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(Politico.com)   Obama fondly recalls a great president who gave America hope again; who changed the country in a positive way; a man he aspires to be: Ronald Reagan. Wait, what?   (politico.com) divider line
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863 clicks; posted to Politics » on 17 Jan 2008 at 3:27 AM (15 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



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quickdraw
2008-01-17 2:24:01 AM  
Well that's just depressing. I was going to vote for that guy until he reanimated Reagan's corpse.
 
Whatsleft
2008-01-17 3:32:51 AM  
I'm not sure what to make of this
 
JonnyBGoode
2008-01-17 3:41:55 AM  
While I'll agree with his point... it's damn strange to hear a Democrat saying it. I'm sure he's going to catch a lot of heat from the lefties over this.
 
Lordmontu
2008-01-17 3:44:36 AM  
Just as long as he doesn't try any stupid trickle-down tax crap, i'll be ok w/ him trying to copy Reagan.
 
saintstryfe [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2008-01-17 3:45:22 AM  
JonnyBGoode: While I'll agree with his point... it's damn strange to hear a Democrat saying it. I'm sure he's going to catch a lot of heat from the lefties over this.

He's trying to appeal to the stupid. A very large, easily swayed voting group. Can't blame him for that. Once and a while, we on the left need to step back and stop demanding perfection from candiates. A lot of people like Reagan, despite the fact he was a near total farkup (except that he made people feel good) on everything important.
 
Suicidal Writer
2008-01-17 3:47:00 AM  
Liberals need to drop the bias. Ronald Reagan came about when military and national morale was low and offered hope. Don't get me wrong. I want to pound salt in his ass for upping the war on drugs, but let's not pretend he didn't embody American optimism.

I dislike shiat like that. I want somebody like Gravel. I like pissed off straight shooters.

/Radical pessimist.
 
Lenny_da_Hog [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2008-01-17 3:47:08 AM  
His marketing analysts probably told him to work it in to appeal to the anti-Bush Republican demographic.

/Madison Ave. in `08!
//(since they're all Madison Ave....)
 
FuriousGeorge945
2008-01-17 3:48:23 AM  
It seems like he's basically just talking about the 1980 campaign and how Reagan won the presidency, I don't think he's really commenting on how Reagan actually governed or what the real results were. He's saying that people saw in Reagan a new clarity and optimism with all his "morning in America" type of talk that the country really wanted to hear after everything that happened in the 70s.

You really can't argue with his central idea that Reagan's election changed the trajectory of the country. He won 44 states and helped to bring a Republican majority to the senate for the first time in decades, it was a major shift in where this country was headed. He's right that this didn't happen with Nixon, it didn't happen with Clinton, but it looks like in 2008 there is an opportunity for the same kind of significant shift (except to the left) as there was in 1980.

It's much less of an endorsement of Reagan than it is a realization that the American public wants and is ready for another major change of direction.
 
criscokkat
2008-01-17 4:26:09 AM  
I didn't agree with many of Reagan's agenda, and at the time, I was firmly against his large military spending. In hindsight, it did something he (or his team of advisors who ran most everything) that I think is a good thing, and that is the fall of communism. If he hadn't accellerated the arms race and bankrupted the Soviet economy, it may still be around at this point. If there wasn't an arms race with new weapons and doctrines that scared the bejeesus out of the Soviet High Command, I believe they would have eventually blundered into invading the middle east, kicking off something much worse for the whole of civilization than the current administrations boondoggle.

Even though the current political structure there is pretty scary in Russia, I can't imagine having achancefor some sort of democracy is better than what they had. And I don't think mostof eastern europe would disagree.
 
Echoic
2008-01-17 4:31:36 AM  
Hey Fark alarmists, try actually listening to the video instead of knee-jerking.

He said that he took the country in a fundamentally different direction (this is fact). He never said he liked his politics.

Calm down, kiddies.
 
captainktainer
2008-01-17 4:50:27 AM  
This is hardly news for people that have actually read his book. In The Audacity of Hope, he said basically:

1) He didn't vote for Reagan.
2) Knowing what he knows now, he wouldn't vote for Reagan.
3) Reagan gets credit for far more than he deserved.
4) Reagan still came in, substantially changed the nation, and spoke to America's long-standing desire for hope and optimism in politics.

