Barack Obama sat down with the editors of the Reno Gazette-Journal the other day for a fairly lengthy interview, most of which was interesting, but hardly ground-breaking. The senator caused a bit of a stir, though, when we learned yesterday about his perspective on some recent presidents.
“I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what is different is the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.” […]
“I think Kennedy, 20 years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it has to do with the times. I think we are in one of those fundamentally different times right now were people think that things, the way they are going, just aren’t working.”
My hunch is the comments are likely to be yet another in a series of Rorschach tests. Obama critics will perceive these comments as being complimentary of Reagan — hardly a good idea during a Democratic primary — and lending credence to conservative frames, such as his reference to “the excesses of the 60s and the 70s.”
Obama fans will hear/see the same comments, and come to a different conclusion — that Obama was merely characterizing this election as one in which the country is ready for a fundamental change in the way Washington works (or doesn’t), as voters were in 1960 and 1980. As Greg Sargent noted, “In this context, Obama is presenting himself as a potentially transformational figure in opposition to Hillary, who, Obama has been arguing, is unequipped to tap into the public’s mood due to her coming of age in the sixties and her involvement in the political battles of the 1990s.”
The entire hour-long interview is online here, so readers can get a sense of context, but I looked at this from a couple of different angles.
First, I think Obama could have probably been more cautious in his references to “excesses.” If, for example, he’d said “perceived excesses,” the comment would probably have been far less contentious.
Second, it sounded to me as if Obama were criticizing Bill Clinton far more than he was praising Reagan and Kennedy. It was subtle, but Obama seemed to be saying that Clinton, while successful, didn’t fundamentally change the political landscape (and, by implication, Obama probably wants people to believe that Sen. Clinton wouldn’t either). Whether there’s any real appetite in Democratic circles for this kind of criticism of Bill Clinton remains to be seen.
There are many reason progressives should admire Ronald Reagan, politically speaking. He realigned the country around his vision, he brought into power a new movement that created conservative change, and he was an extremely skilled politician. But that is not why Obama admires Reagan. Obama admires Reagan because he agrees with Reagan’s basic frame that the 1960s and 1970s were full of ‘excesses’ and that government had grown large and unaccountable.
Maybe, but I’m not sure of that’s what Obama really meant. Indeed, with the added context of the Kennedy part of the quote, it’s not at all unreasonable to think Obama was talking about Reagan’s political skills/victories, his ability to bring voters into the GOP fold, and his success at tapping into the public’s attitudes of the time.
(For what it’s worth, in 2006, Obama noted on “Meet the Press” that Reagan “was a very successful president, even though I did not agree with him on many issues.” Obama cited Reagan having “transformed the culture and not simply promoted one or two particular issues.” It sounded more like praise for Reagan’s ability to generate broad change, and less like an endorsement of Reagan’s worldview.)
So, that’s the debate. What say you?
Update: Yglesias offers a counter to Stoller’s take:
Obama is pretty unambiguously claiming that much as Reagan was a friendly, popular face of a much more conservative governing agenda than the country had seen before, he thinks he can be the friendly, popular face of a much more liberal governing agenda than the country has seen before.
Obama thinks — as do a lot of people — that the country may be primed for big change in 2008 the way it was in 1980 and that he’s the kind of person who can sell the country on that sort of big change. He may be wrong, either in his assessment of the times or in his assessment of himself, but those are exactly the sort of claims you want to see a leader make on behalf of itself.