Posted on 09/01/2011 10:28:05 AM PDT by maggief
* Historian cites positive examples of Roosevelt, Reagan
* Persistent unemployment threatens Obama's re-election
(Reuters) - Aides to President Barack Obama held a secret strategy retreat where they listened to a history lesson from a presidential scholar about past presidents who could serve as models for Obama's re-election effort, Time magazine reported.
Historian Michael Beschloss reportedly gave the team hope with his June presentation about Democrat Franklin Roosevelt and Republican Ronald Reagan, who both won re-election in tough economic times.
According to Time, Beschloss said the strategies the two presidents used were similar: they both made the case that the economy was improving and that their opponents would make things worse.
"Beschloss did not intend to give political advice," the magazine said. "But that is just how his words were received. The president's aides, all but resigned to unemployment above 8 percent on Election Day, now see in Roosevelt and Reagan a plausible path to victory."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“It’s mourning in America...”?
50 years later was a different story. First, unemployment was going down and second there was a clear choice. Mondale's "I'm gonna raise your taxes" vs Reagan's lower taxes and smaller government. People also knew the Reagan's economic policies were beginning to work.
FDR often blamed his predessesor, claimed reversing the economy was going to take time, and introduced a lot of Gov't programs which placed a drag on the economy.
Problem is...this is not the 40's. In FDR's time communism was still a fashionable "experiment". We look back on it now as a FAILED experiment over which Ronald Reagan led us to victory. Not to mention that Obama is certainly no FDR in personality. Obama is more like Boss Tweed.
It speaks volumes that this WH has to bring in a two-bit pop historian (Beschloss) to school them. For all their so-called "intellectual" reputation, they don't strike me as people who open a book too often.
Long had already driven FDR to the left. Otherwise he and Landon would have stood for the same things exactly. Father Coughlan was totally frustrated by the collapse of the populist movement. He knew he was the only candidate with the personal force to take on FDR. But as a priest he was in an impossible position. That’s why he famously tore off his collar during a rally speech. This did not please his bishop, you may be sure. Nor the Vatican, which thru Pacelli began to put pressure on his bishop to get him under control. Bu that took years. Finally, so I hear, he had a choice shut up or leave. He chose to shut up and —ac cording to a priest I know who knew him—refused absolutely to talk about politics. But lots of priests were Coughlanites.
Huh?
FDR was reelected three times. In 1936 the economy seemed okay; in 1940 the economy was improving from the 1937 recession, but the bigger focus was the looming war; in 1944 we were in the middle of a war and the economy wasn't really an issue.
The recession during the early Reagan years ended in the Fall of 1982 and by 1984 the economy was on fire. Unemployment had dropped from nearly 11% to just over 7% and inflation had fallen from just over 10% to just over 3%. The only person complaining about the economy in 1984 was Mondale saying taxes weren't high enough.
Exactly!!
“According to Time, Beschloss said the strategies the two presidents used were similar: they both made the case that the economy was improving and that their opponents would make things worse.”
Reagan was telling the truth. Roosevelt was lying. It worked for both of them. Maybe lying will work for Zero too.
Article leaves the human factor out of it. Obama very poor politician - too detached, too self-centered. Obama no Roosevelt, no Reagan.
We can't even do anything about the waste and fraud that the GAO has identified. No politician except the moron with the money in the freezer has suffered lately for being a thief.
I remember clearly Adam Clayton Powell, standing on the deck of his Yacht, in Bimini, drinking Mint Juleps and thumbing his nose at Congress.
You can always tell a Harvard man, but not much.
What do you do if you are drowning in rushing flood waters?
Gasp for air and grasp a Beschloss as it comes floating by
What this historian doesn't seem to get is that Obama is not the smartest president ever, but he may be the luckiest man to be president.
What this historian doesn't seem to get is that Obama is not the smartest president ever, but he may be the luckiest man to be president.
Every single time Beschloss appears on tv he should be introduced as a consultant to the Obama campaign. Every. Single. Time.
Lucky? How? Everything he touches turns to s#!+.
I would say, instead, that he is the most _connected_ person to ever run for president.
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