That isn't "pandering," that's recognizing the essential truth that Reagan changed America. I would argue, and Obama might argue, that it was for the worse - but he changed America, and it was with a message of hope and optimism that yes, we could change things.
 
Tigger
2008-01-17 5:10:48 AM  
If he hadn't accellerated the arms race and bankrupted the Soviet economy,

Soviet arms spending did not increase during this period. The 'bankrupting the soviet union' thing is a myth. The Soviet Union collapsed because communism's a shiat system.

He WAS the first person to take an 'i'm not farking terrified' stance and that definitely made a difference.
 
Befuddled
2008-01-17 5:26:08 AM  
The more I learn about Obama, the less I like him. He's a DINO. He's running for the Presidency for himself and only himself.
 
InferiousX
2008-01-17 5:31:01 AM  
Regan made a difference but I always wonder within the context of the times.

Regan came about after the late 70s and the Carter administration. Not the darkest period of American history, but probably a low point in most peoples minds over the last 50 years or so.

Something in my gut tells me that if whomever becomes president in the next election does even a mediocre job in office, history will remember them as being some incredible instigator of change just because the previous time period was so shiatty.

Making an average president look like a great one.
 
trapped-in-CH
2008-01-17 5:31:22 AM  
Obamanomics. You read it here first.
 
Befuddled
2008-01-17 5:32:49 AM  
criscokkat: I didn't agree with many of Reagan's agenda, and at the time, I was firmly against his large military spending. In hindsight, it did something...

Reagan and his neo-con lackeys created all the problems we are currently dealing with. They weakened our economy by shipping jobs overseas, let us become more dependent on foreign energy, created a huge debt, jumpstarted Al Queda in the Afghan/USSR war, and gave us the Iraq quagmire. Bush Jr is the worst President ever, Reagan is tied for second worst with Bush Sr.
 
Freeper_Madness
2008-01-17 5:34:02 AM  
Lordmontu: Just as long as he doesn't try any stupid trickle-down tax crap, i'll be ok w/ him trying to copy Reagan.


[image from i18.tinypic.com too old to be available]
 
Freeper_Madness
2008-01-17 5:36:59 AM  
Befuddled: Reagan and his neo-con lackeys created all the problems we are currently dealing with.

[image from i11.tinypic.com too old to be available]
 
Desterion
2008-01-17 5:44:38 AM  
obama wants to be like reagan, but do it differently by surrendering to the commies this time.
 
zusya
2008-01-17 6:01:33 AM  
Desterion: obama wants to be like reagan, but do it differently by surrendering to the commies this time.

dean81.users.btopenworld.comView Full Size
 
FuriousGeorge945
2008-01-17 6:18:24 AM  
Befuddled: The more I learn about Obama, the less I like him. He's a DINO. He's running for the Presidency for himself and only himself.

So which of his views and/or policy proposals do you see as far to the right of the other democratic candidates? What legislation has he pushed through in the US senate and Illinois state senate that make him a Republican?
 
themadtupper
2008-01-17 7:53:46 AM  
Befuddled: Bush Jr is the worst President ever, Reagan is tied for second worst with Bush Sr.

Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover would like to have a word with you...
 
JonathanChance
2008-01-17 8:31:16 AM  
themadtupper: Befuddled: Bush Jr is the worst President ever, Reagan is tied for second worst with Bush Sr.

Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover would like to have a word with you...

So would Warren Gamaliel Harding.
 
LibertyFirst
2008-01-17 8:31:26 AM  
Befuddled: Reagan and his neo-con lackeys created all the problems we are currently dealing with. They weakened our economy by shipping jobs overseas, let us become more dependent on foreign energy, created a huge debt, jumpstarted Al Queda in the Afghan/USSR war, and gave us the Iraq quagmire. Bush Jr is the worst President ever, Reagan is tied for second worst with Bush Sr.

