Obama on Reagan in his book . Failures of liberal goverment?

Has Obama ever explained this whopper from his book? What failures? Please tell. I thought what Democrats did in the 60's and Carter years were good things. Hardly "failures."

Here is the full sentence: "Reagan spoke to the failure of liberal government, during a period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them."

For more context here is what he says after that: "For the fact was that 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 over entitlements over duties and responsibilities

So he believed 1. government was too big (what Reagan ran on) 2. the evil government bureaucracy was troublesome (Reagan ran on cutting it back) 3. Liberals valued rights and entitlements too much (Reagan ran on this too).

Which rights? Which entitlements? What failure? What in the Democrats' record does Obama believe did not give people a sense they were for common folks?

Read his book and you can see he is no netroots progressive. Democrat? Yes. The opposite of Hillary? Hell no.

Since I haven't read the book, I will reserve further comment...

I know I am.

Here are that mention Reagan: 31-33, 36, 43, 147, 156-58, 181-82, 201, 209, 288-289, 293 :hi:

I don't feel like wading through the whole thing so that helps. I wish that I didn't even have to buy the damned book.

I wasn't born back then, but from what I've read about the times and Reagan's first election I think the 'failures' of Carter would be his unpopularity, and how stuff like that hostage situation really weighed him down. Reagan used that unpopularity to help him get elected.

In the same sentence he mentions the economic woes of the 1970's. In the next sentence he channels Reagan on "big government" by claiming government was spending too much. The sentence after that? Channels Reagan again and disses the government bureaucracy. Next? He says "a lot of liberal rhetoric" valued entitlements and rights (60's social programs and Warren Court rights from that period?) over "duties and responsibilities."

He does criticize Reagan and does not agree with Reagan's overall presidency but it is clear he agrees with some of what Reagan did. He seems to think we needed someone like Reagan.

no work or education efforts required, zip, zero, zilch. That's one example of right to entitlement over responsibility.

dismantling the social safety net has worked so well for us, hasn't it. We are behind every other western country on every marker of a healthy society. Policies that promote poverty and desperation weaken the economic health of labor and the middle class.

they couldn't get enough help with education. They also couldn't get any medical help for their kids if they took a job. It was a mess.

Cut 'em off. Let 'em starve. Let 'em live on the street. Yep, that's optimism alright!

That vile person that Obama characterized as optimistic. That vile person whose mean-spirited campaign was a response the the so-called excesses of the 60s and 70s. Those excesses being, of course, the expansion of civil rights and the social safety net. That vile person who appealed with clarity and optimism to the fears of bigots.

Obama is rewriting history with the rest of the Reagan adulators. Reagan was a nasty piece of shit and he ran a nasty piece of shit campaign by appealing to the worst side of ourselves as Americans.



Edited for grammar.

Do you know how to see things the way somebody else sees them, regardless of your own view?

Being objective does not mean that all opinions have equal weight. I can agree with Obama that Reagan was transformative. I will never agree with the myth that Reagan was an inspiration to Americans because he gave them hope in themselves via his clarity and optimism. Reagan ran a classical campaign of divide and conquer. He ran a cynical campaign by pitting traditional white male Democrats against the rising social and political power of women and minorities. He spun the totally false narrative of the "welfare queen" to spook blue collar workers into voting with their wallets and not their hearts. There was nothing optimistic about Reagan's vision of America.

The point is whether you're interested in a President who can create an optimistic view of an America that is not divided racially and helps its neighbors. An America with a President who inspires people to unite and help the pepole of the ninth ward. Do you want that or not?

who doesn't hold up a bigot as someone to emulate. Reagan's racist campaign has been well documented.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4091505&mesg_id=4091505

From:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,399921,00.html

"-snip-

Here's some advice for Republicans eager to attract more African-American supporters: don't stop with Trent Lott. Blacks won't take their commitment to expanding the party seriously until they admit that the GOP's wrongheadedness about race goes way beyond Lott and infects their entire party. The sad truth is that many Republican leaders remain in a massive state of denial about the party's four-decade-long addiction to race-baiting. They won't make any headway with blacks by bashing Lott if they persist in giving Ronald Reagan a pass for his racial policies.

