Posted on 01/05/2008 5:50:10 PM PST by Aristotelian
The historical analogies for the phenomenon that is Barack Obama have already stretched credibility. For a while pundits likened him to the effete loser Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic party’s 1950s version of Labour’s Hugh Gaitskell, the greatest prime minister we never had.
But Obama doesn’t seem like such an airhead after his gritty, crushing defeat of Hillary Clinton in Iowa. I long thought he’d win ? but I never thought it would be by eight points, or that he’d push Clinton into third place.
So now the favourite analogy is JFK: the young, hopeful rhetorician urging a New Frontier after two terms of conservatism. But that doesn’t work either: JFK won by out-hawking Nixon in 1960, and Obama is a clear antiIraq war candidate.
Bobby Kennedy is more apposite: a mix of inner steel and an evolving moral candidacy. Just as a vote for RFK in 1968 was seen by many as a form of collective self-absolution for Vietnam, so Obama resonates among many Americans who do not recognise what their country has become these past few years.
The analogy that worries Republicans the most is a more recent one. Could Obama be a potential liberal version of Ronald Reagan? Could he do for the Democrats what Reagan did for the Republicans a quarter century ago?
It’s increasingly possible. Reagan was the cutting edge of the last realignment in American politics. With a good-natured, civil appeal to Democrats who felt abandoned by their own party under Jimmy Carter, Reagan revolutionised the reach of his own party.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Reagan was a man of ideas, a man of conviction. Obama is a man of platitudes.
Andrew who?
I met Raagan Obama is no Reagan !!!!!!!!
Over half of this country does not want to be liberal so I would say no. The country came together under conservative ideas, not a person - so again, no.
Mr. Gorbachev.....REBUILD THAT WALL!
What a joke.
I don’t think I care to unite behind him.
Oh, yeah, this guy (from Wikipedia):
Sullivan is known for his unusual personal-political identity (HIV-positive, gay, self-described conservative often at odds with other conservatives, practicing Roman Catholic, and a non-U.S. citizen who focuses on American political life).
I’m trying, really hard, but I just can’t. Obama’s just an empty shell that everyone keeps pouring their own image into, without even taking the slightest moment to look at what they’re getting. A lifelong government drone, supported by people who claim they want a ‘change’ from the status quo that brought us a lifelong government drone.
Hussein is an oily scumbag.
Obama deserves to be compared to Marx, Mao or Pol Pot. Not to someone who fought communism.
Now thats funny, right there!
The article made me sick to my stomach... Obama is a fool that would lead this country to its ruin... Mr. Barrack Hussein Obama is most certainly going to win the Democrat ticket its like running John Vietnam Kerry when the war first started run a guy that has the names our our current enemies as part of his own name.... Again Barrack the Muslim will lead this country to its ruin and the More Americans that wake up to that Oratory fact the better.
Reagan was’nt a Muslim either. That will be important down the road......
“Ten thousand people died in the Kansas tornado !”
— from the wit and wisdom of Barry O’bama
he’s going to be built up so much, he is bound to collapse in a heap. I am hoping it is not before he sticks a fork in the Clinton years.
Well put.
Obama spouts the same socialist drek that the other socialist are...
the only difference between them is that all he was worried about 3 years ago is getting the streets in his Chicago district plowed...
Can Obama win a single southern state? If not, then he isn’t uniting in the slightest.
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