Look outside of your own lifespan. Woodrow Wilson was far, far worse than Reagan and is at least equal to Dubya and still probably worse.

One of the best ways to rate a presidents legacy is liberty. Did the president leave office with the citizens being more free, equally free, or less free.
 
SnoreCriminal
2008-01-17 8:33:59 AM  
Reagan was a good President, in fast he was the last good Republican President we had, until we had Bill Clinton.

"Wait, what?" , you say?

Yes, Clinton was a Republican. At least in the classical sense of Republican. Bush is a joke and not a Republican.
 
generaltimmy
2008-01-17 8:46:00 AM  
Obama is smart enough to continue his farce of being a moderate
 
Code_Archeologist
2008-01-17 8:47:03 AM  
You all need to watch the whole video, not just that single quote. Later on Obama says, "There are circumstances in which, I would argue, Ronald Reagan was a very successful president, even though I did not agree with him on many issues, partly because at the end of his presidency, people, I think, said, "You know what? We can regain our greatness."

It is an intellectual statement about what Reagan did, not some desire to be just like Reagan. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much I dislike it, Reagan was a good President. Not because he had good ideas, but because he was a good leader with a skill for communicating with the American people.
 
Jennifer
2008-01-17 8:52:01 AM  
LibertyFirst
Look outside of your own lifespan. Woodrow Wilson was far, far worse than Reagan and is at least equal to Dubya and still probably worse.

One of the best ways to rate a presidents legacy is liberty. Did the president leave office with the citizens being more free, equally free, or less free.
I wouldn't be so quick to characterize the Wilson Presidency a failure. He was an isolationist and sought to keep us from war and was menaced into war by the Germans attacking our merchant fleet.

Remember he was the guy that conceptualized the League of Nations the precursor to the United Nations. He had a very modern view of the world for his time.

Where his administration went sour was after he was debilitated with a stroke and his wife Edith Wilson took the reigns of power.

So the ultimate falings of his time in office are no fault of his own. The blame lies with the people scavenging for power while he was dying.
 
I_Lost_My_Other_Username
2008-01-17 8:56:22 AM  
Jennifer
He also pushed the Clayton Antitrust Act through Congress.

/Lincoln is a president I hold much contempt for.
 
globalwarmingpraiser
2008-01-17 9:01:12 AM  
Jennifer: LibertyFirst
Look outside of your own lifespan. Woodrow Wilson was far, far worse than Reagan and is at least equal to Dubya and still probably worse.

One of the best ways to rate a presidents legacy is liberty. Did the president leave office with the citizens being more free, equally free, or less free.
I wouldn't be so quick to characterize the Wilson Presidency a failure. He was an isolationist and sought to keep us from war and was menaced into war by the Germans attacking our merchant fleet.

Remember he was the guy that conceptualized the League of Nations the precursor to the United Nations. He had a very modern view of the world for his time.

Where his administration went sour was after he was debilitated with a stroke and his wife Edith Wilson took the reigns of power.

So the ultimate falings of his time in office are no fault of his own. The blame lies with the people scavenging for power while he was dying.

Wilson schemed to get us into the war. He spoke isolationist rhetoric while antagonizing Germany. Sounds familiar. Roosevelt, Johnson, Bush 2. You know say what you have too to get elected and fark the consequences.
 
Aughsum
2008-01-17 9:06:01 AM  
the more obama says the less i like him.

/Ron Paul
 
falser
2008-01-17 9:07:20 AM  
He aspires to add 2 more zeros to the national debt?
 
shooboxx77
2008-01-17 9:07:52 AM  
Code_Archeologist: You all need to watch the whole video, not just that single quote. Later on Obama says, "There are circumstances in which, I would argue, Ronald Reagan was a very successful president, even though I did not agree with him on many issues, partly because at the end of his presidency, people, I think, said, "You know what? We can regain our greatness."

It is an intellectual statement about what Reagan did, not some desire to be just like Reagan. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much I dislike it, Reagan was a good President. Not because he had good ideas, but because he was a good leader with a skill for communicating with the American people.


