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June 14, 2009
Republicans Rethinking the Reagan Mystique By JOHN HARWOOD
For a liberal Democrat, President Obama has offered generous praise for the most celebrated of his recent Republican predecessors.
Mr. Obama has credited Ronald Reagan with having “changed the trajectory of America” in ways Bill Clinton didn’t. “President Reagan helped as much as any president to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics,” Mr. Obama said earlier this month while signing the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act in the presence of Nancy Reagan.
It’s not surprising that Mr. Obama has embraced Mr. Reagan’s achievement since it seems akin to his own aspirations and might also ingratiate him with conservatives. What is surprising is the increasingly ambiguous position Mr. Reagan holds on the right.
Some Republicans have begun reassessing whether Mr. Reagan today affords the best example as they seek a path back to power. The economic crisis, which Mr. Obama last fall declared a “final verdict” on the anti-government philosophy that George W. Bush and Mr. Reagan shared, has made Reaganism less politically marketable than at any time in a generation.
“I don’t use him publicly as a reference point,” said Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, a Republican who lately has emerged as a potential national party leader. Mr. Daniels instead has urged fellow Republicans to “let go” of Mr. Reagan as a contemporary symbol.
As Mr. Reagan’s White House political director, Mr. Daniels brings credibility to the discussion. A year ago, when he first proposed that Republicans turn the page he drew sharp criticism from Rush Limbaugh, among others. Now, Mr. Daniels observes, “I think it’s spreading.”
That’s not to say Republicans disavow Mr. Reagan’s achievements, which include cutting tax rates, presiding over the successful conclusion of the cold war and, as Mr. Obama noted, boosting morale after a period of national self-doubt. Indeed a recent video made by a conservative group includes Newt Gingrich invoking Mr. Reagan in the terms of old: “His rendezvous with destiny is a reminder that we all have a similar rendezvous,” Mr. Gingrich said, reflecting the admiration for Mr. Reagan that is still in force among the party’s conservative base.
Mr. Daniels, too, hails his former boss for “timeless” principles like suspicion of big government and appreciation of the importance of individual freedom and opportunity. As he tackles issues in Indiana — education policy lately is a hot topic — he says he asks himself whether Mr. Reagan would approve.
But “Reagan always faced forward,” the governor said. “If he were around, he’d tell Republicans to do that now. He’d be the last to want the focus on him.”
What’s needed instead, said Reihan Salam, co-author of “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream,” is “something new — the anti-Obama, anti-Reagan.” Mr. Salam, whose co-author is Ross Douthat, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was born in 1979 — a year before Mr. Reagan was elected to his first term. Mr. Salam said he favored a new prototype of Republican leadership that projected humility rather than grandeur, understated competence rather than soaring rhetoric and vision.
Much has changed since the 2008 campaign, when the Republican contenders all were openly competing to be Mr. Reagan’s true heir. In one debate, Fred Thompson invoked Mr. Reagan on tax cuts; Mitt Romney hailed him for championing “our military,’ “our economy” and “our family values”; while John McCain linked “my dear and beloved Ronald Reagan” with his own support for free trade.
In accepting the nomination, Mr. McCain branded Republicans as the party of three heroes: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Mr. Reagan. In this he followed George W. Bush, who in 2004 pointed to Mr. Reagan rather than his own father as the president whose spirit “will always define our party.”
At the time it wasn’t hard to see why. Republicans have long viewed Mr. Reagan’s presidency as vastly more successful than that of the elder Mr. Bush — or any other recent Republican president. And the public seemed to agree.
Mr. Reagan’s approval ratings rose sharply after he left office — from 53 percent in 1988, at the end of his time in office, to 73 percent by 2002, according to Gallup. But it’s not clear the Reagan election model can work in the 21st century, as America’s population has become more diverse. In 1980, Mr. Reagan thrashed Jimmy Carter by winning 55 percent of the white vote. Mr. McCain, as it happens, matched that percentage in 2008, but lost decisively to Mr. Obama. The difference, according to exit polls, is that whites represented 74 percent of the overall electorate last year, down from 88 percent in 1980. At the same time, blacks and Hispanics collectively accounted for 22 percent of the vote in 2008, up from 12 percent in 1980.
