{"id":4141,"date":"2009-06-15T11:48:01","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T18:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=4141"},"modified":"2009-06-15T11:48:01","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T18:48:01","slug":"the-simple-explanation-for-the-republican-reagan-hugging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2009\/06\/15\/the-simple-explanation-for-the-republican-reagan-hugging\/","title":{"rendered":"the simple explanation for the Republican Reagan hugging"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite this all<\/a>, I suspect we’re in for\u00c2\u00a0another election cycle\u00c2\u00a0full of Republican nomination fighters chanting the name of Ronald Reagan.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a simple reason for the Reagan hugging — there is nobody else for the GOP to turn.<\/p>\n

Much has changed since the 2008 campaign, when the Republican contenders all were openly competing to be Mr. Reagan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true heir. In one debate, <\/em>Fred Thompson<\/em><\/span> invoked Mr. Reagan on tax cuts; <\/em>Mitt Romney<\/em><\/span> hailed him for championing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153our military,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153our economy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153our family values\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; while <\/em>John McCain<\/em><\/span> linked \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my dear and beloved Ronald Reagan\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with his own support for free trade.<\/em><\/p>\n

In accepting the nomination, Mr. McCain branded Republicans as the party of three heroes: <\/em>Abraham Lincoln<\/em><\/span>, <\/em>Theodore Roosevelt<\/em><\/span> and Mr. Reagan. In this he followed George W. Bush, who in 2004 pointed to Mr. Reagan rather than his own father as the president whose spirit \u00e2\u20ac\u0153will always define our party.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Republican base being with the South, there is some minor though not entirely insigificant chaffing at the recitation of Lincoln — as seen by anti-Lincoln books blowing through the breeze at Republican dominated Conservative Action Pac meetings.\u00c2\u00a0 Theodore Roosevelt is an interesting figure, and I guess the aggressive nationalism is what McCain projects coming out of Roosevelt — though even here, his placement in the “Progressive Era” unsettles what the Republican rank and file desire.<\/p>\n

More to the point,\u00c2\u00a0Lincoln and Roosevelt\u00c2\u00a0exist outside anyone living’s memory.\u00c2\u00a0 What presidents exist in the memory from anyone who is alive right now?\u00c2\u00a0 On the outer edge, there is Hoover.\u00c2\u00a0 Best to be forgotten.\u00c2\u00a0 So there’s Eisenhower.\u00c2\u00a0 “Caretaker President”, at the end of his presidency left the Republican Party Apparatus unsatisfied.\u00c2\u00a0 And then there’s Nixon.\u00c2\u00a0 HA!\u00c2\u00a0 Ford.\u00c2\u00a0 “Caretaker”, again, and wasn’t even ever elected.\u00c2\u00a0 Then there’s the two Bushes.\u00c2\u00a0 Hence, out of the Cult of the Presidency, they have the Cult of Reagan, and nobody else.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, who the Democrats have?\u00c2\u00a0 The biggest “cult” centers around Kennedy — some pretty good marketing coming out of the post-assassination “Camelot” mythologizing — the successful presidential campaigns of Clinton and Obama tapped it and the unsuccessful candidates Dukakis and Kerry tried to tap it.\u00c2\u00a0 But Roosevelt (FD) looms large still — even as the “Greatest Generation” that came of age during his administration dies out — and so right off the bat we have great dissipation of Kennedy as any sort of central focus.\u00c2\u00a0 Meantime, the other presidents not rendered with the same sort of “charismatic” personal entrancings still manage to\u00c2\u00a0tug on\u00c2\u00a0the edges for the Democrat’s identity:\u00c2\u00a0 Truman was an unpopular president, but his image was quickly refurbished by history.\u00c2\u00a0 Johnson was dragged ashunder by Vietnam and offers up a Cautionary Story, and yet signed the Civil Rights Act.\u00c2\u00a0 And Carter built houses after his daunting presidency\u00c2\u00a0and warned about Oil Dependence during his presidency.
\nClinton?\u00c2\u00a0 To be determined.<\/p>\n

I suspect in the decades to come, Obama will become as big a focal point for the party as Reagan is to the Republicans — somebody needs to replace Kennedy, after all, lest the Democrats get stuck in the current Republican Reagan rut — only worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite this all, I suspect we’re in for\u00c2\u00a0another election cycle\u00c2\u00a0full of Republican nomination fighters chanting the name of Ronald Reagan.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a simple reason for the Reagan hugging — there is nobody else for the GOP to turn. Much has changed since the 2008 campaign, when the Republican contenders all were openly competing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4141"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4188,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141\/revisions\/4188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}