the Navy and member of the 9/11 Commission.

- Jason Horowitz

In a conversation yesterday with Chuck Schumer, Jason Horowitz got a little more insight into the book the senator plans to publish this January about the failure of both political parties to speak to voter concerns in the wireless internet age.

Technology, Schumer told Horowitz, had "changed everything," and had "created the war on terror."

The trick for Democrats to appeal to contemporary voters, he suggested, would be to govern without being beholden to interest groups. As an example, Schumer singled out the ACLU as the architect of the Democrats' doom during the Ronald Reagan years:

"When I got to Washington, crime was ripping apart my district. And I wanted to do something about it. People's whole life-savings was being ruined by crime. And I get here, and the Democrats have been in power for 50 years, 1981, and who is writing crime policy? Not just at the table, but writing it? The ACLU. And the ACLU had a view, some people have it, that -- let 1,000 innocent people go free lest you convict one innocent person. And it was amazing to me, and I saw why people voted for Ronald Reagan."

Schumer, who is in the midst of an effort to make a dent in the GOP's Senate majority, concluded that Reagan "had a point" at the time, but said that that rationale for voters after years of Republican rule was now "gone."

In a bit a strategic restraint, Schumer left unspoken the formulation he'd used in an interview the Times last month, when he concluded, "What Bill Clinton did was modify Reagan Republicanism and put a Democratic face on it. That's not going to work."

-- Josh Benson

A Nation Among Nations: America’s Place in World History, by Thomas Bender.  read more »

The Conservative Party's annual conference is usually funny, so it was just a lack of foresight on our part not to have sent someone.

So we'll have to make do with other people's reports:

Jeanine F. Pirro, who is running for attorney general, said she would not push for restrictions on legal guns and proudly declared that she had a .22, a .38 and a Mauser.

Also, Bill Weld will veto same-sex marriage legislation, and, Randy Daniels? He "pledged he would be just like Ronald Reagan, but 'in living color.'"

- Tom McGeveran

Jason Reitman’s Thank You for Smoking, from his screenplay, based on the novel by Christopher  read more »

Jason Reitman’s Thank You for Smoking, from his screenplay, based on the novel by Christopher Buck  read more »

In the United States, the 1960’s lasted until about 1975, when substantial numbers of American  read more »

In the United States, the 1960’s lasted until about 1975, when substantial numbers of Americans tu  read more »

The black Ford Crown Victoria that Eliot Spitzer uses on official business is Car Four, ranking him  read more »

In this pungent and partisan book, John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of history at Yale University, com  read more »

When Richard Reeves set out to explain Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, he ran the risk—no, t  read more »

When Richard Reeves set out to explain Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, he ran the risk—no, the certa  read more »

Who's winning the battle of the front pages?

Paper A greets the 2,000th American military death in Iraq with a somber black memorial background and the word "tragic." Paper B presents a waving flag, the clear blue skies of freedom and an inspiring quote from Our President.

Quiz: Which one of these papers fumed yesterday, on its editorial page, that the troops "will have died for nothing--absolutely nothing at all--if the cut-and-run protesters prevail now" and that foes of the war "will also suggest to a still formidable Iraqi insurgency that perhaps, just perhaps, the United States has not the resolve to see this bitter thing through to a just conclusion"?

Answer: Paper A! Sorry, Rupert, but there's more to being American than mere red-white-and-blue bluster. Any fool can play a Sousa march. It takes a more subtle ear for the shadings of American patriotism to switch to a dirge without pausing or blushing.  read more »

In other words, Ronald Reagan beats Sergeant Slaughter.

Winner: Daily News Overall standings: Daily News 3, New York Post 1

Here's one for the annals of rapid response: The Ferrer campaign is out with its statement on the death of Rosa Parks...who died Monday. In the last few days, we have lost two leaders and defenders of the principles of social justice and democracy. The passing of Rosa Parks, a mother of the civil rights movement, and of Congressman Edward Roybal, a tireless Mexican-American leader and symbol of the growing strength of the Hispanic community in the U.S., inspires us to keep up the fight for an American society in which Democratic values and opportunities are available to all. I join in the mourning, remembrance, and celebration of these inspirational lives that opened the doors to diversity in this country. The Politicker eagerly awaits Mike's statement on the death of Ronald Reagan. (There's been some question about whether it's fair to "pick on Freddy while he's down." The view around here is that to start averting ones eyes for the last days doesn't exactly do Ferrer a favor.)  read more »

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