But demographics tell only part of the story. There is also the arrival of a new slate of pressing issues. It has been 20 years since Mr. Reagan’s plea to “tear down that wall” was answered by the fall of Communism. The 70 percent top income tax rate Mr. Reagan called confiscatory now stands at half that level. And the cultural appeals he made to blue-collar voters and evangelicals have lost their immediacy, displaced by economic concerns. Many remember that Mr. Reagan identified government as “the problem.” But today an increasing number of voters look to the government for security and stability.
Perhaps most important, the principal early line of attack Republicans have offered against Mr. Obama, that he is a profligate spender who will run up massive deficits, is also the area where the Reagan Revolution looks most vulnerable today, as critics on the right have pointed out. “The federal payroll was larger in 1989 than it had been in 1981,” Richard Gamble wrote last month in American Conservative magazine. “Reagan’s tax cuts, whatever their merits as short-term fiscal policy, left large and growing budget deficits when combined with increased spending, and added to the national debt.”
To be sure, Mr. Reagan’s failure to curb the cost of government reflected the enduring difficulty all presidents face in balancing the government services Americans want with the taxes they’re willing to pay. But today it seems, increasingly, that it was Mr. Reagan and his admirer, George W. Bush, who contributed most to the problem of runaway spending, at least among recent presidents.
Some Republican critics also now point to shortcomings in Mr. Reagan’s governing style. “The most dangerous legacy Reagan bequeathed his party was his legacy of cheerful indifference to detail,” the conservative thinker David Frum wrote in his recent book, “Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again.” “The next Republican president needs to master details, understand his options and make his decisions with care.”
Meanwhile, Democrats embrace the possibility that it is Mr. Obama who may duplicate Mr. Reagan’s political triumphs: restoring luster to the presidency after an unpopular predecessor and also fundamentally shifting the direction of American politics.
“They came at the end of a period of one-party hegemony,” David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief political adviser, said of his boss and of Mr. Reagan. “Both of them were major candidates of change.”
Republicans Rethinking the Reagan Mystique By JOHN HARWOOD
For a liberal Democrat, President Obama has offered generous praise for the most celebrated of his recent Republican predecessors.
Mr. Obama has credited Ronald Reagan with having “changed the trajectory of America” in ways Bill Clinton didn’t. “President Reagan helped as much as any president to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics,” Mr. Obama said earlier this month while signing the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act in the presence of Nancy Reagan.
It’s not surprising that Mr. Obama has embraced Mr. Reagan’s achievement since it seems akin to his own aspirations and might also ingratiate him with conservatives. What is surprising is the increasingly ambiguous position Mr. Reagan holds on the right.
Some Republicans have begun reassessing whether Mr. Reagan today affords the best example as they seek a path back to power. The economic crisis, which Mr. Obama last fall declared a “final verdict” on the anti-government philosophy that George W. Bush and Mr. Reagan shared, has made Reaganism less politically marketable than at any time in a generation.
“I don’t use him publicly as a reference point,” said Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, a Republican who lately has emerged as a potential national party leader. Mr. Daniels instead has urged fellow Republicans to “let go” of Mr. Reagan as a contemporary symbol.
As Mr. Reagan’s White House political director, Mr. Daniels brings credibility to the discussion. A year ago, when he first proposed that Republicans turn the page he drew sharp criticism from Rush Limbaugh, among others. Now, Mr. Daniels observes, “I think it’s spreading.”
That’s not to say Republicans disavow Mr. Reagan’s achievements, which include cutting tax rates, presiding over the successful conclusion of the cold war and, as Mr. Obama noted, boosting morale after a period of national self-doubt. Indeed a recent video made by a conservative group includes Newt Gingrich invoking Mr. Reagan in the terms of old: “His rendezvous with destiny is a reminder that we all have a similar rendezvous,” Mr. Gingrich said, reflecting the admiration for Mr. Reagan that is still in force among the party’s conservative base.
