Letters to the Editor
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To Anonymous
In my respectful view, what you are missing is that Obama is parroting the Republican talking points of the last ten to twenty years, which, as I said, is that the Republicans are the party of ideas, and the Democrats are exhausted and barren. In fact, the Republicans stole the 2000 election, which was perhaps one of their ideas, and their other big idea has been to lock up the South, starting with Nixon's Southern strategy, after, guess who, LBJ helped pass civil rights legislation. This business about Republicans being the party of "ideas" is what is called a meme: 'As defined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976): "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation." "Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.' So Obama has picked up on a successful Republican viral plant into the bloodstream of pundits and, now, into the discourse of a leading contender for the Democratic nomination. Democratic ideas have been plenty good. Indeed, they were good enough to win the 2000 election.
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Hillary was gracious in defeat...
...in Iowa. She talked about how it was a good day for the country. A good day for Democrats. A good day for the future. A good day because of the large turnout. On the other hand, Obama in losing Nevada was terse, according to the New York Times:
Mr. Obama, in a terse statement, barely acknowledged his defeat. “We ran an honest, uplifting campaign in Nevada that focused on the real problems Americans are facing, a campaign that appealed to people’s hopes instead of their fears,” he said. “That’s the campaign we’ll take to South Carolina and across America in the weeks to come, and that’s how we will truly bring about the change this country is hungry for.”
So, it looks like Obama is saying that Nevadans (?) just didn't get it that his message was better than his opponents?
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@MICKI
Ok, you hate Obama, we get it...but you are getting a bit over the top with it now.
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@ModerationInAll
That's a fair inference. You'll note he also talked about John F Kennedy too- where does that fit in the Republican meme?
Oh, fyi, in case your chronology is a bit rusty, Regan was initially elected over 25 years ago, hence, I would imagine your linking Obama's comments about Regan's personal optimism and the environment of the 1970s to the 2000 election. Good. God.
The only meme that is being absorbed unwittingly here, is the useful canard that Obama's statement about Regan was meaningful in any way shaper or form.
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@jamisco
No, you are wrong. I don't hate Obama. I just don't buy into the "fairy tale" that he's a knight in shining armor who is going to change the country and we'll all live happily everafter.
I think Obama has some merit. He's better than the Republican candidates -- at least based on what we know about him.
So, please enough already with suggesting that I hate Obama. I don't. Not at all. He's just not my first choice for the DEM nomination.
BTW, why do you insist that just because I prefer another Democrat (who happens to be Edwards -- but that apparently is not going to happen) to Obama, that I hate Obama.
That is downright disgusting for you to think that.
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To Majorajam, Just This Once
You respond to my post as follows: "Oh, fyi, in case your chronology is a bit rusty, Regan was initially elected over 25 years ago, hence, I would imagine your linking Obama's comments about Regan's personal optimism and the environment of the 1970s to the 2000 election. Good. God."
My comment on the 2000 election was in response to a statement, which I quoted, by Obama: "I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10 to 15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.”
If I subtract 10 to 15 years from the current year, I get 1993 to 1998, meaning the period of which Obama speaks as the period in which the Republicans were the party of ideas spans either 1993 or 1998 to 2008. As I calculate, the 2000 election occurred during either of those periods. That seems to mean that Obama thinks Bush won that election because he represented the party of ideas. I thought the big idea in that election came from Katherine Harris, and then from Antonin Scalia. It had to do with how to count votes. It was a pretty big idea, one supposes. I, myself, preferred Gore's ideas.
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Joan Walsh
Joan -
I am becoming very disappointed with your columns - They have turned into some sort of "rah, rah" for Hilary Clinton - I hate to burst your bubble but there are a lot of liberal democrat women who are not her biggest fan and I would rather not read your column anymore if you cannot give fair coverage to all the candidates that are running right now -
To be perfectly honest if Clinton is the nominee for the democrats and McCain is the republican candidate - I will be voting for McCain - Is this country only able to have 2 families run it? (Bush and Clinton) - If that is the case, then let Hilary be the president, then Jeb and Chelsea and let's just save our time and money on the illusion of a democracy - Am I the only American troubled by this trend?
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Moderation in acuity
Love the interpretation Moderation. I tend to approach these things in terms of what I find likely, but that's just me. Given that counting forward from when Regan was originally elected doesn't get us past the mid-90s, maybe it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to postulate that Obama was actually talking about the 2000 election- in meme code decipherable to Hillary supporters only? But the sharp focus of your profound analysis has challenged that. One thing's for sure, he was including the period of Bill Clinton's tenure as President, when his lowness faithfully followed Regan Republican ideals, in so far as he did anything when it came to domestic policy. Maybe you should consider whether, given that his comments are dead on in that respect, it might be worth not reading into them that he believes the Democrats are currently (27 years on) bereft of ideas or that the 2000 election was a product of said? Or would that deprive you of one of two operative talking points? (and I'm patiently waiting for the one term senator's experience argument)
'Just this one time', uh? To what do I owe the pleasure? Are you working overtime tonight?