It's ironic, in many ways and on many levels, that the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 served as the subject of the final installment in Kenneth Walsh's series in U.S. News & World Report on the most consequential presidential elections in American history.
- In the current context, the unemployment and inflation numbers may not look as scary today as they did in 1980 (although $4/gallon gas certainly would have horrified voters 30 years ago — when gas was selling for about $1.20/gallon), but the underlying problems in the financial system pose a greater, more lasting threat to the American economy than the painful (but temporary) late-1970s adjustment from a wartime economy to a peacetime one that was more responsible for the country's economic woes than was ever acknowledged in the heat of the political battle in 1980.
However, today, as it was in 1980, Americans must come to terms with the financial reality and decide what must be done. In 1980, Americans decided to follow Reagan's proposals and abandon many of the New Deal programs that had been responsible for reviving and modernizing the American economy half a century earlier but had come to be regarded as outmoded by a majority of voters. - Twenty years after leaving the presidency (and four years after his death), Reagan remains an admired figure in Republican politics.
During the presidential primaries last spring, Republicans debated each other endlessly over who would be the "new" Reagan — as if that had become the latest question in the unofficial litmus test for being nominated by the Republican Party ["1) Are you against abortion? 2) Are you for gun rights? 3) Are you against gay marriage? 4) Do you have Reaganesque qualities?"].
The ironic part of all that is that Reagan was considered too extreme by many observers during the 1980 campaign. And, as admired as he became during his eight years in the White House and as revered as he has been in the two decades since he left Washington, there are still people who believe that his policies were too extreme — and that his aversion to regulation is at least in part responsible for the economic mess in which we find ourselves today. - In spite of criticism, Walsh writes, Reagan "pursued the presidency with a special brand of good cheer and optimism that impressed the American people."
And the American people responded.
The part that I find ironic — taken in today's context — is that I don't see much cheer or optimism emanating from either side this year.
In spite of his right-wing views, Reagan managed to reassure people, even those who disagreed with him. And that included many in the Republican Party.
There was perhaps no greater example of Reagan's reassuring quality during the 1980 campaign than his performance in his one and only debate with President Carter a week before the election. That was the debate in which Reagan asked viewers if they were better off than they had been four years earlier.
(It was also the debate in which Carter — unfortunately for him — claimed to have had a discussion about the task of controlling nuclear weapons with his young daughter.)
As I write this, it remains unclear whether tonight's debate between Barack Obama and John McCain will go forward as scheduled.
But, if nothing else, the election of 1980 symbolizes the importance of presidential debates in the formation of the relationship between a would-be president and the electorate.
Even in 1980, when presidential debates were still an infrequent occurrence in American politics, voters overcame their reservations about Reagan as they watched the debate — and rewarded him a week later with a landslide victory over an incumbent president.
The incumbent won't be on the ballot in 2008, but many Americans still need a nudge to push them from the fence on which they're sitting.
Whether the voters are trying to overcome whatever objections they may have to voting for a black man or a 72-year-old white man with a woman as his running mate, the debates can help provide that nudge.
The debate can even help the millions of Hillary Clinton supporters who remain torn between supporting a ticket that comes closest to sharing their views (in spite of the presence of a nominee many Clinton supporters still see as smug and elitist) or a ticket that has a candidate who shares their gender but not their philosophy.
A couple of months ago, I wrote about Michael Barone's article in National Review about Gerald Ford's near-comeback against Carter in the 1976 campaign.
Barone wrote that 1976 resembled 2008 in many ways — and one of the similarities was how many "gaps" there were in the public's knowledge about the candidates. Ford's comeback was made possible, in part, by his campaign's efforts to educate the public and re-define both candidates' images.
Likewise, there are gaps in the public's knowledge of McCain and Obama. The debates — starting tonight — provide both candidates with the opportunity to fill in those gaps.
No comments:
Post a Comment