-snip-

The same could be said, of course, about such Republican heroes as, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon or George Bush the elder, all of whom used coded racial messages to lure disaffected blue collar and Southern white voters away from the Democrats. Yet it's with Reagan, who set a standard for exploiting white anger and resentment rarely seen since George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, that the Republican's selective memory about its race-baiting habit really stands out.

Space doesn't permit a complete list of the Gipper's signals to angry white folks that Republicans prefer to ignore, so two incidents in which Lott was deeply involved will have to suffice. As a young congressman, Lott was among those who urged Reagan to deliver his first major campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered in one of the 1960s' ugliest cases of racist violence. It was a ringing declaration of his support for "states' rights" — a code word for resistance to black advances clearly understood by white Southern voters.

Then there was Reagan's attempt, once he reached the White House in 1981, to reverse a long-standing policy of denying tax-exempt status to private schools that practice racial discrimination and grant an exemption to Bob Jones University. Lott's conservative critics, quite rightly, made a big fuss about his filing of a brief arguing that BJU should get the exemption despite its racist ban on interracial dating. But true to their pattern of white-washing Reagan's record on race, not one of Lott's conservative critics said a mumblin' word about the Gipper's deep personal involvement. They don't care to recall that when Lott suggested that Reagan's regime take BJU's side in a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, Reagan responded, "We ought to do it." Two years later the U.S. Supreme Court in a resounding 8-to-1 decision ruled that Reagan was dead wrong and reinstated the IRS's power to deny BJU's exemption."

He's holding up his ability to inspire people to believe in his vision. Not that you agree with that vision, but that you see what Reagan did and why we need a truly different kind of President to turn the page on all of that. Clinton just means 8 more years of the same fight.

Obama claims that people were looking for an optimistic leader and found one in Reagan. This is flat out false. Reagan campaigned by exploiting people's fears. He ran a racist campaign that divided Democrats. GWB inspired people to believe in his vision. Obama would be laughed off the map if he brought him up as a role model.

Reagan was a disaster. But the "drown government in a bathtub" corporate profiteers and their corporate talking head cheerleaders have worked overtime for the past 15 years to rehabilitate his legacy so that invoking his "vision" has become palatable, even for Democrats.

Obama is flat out wrong here. It makes as much sense to invoke the inspirational vision of Reagan as to invoke the inspirational vision of George Wallace.

Yeah that was all about racism. It's just willful denial to miss Reagan's power over this country, just complete wilfull denial.

How he presented himself is as important as his underlying games and divisive messages. He did not win the election running a campaign of racism and bigotry, he just didn't.

And yes. He did run a racist campaign in 1980.

http://hnn.us/articles/44535.html

In which he divided the Democratic Party by pandering to bigots fears.

"A full account of the incident has to consider how the national GOP was trying to strengthen its southern state parties and win support from southern white Democrats. Consider a letter that Michael Retzer, the Mississippi national committeeman, wrote in December 1979 to the Republican national committee. Well before the Republicans had nominated Reagan, the national committee was polling state leaders to line up venues where the Republican nominee might speak. Retzer pointed to the Neshoba County Fair as ideal for winning what he called the “George Wallace inclined voters.”

...

On July 31st, just days before Reagan went to Neshoba County, the New York Times reported that the Ku Klux Klan had endorsed Reagan. In its newspaper, the Klan said that the Republican platform “reads as if it were written by a Klansman.” Reagan rejected the endorsement, but only after a Carter cabinet official brought it up in a campaign speech. The dubious connection did not stop Reagan from using segregationist language in Neshoba County.

It was clear from other episodes in that campaign that Reagan was content to let southern Republicans link him to segregationist politics in the South’s recent past. Reagan’s states rights line was prepared beforehand and reporters covering the event could not recall him using the term before the Neshoba County appearance. John Bell Williams, an arch-segregationist former governor who had crossed party lines in 1964 to endorse Barry Goldwater, joined Reagan on stage at another campaign stop in Mississippi. Reagan’s campaign chair in the state, Trent Lott, praised Strom Thurmond, the former segregationist Dixiecrat candidate in 1948, at a Reagan rally, saying that if Thurmond had been elected president “we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today.”

