The Liberal Reagan?

Some bloggers, notably the one at the other end of Euclid Street, has argued that Obama is the liberal version of Reagan. Great communicator, transformative, all of that.

I don't know about that. But it does look like he is Reagan in at least one way. The Gipper gave great lip service to the religious right but didn't actually do a lot to further their social agenda.

Obama has made great statements on gay civil rights. But hasn't actually done much -- if anything -- to enact them.

1980. Not.

I often (somewhat) jokingly ask my Republican friends it they realize it's not 1980. In an effort to get back to their Gipper-roots, they often seem to be parroting his anti-tax, anti-government message as if the challenges we face today are the same (they're not) or as if the last 20 years of history had not occurred. David Ignatius points out today's Republicans are missing a more fundamental key to Reagan's success:

The Republican leadership, with its gloom and doom talk about the budget, is falling into a trap that its modern patron saint, Ronald Reagan, would have dodged. Reagan succeeded by contrasting his optimistic vision about America with the malaise and intellectual exhaustion of the Jimmy Carter era...Now, the Republicans have taken over as the "tut-tut" party, and they are unwittingly embracing the narrative of America as a nation in decline. That's never a good bet.

Ronald Reagan had a message that was pitch perfect for his time. But this is not 1980. And singing the same tired refrain is going to get the GOP tuned out.

Teabaggers Turn their Lonely Eyes to Reagan

I don't like taxes either (unlike top officials of the Obama admin, I do pay them).

The teabaggers, best I can tell, want to return Reaganism. Let's look at some numbers.

In 1988, the last year of Reagan's term of office, the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans had a tax burden of 57.2 percent.

Obama is proposing a tax rate on the top 2 percent of wealthy Americans to around 38 percent.

So in order to be like Reagan the teabaggers would have to raise taxes for more people much higher than anything Obama is proposing.

Is this why the Governor of Texas is threatening seccession?

Another comment on Reagan. Ronald Reagan built his political career with the goal of limiting communism. Republicans today seem intent on building their party by limiting the rights of other Americans. That doesn't seem very Reaganesque, if you ask me.

On Thompson and Reagan

A whithering -- and, I think spot-on -- look at the Reagan/Thompson comparison.

It's bogus.

And it also spotlights what is so different about all the candidates (with the possible exception of Obama) running today vs. the former movie actor president. Reagan believed in things. His views when elected in 1980 were views he fleshed out in the 1960s. He may have used polls and imagery to help him sell his ideas, but he was no finger-in-the-wind chameleon ready to adopt whatever position would win him the most votes.

Reagan wanted to be president because he wanted to do certain things. The candidates running today try to figure out what things they need to do in order to become president. Such is the difference between giants and dwarves.