Does anyone have a quote showing me where Obama agrees with what Reagan did?

Because I think most political historians would agree that Reagan probably had a far bigger impact on government than any modern day president since FDR. And that was because he rolled back all of FDR and LBJ's social policies. Now I heard what Obama said and not once did he say he supported Reagan, thought Reagan was a great president or agreed with what he did. Instead, he stated the obvious, Ronald Reagan did more for his agenda and ideology than Clinton did. And he's right.

Ronald Reagan took a failed, dying ideology and reinvigorated it. You can thank Ronald Reagan for the Democratic Party weakening greatly locally and nationally throughout the 1980s. You can thank Ronald Reagan for a Republican congress in the 1990s and you can thank Ronald Reagan for the Christian Right. He was, without a doubt, the most influential politician of our time (or at least mine, since I was born in 1984). That does not mean I endorse what he did, because I don't, but only someone blind to the political landscape of America throughout the 80s and 90s would disagree.

Take Utah for example. Prior to Reagan, the state was pretty moderate. Oh sure it hadn't voted Democratic since Johnson, but at the local level, Democrats held the governor's mansion and the legislature. From 1925-1985, Utah had a Democratic governor for 52 of the 60 years. Since 1985, Republicans have controlled the state.

The Reagan revolution had far more coattails than the Clinton revolution. It dramatically changed the inner-workings of city politics, taking union support -- which had strongly been behind the Democrats -- and siding them with Republicans. Reagan was successful at not only rebuilding his party, but crippling the Democratic Party as well. It took Bush ruining the party to get the Democrats back to respectability. So no, don't underrate the impact Reagan had on his own party and America as a whole -- even if it was negative.

*crickets*

The Obama smears around here are just absurd.

will have the quotes you're looking for.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4086605&mesg_id=4086605

All he said was that Reagan was a transitional president that got the country behind him. I don't see where he said he was praising everything Reagan did or stood for.

There is a reason why the Republicans have wanted to find another Reagan ever since, I reckon.

:cry:

;)

try to provide something more measured. Wink wink.

we've got about three threads running and counting..... on this subject.....

to suit their fantasies.

eom

anything said by the candidates, Obama should have been a little smarter than invoking Ronald Reagan and comparing him to Clinton. It's an example of his not seasoned enough to understand what is going on around him.

because some jerk in the media might distort it? Well, why don't we humm songs and speak in nothing but poll-tested platitudes for the entire campaign? Personally, I'm sick of that.

Would you like those?

"inspirational leader" and turning the government over to big business,and anti-middle-class henchmen plus traitors who sold weapons to Iran and used the money to kill and torture in South America.

His voters were so happy being inspired that they let it happen and we never fully recovered before Bush stole into office and finished selling us out.

Obama is big on inspiration, hope (Morning in America) and short on how to accomplish.

We can't afford another smiley face.

with the same success that Reagan pushed a conservative one, you would be disappointed?

In the last debate he presented himself as being pro renewable energy and it was only the fact the Clinton pointed out his vote for Bush's Energy bill-a massive giveaway to non-renewable energy-that people could see his duplicity,

He presented himself earler as the champion for poor in housing arena; he never told us of his long time association with the slumlord, Rezko. When it turned out that the Rezkos assisted him in a personal housing deal he did not take responsibility-he first evaded, then gave out partial information and finally had to acknowledge. Then he claimed he had just made a "boneheaded mistake," In 2005!!

What assurance do you offer that Obama will push through a progressive agenda?

Reagan was a figurehead,who allowed others behind the scenes to control the presidency. Obama seems the same to me.

I do not think a figurehead presidency is a good thing. Reagan was called the teflon president because he evaded responsibilty for what he let happen.

throughout his entire career in elected office. One vote doesn't erase that. At least he isn't proposing $1 billion per year to the coal industry as Edwards has.

And are you really claiming that the fact that he took money from someone who gave to almost every major elected Democrat in the state of Illinois should erase everything he has done for affordable housing since he started knocking on doors in the Chicago housing projects as an organizer in his 20's?

You can find any lame excuse to vote against someone but yours come off as particularly unfair and disingenuous. Obama is the only candidate other than Kucinich who has a solid progressive record throughout his entire career, including pushing for clean energy and affordable housing.

That bill was a mixed bag. Some of the offshore drilling stuff was bad. Some of the pro-clean energy investments were great.

say that Obama is a policy wonk of the first order. And when it comes down to it, none of the top three go into any detail in their stump speeches about policy specifics.

From that page alone and the beginning of page 32:

"That Reagan's message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his skills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government, during a period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them. For the fact was government at every level had become to cavalier about spending taxpayer money. Too often bureaucracies were oblivious to the cost of their mandates. A lot of liberal rhetoric did seem to value rights and entitlements over duties and responsibilities. Reagan may have exagerrated the sins of the welfare state, and certainly liberals were right to complain that his domestic policies tilted heavily toward elites, with corporate raiders making tidy profits throughout the eighties while unions were busted and the income for the average working stiff flatlined.

Nevertheless, by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster."

Obama also talks about Reagan on pages 31-33, 36, 43, 147, 156-58, 181-82, 201, 209, 288-289, 293.

and certain ones we should not.

I'll need to read that book.

""That Reagan's message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his skills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government, during a period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them."

Give me a break. If he was in a United States History and Government Class and that was in his term paper...INSTANT F.

I STRONGLY believe his family was all "Reagan Democrats" from the word go.