...

Throughout his career, Reagan benefited from subtly divisive appeals to whites who resented efforts in the 1960s and 70s to reverse historic patterns of racial discrimination. He did it in 1966 when he campaigned for the California governorship by denouncing open housing and civil rights laws. He did it in 1976 when he tried to beat out Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination by attacking welfare in subtly racist terms. And he did it in Neshoba County in 1980."

The majority of the country did not see that, that's what you fail to understand. The majority of the country was unemployed, broke, with the cost of living going through the roof. Iran was at the center of everyone's mind. The entire manufacturing industry was completely collapsing. People think we've got hard times now, they don't even have a clue. He did not win that election because of statements in Neshoba County. He won on tax cuts and small government and return to traditional values. He certainly played race to the bigots, but that is not why the majority voted for him. It presented an optimistic image where everybody would be equal and move ahead.

oh yeah ol' ronnie sure fixed that! NOT!

The whole premise of "Morning in America" was a flowery message that America is awakening from it's nightmare sleep from the progressive era of liberalism,a plea to return to a white bread era when certain groups didn't feel free to behave so "uppity".Read some of his speeches connected to that phrase.I don't know what Obama's original intention was in bringing up Reagan,but I resent the hell out of any Democrat floating that sanitized right wing meme that Reagan was "the great uniter".His message was hateful throughout his"illustrious "political career.Edited to correct spelling.

and they have CONSIDERABLY better standards of living than the US. Better health care, lower crime, more equitable spread of wealth.

it's about realising that if you leave people to fend for themselves with no means of support they'll probably resort to robbing you to eat.

It's about acknowledging that people deserve to be treated with dignity and not made to jump through impossible hoops and be made to feel like loser parasites for having the temerity to lose their jobs.

housing, child care, and separate health care to help people attain that better standard of living too. We didn't have much of that in the 80's, you had to choose between welfare and trying to be self-sufficient.

CLINTON did welfare reform, remember? And the person who legislated one of the largest tracking programs in the country, because he was concerned about Clinton's welfare reform, was Barack Obama.

He just thinks we need to do more to help those affected by it but he does not disagree with the idea behind the welfare bill.

Clinton didn't go far enough and didn't have programs that are targeted correctly. Obama knows what needs to be done because he comes from the neighborhoods affected and he specifically implemented a study so he would. Clinton had workfare in Arkansas before he ever went to DC, even for food stamps.

so Reagan couldn't have chosen to alleviate some of the massive wealth discrepancies? the onlu option he had was to demonise people on welfare?

Oh and don't confuse me with a Clinton supporter. Both Clinton's apparently have no problem with murder and theft for empire.

I don't criticise Obama because I'd prefer Clinton, Edwards, Kucinich or the Dalai bloody Lama.

The system needs changing - without that you could vote for the cat in the hat for all the difference it'll make

I do not even know where your comment came from at all.

I am not defending Reagan. I said welfare was not a good program in the 80's. Someone said other countries don't have requirements on their welfare program. Yes that's true and it's because they have all kinds of help for people to become self-sufficient. We need more of those programs.

That is what Obama is talking about. Even though Reagan was an ass, it doesn't mean that women were not stuck on welfare with no way to reasonably get off of it. I knew plenty of them. The right to the entitlement took precident over the concept of someone being self-sufficient, and there is a dignity in self-sufficiency, there just is.

in many nations sandnsea your views (and Obama's) about welfare would be considered very right wing. they just would.

You might notice hot button fabrications similar to the ones we suffer today. Even the media branding of Carter's brother is similar to the branding the Republicans tried on Bill Clinton. Same crowd (Cheney has been slithering round the Executive since Nixon), same tactics, same crimes. Metastasized.

If you remove hostages and oil prices (yes, even the oil scams remain the same) from Carter's time in office the popularity problem shrinks considerably. What you may have missed in your reading is that they have been pulling the same crap for a lot longer than is immediately obvious.