This is exactly it. Especially in context of what Obama says in regards to "bringing people together", it makes complete sense that he would have some respect for what Reagan did in his time (Reagan Democrats.... 'member those?). The knee jerk reaction to the name "Reagan" is a bit silly.
 
This
2008-01-17 9:09:45 AM  
JonathanChance: themadtupper: Befuddled: Bush Jr is the worst President ever, Reagan is tied for second worst with Bush Sr.

Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover would like to have a word with you...

So would Warren Gamaliel Harding.

A body-pile of dead Sioux would like to have a word with you about a man named Andrew Jackson.
 
This
2008-01-17 9:11:20 AM  
Sorry, my bad. Cherokee, not Sioux.
 
Gregory F. Stuart
2008-01-17 9:18:04 AM  
Suicidal Writer: /Radical pessimist.

How very original of you.
 
Lenny_da_Hog [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2008-01-17 9:18:47 AM  
Code_Archeologist:
It is an intellectual statement about what Reagan did, not some desire to be just like Reagan. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much I dislike it, Reagan was a good President. Not because he had good ideas, but because he was a good leader with a skill for communicating with the American people.

Reagan was a good Salesman. People liked him because he told us how pretty we looked tonight, how that dress definitely didn't make us look fat. And so we put out that night.

These are the reasons Americans vote for a president. It's not what makes a good leader. He didn't solve any of our long-term problems (although the revisionists have now convinced an entire generation that he single-handedly ended the cold war).

SALT I & II were working to reduce the nuclear threat. The Soviets were self-imploding. But instead of helping people ravaged by American industries turning their back on the US, he put blew all of our money building bombs and dreamy defense systems against a non-existent threat. That was money that could have gone to sending an entire generation to college, building roads or hospitals.

We don't need anymore happy icons. We need people who will identify the things that improve our quality of life, and implement plans to achieve those goals.
 
Car_Ramrod
2008-01-17 9:19:22 AM  
trapped-in-CH: Obamanomics. You read it here first.

Actually, I read it first in the January 14th issue of Crain's Chicago Business.

/sorry
 
Mosey
2008-01-17 9:23:40 AM  
Bush Jr is the worst President ever, Reagan is tied for second worst with Bush Sr.

Let me guess, Nixon is next and after that you'd need to look up who was the Republican President before that.
 
Shaggy_C
2008-01-17 9:28:56 AM  
This: JonathanChance: themadtupper: Befuddled: Bush Jr is the worst President ever, Reagan is tied for second worst with Bush Sr.

Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover would like to have a word with you...

So would Warren Gamaliel Harding.

A body-pile of dead Sioux would like to have a word with you about a man named Andrew Jackson.

James Buchanan and Millard Filmore weep at your misdirected hostility.
 
Saiga410
2008-01-17 9:34:07 AM  
Mosey: Bush Jr is the worst President ever, Reagan is tied for second worst with Bush Sr.

Let me guess, Nixon is next and after that you'd need to look up who was the Republican President before that.

Ike? Naa to loved. Hoover?
 
the old crow
2008-01-17 9:34:55 AM  
Shaggy_C: This: JonathanChance: themadtupper: Befuddled: Bush Jr is the worst President ever, Reagan is tied for second worst with Bush Sr.

Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover would like to have a word with you...

So would Warren Gamaliel Harding.

A body-pile of dead Sioux would like to have a word with you about a man named Andrew Jackson.

James Buchanan and Millard Filmore weep at your misdirected hostility.

The Liberal calender begins in 1932, when that socialist FDR took over. There has never been a James Buchanan. (buchanan=WORST for failing to stop sececsh)
 
Mosey
2008-01-17 9:37:38 AM  
Ike? Naa to loved. Hoover?

blog.lib.umn.eduView Full Size


/When you are President, you pose like a bad motherfarker
 
shaneo785
2008-01-17 9:40:40 AM  
submitter: Obama fondly recalls a great president who gave America hope again; who changed the country in a positive way; a man he aspires to be: Ronald Reagan. Wait, what?


