Grabbing The Gipper’s Message
Scott Rasmussen has an excellent take on the Obama victory that bears reading in full. I’ll excerpt a bit, then ask you go over to the link and read the rest.
Barack Obama won the White House by campaigning against an unpopular incumbent in a time of economic anxiety and lingering foreign policy concerns. He offered voters an upbeat message, praised the nation as a land of opportunity, promised tax cuts to just about everyone, and overcame doubts about his experience with a strong performance in the presidential debates.
Does this sound familiar? It should. Mr. Obama followed the approach that worked for Ronald Reagan. His victory confirmed that voters still embrace the guiding beliefs of the Reagan era.
During Reagan’s campaign, the nation suffered from high unemployment and high inflation. This time around, data from the Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll showed that Mr. Obama took command of the race during the 10 days following the collapse of Lehman Brothers — when the Wall Street meltdown hit Main Street. Before that event John McCain was leading nationally by three percentage points. Ten days later Mr. Obama was up by five and never relinquished his lead.
Mr. Obama’s tax-cutting message played a key role in this period of economic anxiety. Tax cuts are well-received at such times: 55% of voters believe they are good for the economy. Only 19% disagree and see them as bad policy.
This, as Rasmussen points out later in the piece, is Obama’s real problem. There is no way to reconcile an activist Congress with a hunger for higher taxes and more government spending with Obama’s campaign promises. No way. Add to that the almost certainly destructive economic and environmental policies Obama promised and you can begin to see what Obama faces. This is precisely why I have been trying to tell Republicans and conservatives to not self destruct, not tear into one another and to obey Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment.
Can we do better? Hell yes. Can we do better if we tear ourselves apart first?
No. We. Can. Not.
Dig in, folks. It’ll be a hell of a ride.
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Right Wing Nation » Blog Archive » The Glass Is Over Half Full — November 11, 2008 @ 9:15 am
By Bleepless, November 10, 2008 @ 8:13 pm
Gaius, the problem is that analyzing what went wrong inevitably will require some finger-pointing. Certain policies and approaches were wrong (at least to some degree) and human beings made those decisions. This definitely does not mean that we should mobilize the circular firing squad, but we should be clear-eyed enough to realize that someone who was seriously wrong on major issues does not have the kind of track record that should deserve our positive presumptions.
The other problems which inevitably will arise are whether a specific mistake was, in fact, made and who, if anyone, was responsible.
By Gaius, November 10, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
The propensity right now is to throw the switch on the circular firing squad. That’s what I do not want. We have to pull together, not pull ourselves apart.
That’s where I am coming from on this issue. Yes, we got it wrong. We need to learn from that, not commit suicide over it.
By martian, November 11, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
I’m with Gaius on this issue. Fingerpointing and back-stabbing never accomplish anything but to tear an organization apart. The biggest issue facing the Republican Party right now is how to overcome the incredibly biased MSM to get the right message back to the voters. The MSM will sieze on any and every finger point and back stab in order to harm the Republican Party. They would like nothing better than the opportunity to make their claim, that the Republican Party and it’s principles are dead, into the truth. We must not let them and we must not help them!
By Bleepless, November 11, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
martian, I said nothing about backstabbing at all, much less anything defending it.
By Dean, November 11, 2008 @ 9:11 pm
Let’s not confuse the circular firing squad with a much needed butt-kicking over matters like out-of-control-spending. Where it applies, why spare the rod?