Adding insult to injury; Reagan henchmen altered public learning too, contributing to the decline of Civics education.

Because Reagan was so effective in speaking to the failures of liberal government. Clinton's policies are proof as to what Obama was saying.

Obama's policies in Illinois, like implementing a study to track the effects of Clinton's welfare program, are proof of how much he disagreed with Reagan and Clinton.

For anybody who wants the truth, which are undoubtedly few.

if you do little else to change the system.

There wasn't anything he could do from Illinois. But he was aware of the problems welfare reform might create very early on.

It isn't like he hasn't done anything or doesn't plan to do anything either.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/poverty/

And the hits keep on coming!

Reagan so I don't understand.

It was successful because it spoke to the failure of liberal government to give any sense to the middle class that it was fighting for them. And it's true, his message resonated with middle class America. As a candidate and president, Reagan outplayed the opposition consistently. He was a master re-framer, and the more democrats defended programs, the more the it played into Reagan's frame of liberal excess.

It's not an endorsement of Reagan's policies.

We seem to be losing the common man. Might be a good idea to find out why that is so? It used to be that the working man knew the Democrats were his friends, back when unions were strong as well.

I think that was the failure he meant. That sometimes we spend too much attention on special interests and forget voters.

We need a way to describe the Democrats as a whole, above and beyond the issues we support. A way to describe the party in a way that would show people we're there for them. That we care.

Please define "special interests", I'm genuinely curious as to why self-professed Democrats would use that particular term.

Wasn't really thinking of any one in particular. And I'm not talking about throwing anyone under the bus, if that's what you're thinking.

Because whenever I've heard anyone say "special interests", they've been right-wingers railing against civil rights advances for everyone other than rich, white, heterosexual Christian males.

We do seem to have a plethora of different groups under our big umbrella, you have to admit. Should be be defined as a party by any one of them, as if that was who we were? Or is there a way we could express who we are that would appeal to more people?

Why do we attract such a diverse group of people to the Democratic Party. We've got everything from Centrists to various environmental groups, pro-choice groups, GLBT groups, anti-war groups, Freedom from Religion groups, Catholic Democrats, unions etc, etc, etc. We're such a motley crew. Is it just that we're not Republicans, and that's good enough? How would that look as a slogan. Vote for us: we're not Republicans.

I think Gov. Dean might have touched on some of this in his campaign.

It means that he "addressed" the issue or gave his opinions on it. It does not imply agreement.

:)

:rofl: talk about desperate..

Reagan came before Clinton, remember?

Reagan was a response to Carter; Clinton was a delayed response to Reagan.

2000 was fucked up.

Now America is responding to Bush...and that's why Dems have the advantage at this time.

Even more of the country looked like that than now. I know Carter created a lot of jobs and that it wasn't his fault he got the major crush of boomers and no war to send them off to. But in 1980 things did not look good at all, way worse than today even, and people wanted massive change.

Yeah, that is exactly what people thought, the government was too cavalier about spending money.

And in case some don't remember, people had a right to a welfare check then, without any requirement of any work or any education or any effort whatsoever to do anything different at all.

There isn't anything inaccurate in this statement. It's what people thought. Reagan and Bush just didn't have the right prescription, Republicans never do. But Clintons prescription wasn't much better.

Can we turn the page on all of this now?

That's the point.

Government was more efficient under Carter and Reagan. Compare the budget deficits under the former to the latter's. What Reagan did is shift spending from social programs to the military, just like Bush. Is that a good thing?

There was also the Abscam Scandal. Were you alive in 1980? It was bleak.

Yes I'm aware of Reagan's military spending and massive deficit and that he operated just like Bush. I am not defending his presidency.

But that isn't Obama's point. The point is the mood of the country and he is exactly right about it.

Because I would have written him off a long time ago, frankly.

"The conservative revolution Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan's central insight--that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing he pie--contained a good deal of truth."

He makes the argument the DLC made about the size, role of government. When people talk of expanding the pie rather than slicing it they are using smokescreens for talking about cutting back on social programs.

