Letters to the Editor
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The Vision Thing
"Are you suggesting that Ronald Reagan's changes in politics and economics were good for the country and that Obama promises Reagan-like change?
If so, we are doomed, plain and simple."
-- ethics_professor
Sunspot beat me to it (ya rascal), but comparisons like this between Reagan and Obama ARE NOT a bad thing, unless you are so reflexively partisan as to learn nothing from the other side's tactics. (Another useful adjective would be idiotic.) You might argue all day that every one of Reagan's policies was bad for the country. (I would argue that only the Puritans screwed up this country more than Reagan.) But you're flat out in denial if you think Reagan had no bearing on the country's direction. He was able to set the agenda. Once he got the ball rolling in the direction he wanted it to go, it was easy to keep the momentum going. Reagan in 1980 bequeathed Shrub, 2000. No Reagan, no Shrub, that simple.
Progressives need someone with a long-term goal who can sell that plan--get the ball rolling in a new direction--not just someone with a few quick-fix schemes that might work in the short run but be easily rescinded and countered once a new GOPer takes control. Obama might not be as progressive as many either think he is or would like him to be, but he might well be the best one to get the ball rolling back in the right direction. (And only a minute's worth of policy searching will tell you that Obama's direction sure as hell ain't Reagan's.) Clinton supporters would be happy to tell you their candidate could do that, too, and better, and please show me the evidence that that would be true, but from what I've seen, the case seems to be lacking.
I guess that's why I decided on Obama once my first candidate bowed out of the race early: I want the long-term solution. The problem of course is that it's harder to sell, because long-term solutions don't come without short-term problems that need to be fixed as they sprout. I just want to be addressed like a grown-up and told what that entails rather than have someone just tell me to go shopping and everything will be fine.