Hmm...I thought he actually said that He wanted to make change in the sense that Ronald Reagan did - which, explicitly, he addressed in a naked, non-partisan description: RR changed the trajectory of the nation in a considerable way. He said nothing specific about the quality of the change, or that he wanted to "be reagan."
 
Saiga410
2008-01-17 9:41:00 AM  
Doh, teaches me to post without my morning coffee.
 
dittybopper
2008-01-17 9:41:14 AM  
Lenny_da_Hog:
SALT I & II were working to reduce the nuclear threat. The Soviets were self-imploding. But instead of helping people ravaged by American industries turning their back on the US, he put blew all of our money building bombs and dreamy defense systems against a non-existent threat. That was money that could have gone to sending an entire generation to college, building roads or hospitals.

So what you are saying is that Reagan turned his back on the people of the US by building up the military, thus providing more jobs for the people of the US and helping to kick-start a moribund economy? That the result of flexing our muscle in the Persian Gulf by reflagging tankers and defending them didn't result in more stability, which lowered oil prices and lowered inflationary pressure, allowing business to expand, thus creating more jobs?

Don't forget, unemployment in the US dropped in *HALF* during Reagan's two terms.

By the way, I was in the intelligence business back then. In hindsight it is very easy to see that the Soviet Union was about to crumble. NOBODY knew it was going to happen beforehand. We were all expecting a reprise of Hungary '56, or Czechoslovakia '68. We didn't expect the whole thing to collapse like a house of cards.
 
Mosey
2008-01-17 9:47:28 AM  
In hindsight it is very easy to see that the Soviet Union was about to crumble. NOBODY knew it was going to happen beforehand.

Oh come on, you don't remember all your old college lectures from lefty economics, English and Political Science professors saying how they saw the inevitable collapse of the USSR and the entire Eastern Bloc?

No wait... those lectures were on how the US and Capitalist system would collapse and we would all be commies by 2010.

Though I admit by the time I was in college it was about how Communism wasn't really dead it was just resting and the US Capitalist system would collapse under it's own weight of war and gas prices and greed.

Has that happened yet?
 
Guntram Shatterhand
2008-01-17 9:50:09 AM  
Echoic: Hey Fark alarmists, try actually listening to the video instead of knee-jerking.

He said that he took the country in a fundamentally different direction (this is fact). He never said he liked his politics.

Calm down, kiddies.

Essentially. If anything, Obama's statement is a condemnation since if he's elected he'll be overturning the big Reagan shift of the 1980s and going off in a more liberal direction. The time is right for a change to the liberal policies everybody wants, and we need a president who can sell that to the slight Right majority that still thinks liberal is a synonym for 'bad.' You know, since conservative politics have now officially failed under the reign of King Retard the Second.
 
hillary4real
2008-01-17 9:52:43 AM  
You know who else he aspires to be like?
jessicafertitta.files.wordpress.comView Full Size
 
Code_Archeologist
2008-01-17 9:52:49 AM  
Lenny_da_Hog: Reagan was a good Salesman. People liked him because he told us how pretty we looked tonight, how that dress definitely didn't make us look fat. And so we put out that night.

Note that I did not say that I agreed with Reagan's policies. But I do respect his abilities as a communicator, other people came up with his ideas. And like it or not he was a good leader as well, a large part of leadership is selling the lipsticked pig as a beautiful woman.

A lot of people fell for his lipsticked pig, and most of them happily kissed it a second time. Reagan's aim, which was not readily appearant, was to so entrench the conservative movement ideology in America that it would be a generation before the country would be able to wrest its self from its grip.

Obama's underlying theme has been for a similar goal, only in the opposite direction. And frankly the President's job is not to create detailed plans... that is a Congressional function. If somebody like Hillary wants to implement a 103 step plan for a better America then they should stay in Congress. Because no plan that a President ever put forth has survived contact with the Legislative branch. The function of the President is to lead, it is to herd the Congress-Critters together and inspire them to go the same general direction.

Hillary may have a great plan for health care, social security, and other fixes for dozens more of our nation's ills. But she does not have the leadership ability to get Congress to implement a single one of them as the President.
 
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