Yes, Obama is soooo very different from the rest.

Change. Hope.

Rhetoric.

was that the liberal state helped blacks. That is what drove white blue collar workers to the the Republicans and to Reagan. Oh that old optimistic Reagan!

So, how's that pie-slicing going? Well, we have more people in poverty; more homeless families, vets, and homeless folks who work full time; poor crazy people on the streets, the infrastructure is in shambles, we have the highest rate of infant mortality in the western world, a shrinking middle-class, less buying power, and on and on. Reagan didn't expand the pie. He took a bunch of it back, and resliced and gave most of it to the rich.

Do you not know that? Or did you just forget?

Am I praising Clinton? I spend most of the 90s fighting Clinton's reforms. I see the aftermath of them on a daily basis and it ain't pretty. It was Reagan's sunny optimism of demonizing the poor that led to Clinton chopping them off at the knees. We are the meanest modern western nation on earth.

but still see he was transformational, he sure got the country to think in a different way. Right?

Obama is trying to talk in a way to get us the social programs we need and have people believe that is what reflects American values. It's good that single moms have a choice besides welfare now, but we need to do more to help them as well as young fathers. We need to look at the reality we're in today and stop fighting the battles of the past. They get us bogged down.

Look at this stupid battle because he dared to make a passing comment about Reagan.

What you said is what Clinton ran on and did, however imperfect his execution was.

He passed policy that ushered in the Bush era, that's what he did.

What I am extremely pissed off about is Obama's characterization that Reagan ran an optimistic campaign in response to excesses in the 60s and the 70s. What Reagan considered excesses were the expansion of civil rights and economic justice. Reagan's campaign optimistically and with clarity ran against these gains. He optimistically rallied bigots to support a backlash against social justice.

To restate, Reagan may have been transformative (and so was Pinochet and Amin) but he was decidedly not optimistic. He ran on the white man's fear of a female and black planet. It was cynical, despicable and destructive. Just like Reagan's reign.

But I would imagine if you told the rest of the story, you'd find Obama does not agree with all the changes that were made because he sees that there are still problems.

when he ran for president. He inspired all of the white racists in the south.:puke:

Obama should do his homework before shooting off his mouth.

Without a "liberal policy" like Social Security? After Ken Lay wiped out their savings? Or how about the victims of Neil Bush's Silverado scam? FDR intended Social Security to be a safety net and thats exactly what it has turned out to be for so many. I'll take Liberal policies over Conservative ones anyday.

:hi:

:hi:

and think only of themselves. This was when Jimmy Carter was telling us that if we all pulled together and made some sacrifices we could be energy independent in 30 years. One of the first things Reagan did after he was elected was remove the solar panels Carter had installed at the White House.

I wonder how Obama feels about Reagan also appealing to the racists among us. Apparently not appealing to them was also a failure of liberal government.

last year I think. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but I do remember them speaking positively of Obama. I thought it had more to do with his positive ideas, rather than his agreements with some of the pet causes of the right. In hindsight, and with what's going on with DU today, it makes senses they would have found his issues with "liberal government" appealing.

The more I learn about Obama, it seems like I find even more reasons not to support him in the primary. Of course, like a good dem, I will vote for whoever our nominee happens to be, but I sure hope it isn't Obama. From McClurkin, to his evoking Reagan to slam the Clinton legacy, to him wanting to "reform" social security, and now, finding out he's pretty much against most things that I am for.

I don't share 100 percent of Hillary's views, nor do I support all of her positions, but she is more in line with the traits I would like to have in my next president than Edwards and Obama.

And I was with him 1000%. Being a liberal doesn't mean that ALL government in good government. That's a conservative caricture.

We believe in the value of the government providing a minimum standard of living - which for us is a higher bar than some of our fiscally conservative peers - through efficient programs and thorough oversight.

Kerry wanted a commission like the military base closing one to determine which programs were too wasteful. As a liberal, I thought it was a great idea and I still do.

Obama's ability to bring aboard moderates and conservatives to liberal programs by effective framing and tossing rhetorical bones their way is absolutely refreshing, especially compared to triangulating policies.