It’s just not reasonable to think Democratic presidential candidates, in the heat of a very competitive campaign, are going to stay positive 100% of the time. Ideally, it might sound nice to think everyone will just get along, and Dems will save all of their criticisms for the Republicans, but that, alas, is just not how campaigns work. I’m afraid it’s naive to think otherwise. (Arguably, these intra-party fights are a good thing, in that they help prepare the eventual nominee for the general election.)
With that in mind, I don’t much care if Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama go at it aggressively. I do mind when the attacks are inane, misleading, and ultimately pointless. I think the flap over Ronald Reagan qualifies.
If you’re just joining us, Obama gave an interview this week in Nevada in which he said Reagan and JFK, during their respective eras, put the nation on a “fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.” Obama’s Democratic critics seized on this as proof of having some kind of affinity for Reagan’s conservative ideology, but I think the fairest, most intellectually honest interpretation is that Obama was describing transformational figures who seized opportunities to shift the political direction of the country.
Specifically regarding Reagan, Obama seemed to be 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. The country was ready for a fundamental change in 1980, and Reagan became a vehicle to move the country to the right. The country may be ready for a similar kind of change in 2008, and Obama wants to be a similar vehicle to move the country to the left. Reagan expanded the Republican Party; Obama wants to expand the Democratic Party. Reagan wrapped conservative ideas in warm, reassuring rhetoric; Obama wants to do the same with progressive ideas.
Now, rank-and-file Dems can certainly disagree about whether Obama is the right the vehicle to bring about this change, and whether he has the capacity to be a transformational figure. If Clinton, Edwards, and Kucinich supporters want to make the case that their candidate is better qualified to take advantage of this historic opportunity, more power to ’em. May the best candidate win.
But the debate over the last couple of days has devolved into sheer nonsense. Yesterday was particularly painful.
The gist of the “debate” — I use the word loosely — had two parts: describing Obama as some kind of Reagan-loving closet conservative and characterizing Obama as someone who prefers Republican “ideas.” I’m going to tackle the first point in this post, and the second point in the next post.
The WSJ noted the efforts to make Obama out to be some kind of Reaganite.
Senior Clinton officials held a conference call with reporters today with Mass. Rep. Barney Frank, Florida Rep. Corinne Brown and Nevada Rep. Shelley Berkley to criticize Obama’s comments. […]
“If Sen. Obama is the Democratic nominee, I will enthusiastically support him.” Rep. Frank said. But “Ronald Reagan was a dedicated right winger…It’s baffling to me that Sen. Obama would speak so favorably of him.” […]
Campaigning in union-heavy Nevada on Thursday, Edwards worked Obama “using Ronald Reagan as an example of change” into his standard speech.
“He was openly — openly — intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country,” Edwards said of Reagan on a campaign stop in Henderson. “He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day.”
Of course Reagan was destructive force with a conservative agenda. Obama never said he wanted to follow in Reagan’s footsteps; he suggested he wanted to bring about fundamental change that the country is ready for, just as Reagan did. But that doesn’t mean the same specific kind of change. To pretend otherwise is just dishonest. Maybe twisting the meaning of innocuous words will help Clinton and Edwards score a few cheap points with people who aren’t paying close attention to the facts, but that doesn’t make it right. Indeed, it makes it even worse, because it compounds cynicism with deceit.
Simply mentioning Reagan in a positive way does not make a person sympathetic to Reagan’s policy agenda. Last night, for example, the Obama campaign found a couple of instances in which Hillary Clinton included Reagan among the presidents she most admired, and praised his communications skills.
Should Obama now schedule a conference call in which one of his congressional supporters tells reporters, “Ronald Reagan was a dedicated right winger…It’s baffling to me that Hillary Clinton would speak so favorably of him”? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. And yet, that’s what the Clinton campaign did yesterday.
There are plenty of avenues of attack for Clinton and Edwards to go after Obama. Can’t they stick to ones that make sense? Please?