You invoke the Devil for any reason, you stain your soul.

The Merchant of Venice, Act I, scene iii, lines 98–99, 103):

"Mark you this Bassanio,
The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.…
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"

Go to the nearest bookstore, find the Audacity of Hope, look in the index, find Reagan in the index and read the pages where he mentions Reagan.

Of course he doesn't agree with Reagan's beliefs. He is a Democrat. He is still to pro-Reagan for my tastes.

Obama didn't praise Reagan's politics. But even if he had, it would appeal to more people than it would repel. DU forgets.

for the country and the world. it doesn't matter how much people liked him, or how many people voted for him.

No matter how much people like him, or how many people voted for him. Not my fault. We haven't had a decent President since Kennedy, really. Any of the rest of them would have started WWIII over Cuba.

but i joined the green party because of him, so i am not a fan. nor am i a fan of the other clinton.

then again, nobody is praising Reagan's politics anyway.

why reagan was elected. it wasn't about optimism, it was about backlash and resentment. reagan's rosy rhetoric aside, his appeal was to something far more nefarious than "optimism." obama should know better.

People were out of work, inflation was sky high, crime was increasing, cities were on the decline, hostages. There was no backlash and resentment, there was despair and gloom. Reagan offered something different. That is what happened. I don't know anybody who was resentful or voting out of any kind of backlash. They were desperate for something to get the economy moving and restore our confidence in ourselves.

wasn't it reagan who invoked the "welfare queen" myth? was that about inflation, or unemployment, or despair? let's make america great again...was that about some optimistic future, or a rallying cry for those who longed for a better past?
clearly some of you drank the koolaid, but reagan was never the savior that he pretended to be, and some of us never bought his act.
call it what you will, but just like bush, reagan showed his hand early on, and a lot of people simply fell for it for all the wrong reasons. was life better for you under reagan? it certainly was not for me, or the people of central america. read all about the great reagan.
http://www.georgecurry.com/columns/index1.shtml?id=1086598525

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x84736

I don't think Obama's praising Reagan's policies so much as the success he had marketing them to the public. Nothing he says suggests that he thought the policies were good. When did he say this, by the way?

:shrug:
rocknation

what he did - or shall I say, the media made teflon covering what he did.
There was no optimism in taking the kids' lunches.
There was no clarity in Iran Contra.
We are faced with this whitewash of cosmic proportions from the other side - airports named after him, face on a dime campaign, the last thing I want is to see my candidate buying into that - in the hope some racist Clinton hating hicks will vote for him in the general election.


And that from just watching that short video. I see that reading his book, answers the question much better

"

Nevertheless, by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster."

National Guard to Little Rock to enforce Supreme Court decision on intergration and warned of the military-industrial complex. Therefore he is a forgotten president to Republicans and they don't even praise his military service as Commander of Allied Forces in WW11.

Which tells everything about their history, really.

I remember a quote from Jesse Helms about "We don't observe Lincoln Birthday here in the South...trying to not hold it against him too much' - it was a delicious ironical phrase - i used to have it as a signature - someone may remember it

"We are faced with this whitewash of cosmic proportions from the other side" Yes, and I don't want it perpetuated by anyone on OUR side.

it makes me optimistic :hi:

it also spoke to the failures of liberal government, during a period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them."

about the inclusion of certain people into american society, i.e., people of color (especially black people) and, gays and lesbians, and women.
reverse discrimination, special rights, political correctness, etc...all the these memes were the language of the backlash to the success of liberalism.

should read up a bit more on reagan before opening his mouth. thanks!

Obama said support Obama.

Try it! In this, he talks about Oil, the economy, the Pentagon, and a lot of interesting issues and ideas.
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/VIDEO/80115026&oaso=news.rgj.com/breakingnews

as i said, he doesn't seem to understand why reagan was elected. and he is a smart man, so i have to consider this another episode of pandering. not that i hold that against him, i just think he's delusional.

WE have a chance to be the optimists...or cede that stance yet again...

I don't know anybody who gave a crap about any of that. He may have played those games in some parts of the country, but it wasn't what people that I knew were talking about.

and what exactly did he do for you, except act as a cheerleader for america's "greatness?" i don't know why you voted for him, but surely you don't believe all the lives lost in illegal wars in central america were worth whatever temporary euphoria he supposedly represented for those who drank his koolaid...do you?

The more people post about his take on Republicans or the American people, the higher his stock rises in my book. He seems to really understand these things.

If Goldwater was the first conservative to be nominated, Reagan was the first conservative to be elected. This is important because the right got really organized and mobilized with that one. Reagan's BS shook this country and the world in both economic and foreign policy issues. We'll be feeling the after-effects of Reagan and W for many years to come. This can't be fixed in one day or one year or maybe even one decade.

That is the fundamental point in his speech. You can watch it here:

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/obama_reagan_changed_direction_of_country_in_way_bill_clinton_didnt.php

If you support Reagan you should have no trouble supporting Obama. I pizz on Reagan's grave and I will not vote for anyone who praises the son~of~a~bitch who took the country on the road it is on today. Obama fails to realize that repigs are sending each other emails about his Islamic background and they are believing it. If Obama thinks he is Reagan~~~he's still smoking the funny stuff.

Obama is despicable in turning his back on fellow Democrats. But then, he had no problem throwing the LGBTQ community under the bus in favor of McClurkin.

:shrug:

media may have called it "optimism" but it was bigotry and nationalism. Do we want these ? And will they back a Dem? Who is black?

;)

n/t