Posted on 02/03/2008 5:13:20 AM PST by Kaslin
ST. LOUIS - Barack Obama speaks in a clear style that almost always leaves his audience with a sense that he stands for something – which explains those comparisons with the last “Great Communicator,” Ronald Reagan.
Some of the comparisons have been used in opposition research against Obama, though largely in vain. Nothing detrimental stuck because Reagan successfully bridged the divide between Republicans and Democrats by building a remarkable coalition known as Reagan Democrats.
If one great communicator -- the eloquent Ronald Reagan -- could build a coalition of disaffected Democrats that swung both of his presidential elections his way, can an almost-great communicator -- the fiery Barack Obama -- build a coalition of disaffected Republicans to swing the Democrat primary election his way?
It's possible, says Brian F. Schaffner, an assistant professor of political science at American University in Washington, D.C. "Obama definitely has the potential to win over some Republicans in the same way that Reagan won over some Democrats,” says Brian F. Schaffner, an assistant professor of political science at American University in Washington, D.C.
Even though Obama probably takes more liberal positions on many issues than does Hillary Clinton, Schaffner says the perception among Republicans is that he is more moderate.
“This is a matter of style over substance,” Schaffner notes. “Obama speaks so often of bringing the parties together and working with Republicans, he seems less polarizing to Republicans than Clinton, who has long been demonized by that party.”
The Pew Research Center corroborates Schaffner's inkling. It recently produced a report showing that Obama is perceived as more liberal than Clinton among Democrats, yet is seen as more moderate than Clinton among Republicans.
One Republican who isn't afraid of Obama's liberalism is John Martin, who directs the grassroots Web organization “Republicans for Obama.”
A Bronx, N.Y., native who was very active in the Young Republicans in college, Martin, 29, is in law school but serving on active duty in Afghanistan as a U.S. Navy reservist. E-mailing from Afghanistan, Martin said his group has more than 400 members since he last checked and that the Web site’s server received so many clicks the day Obama won Iowa that it crashed.
Lisa Kinzer, 30, is another rock-ribbed Republican who's gone Obama. The Norman, Okla., native has been a registered Republican for 12 years. She has nothing against President Bush. But she does have a problem with the GOP's 2008 candidates.
Their bickering over the morality of using torture while interrogating terrorist suspects in an early debate was her turning point, she says, so she went to shop on the Democrats' side and picked Obama -- who she believes stands the best chance of uniting the nation of bringing the country back together “of by "reminding us of what we all have in common, our love of this country and our hope for its future.”
Towson University science professor Antonio Campbell is a lifelong Republican -- he even ran as one in Maryland’s 7th Congressional District 10 years ago. Yet if Obama wins the Democrats' nomination, Campbell says he will become an “Obama Republican.”
“Obama’s message reads like Reagan’s playbook -- individual strength, faith and behaving in a fiscally competent way,” Campbell says.
Obama is the only Democrat he would vote for, Campbell adds. His second choice is John McCain.
“The opportunity does seem to be out there for Obama to build an 'Obama Republican' coalition,” says Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
While Obama clearly will not replicate Reagan’s policies, Jillson says, he might replicate Reagan’s larger theme of America as a land of opportunity. He might even persuade some Republicans “that government can effectively help families meeting their most serious challenges, like steady jobs at good pay, health care and college tuition at affordable prices.
Obama won in the more conservative states of South Carolina and Iowa. Now, heading into Super Tuesday, he is knocking on doors in more-conservative, ruby-red states such as those he's knocking on here in Missouri and Kansas.
His tactics build on Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy that, coupled with promising candidates, won Democrats the 2006 mid-term election.
“Reagan represented a fundamental shift in politics -- he created a majority coalition, and the voting population changed,” says Jillson, as the primaries head into Super Tuesday.
If Obama can do to Republicans what Reagan did to Democrats, then Obama really will be 2008’s “candidate of change.”
Republicans seem to have forgotten how to run ideological campaigns against Democrats for President. Kerry’s hugely liberal record went virtually unchallenged in 2004; Gore’s and Clinton’s somewhat more moderate liberal records were similarly let alone in 2000 and 1992 respectively. Dole couldn’t connect with anything in 1996.
We can presumably beat Clinton this fall on a low-idea-content 2004 or 2000 campaign, because she’s so intensely unpopular and mistrusted, and McCain (whether fairly or not) seems to be well trusted and popular. However, Obama simply cannot be beat on a low-idea-content race. We need to run the way we ran against Dukakis, Mondale, Carter and McGovern focused on the bankruptcy of liberal ideas and the ardent embrace of those bankrupt ideas by the candidate, or we’ll lose.
If “The Obama” wins how much will we have to pay in reparations for slavery?
I hope Costa Rica patterned their government on what ours is SUPPOSED to be and not what it has become and certainly not what it is apt to become after the next election!
He is to left of Hillary on every issue.
It is my money to start with and I want it returned in gold.
It is not "income" or a "salary."
All of those jerks running get a welfare check every month from some government entity - EXCEPT Mitt Romney.
Split hairs all you want...
How stupid do you have to be to consider yourself a Republican and then get conned by that oily scumbag Obama? “Flibberty jib....flibberty jib....flibberty jib....change.... flibberty jib....”
It is a Democratic Republic, altho they appear to have some differences (from what I just read online). But then, as you point out, even WE aren’t patterned on what our founding fathers intended, at least largely.
susie
I often wonder how different our country would have been if Reagan was elected four years earlier (he came within a whisker of getting the nomination in '76). We would have had eight years of Ronald Reagan in his prime, there would have been no Iran hostage crisis (or it would have been shortlived), and we almost certainly never would have had Bush Sr. in the White House.
Those Carter years were terrible, no way do I want to hand this country back to the Clintons in the faint hope that we get another "Reagan" four years from now.
Wow, I never thought of that. I do remember hearing Reagan speak in 76, it would have been the first election we could vote in, my new husband and I—we ended up not voting because we had just moved to Denver and couldn’t find the polling place. Anyway, I was wowed by what he had to say in what I think was a paid spot (30 minutes prime time I think—and as a 19 year old I was glued to the set and his every word).
I was so happy when he ran the next time and I stood in line for over an hour, 9 months pregnant with my 3rd child, just to pull the lever for Reagan. But, to have had him 4 years earlier, wow. Thank you for pointing that out.
susie
Republicans for Osama Obama? Only RINOs like the Gropinator.
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