Mr. Daniels, too, hails his former boss for “timeless” principles like suspicion of big government and appreciation of the importance of individual freedom and opportunity. As he tackles issues in Indiana — education policy lately is a hot topic — he says he asks himself whether Mr. Reagan would approve.
But “Reagan always faced forward,” the governor said. “If he were around, he’d tell Republicans to do that now. He’d be the last to want the focus on him.”
What’s needed instead, said Reihan Salam, co-author of “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream,” is “something new — the anti-Obama, anti-Reagan.” Mr. Salam, whose co-author is Ross Douthat, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was born in 1979 — a year before Mr. Reagan was elected to his first term. Mr. Salam said he favored a new prototype of Republican leadership that projected humility rather than grandeur, understated competence rather than soaring rhetoric and vision.
Much has changed since the 2008 campaign, when the Republican contenders all were openly competing to be Mr. Reagan’s true heir. In one debate, Fred Thompson invoked Mr. Reagan on tax cuts; Mitt Romney hailed him for championing “our military,’ “our economy” and “our family values”; while John McCain linked “my dear and beloved Ronald Reagan” with his own support for free trade.
In accepting the nomination, Mr. McCain branded Republicans as the party of three heroes: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Mr. Reagan. In this he followed George W. Bush, who in 2004 pointed to Mr. Reagan rather than his own father as the president whose spirit “will always define our party.”
At the time it wasn’t hard to see why. Republicans have long viewed Mr. Reagan’s presidency as vastly more successful than that of the elder Mr. Bush — or any other recent Republican president. And the public seemed to agree.
Mr. Reagan’s approval ratings rose sharply after he left office — from 53 percent in 1988, at the end of his time in office, to 73 percent by 2002, according to Gallup. But it’s not clear the Reagan election model can work in the 21st century, as America’s population has become more diverse. In 1980, Mr. Reagan thrashed Jimmy Carter by winning 55 percent of the white vote. Mr. McCain, as it happens, matched that percentage in 2008, but lost decisively to Mr. Obama. The difference, according to exit polls, is that whites represented 74 percent of the overall electorate last year, down from 88 percent in 1980. At the same time, blacks and Hispanics collectively accounted for 22 percent of the vote in 2008, up from 12 percent in 1980.
But demographics tell only part of the story. There is also the arrival of a new slate of pressing issues. It has been 20 years since Mr. Reagan’s plea to “tear down that wall” was answered by the fall of Communism. The 70 percent top income tax rate Mr. Reagan called confiscatory now stands at half that level. And the cultural appeals he made to blue-collar voters and evangelicals have lost their immediacy, displaced by economic concerns. Many remember that Mr. Reagan identified government as “the problem.” But today an increasing number of voters look to the government for security and stability.
Perhaps most important, the principal early line of attack Republicans have offered against Mr. Obama, that he is a profligate spender who will run up massive deficits, is also the area where the Reagan Revolution looks most vulnerable today, as critics on the right have pointed out. “The federal payroll was larger in 1989 than it had been in 1981,” Richard Gamble wrote last month in American Conservative magazine. “Reagan’s tax cuts, whatever their merits as short-term fiscal policy, left large and growing budget deficits when combined with increased spending, and added to the national debt.”
To be sure, Mr. Reagan’s failure to curb the cost of government reflected the enduring difficulty all presidents face in balancing the government services Americans want with the taxes they’re willing to pay. But today it seems, increasingly, that it was Mr. Reagan and his admirer, George W. Bush, who contributed most to the problem of runaway spending, at least among recent presidents.
Some Republican critics also now point to shortcomings in Mr. Reagan’s governing style. “The most dangerous legacy Reagan bequeathed his party was his legacy of cheerful indifference to detail,” the conservative thinker David Frum wrote in his recent book, “Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again.” “The next Republican president needs to master details, understand his options and make his decisions with care.”
Meanwhile, Democrats embrace the possibility that it is Mr. Obama who may duplicate Mr. Reagan’s political triumphs: restoring luster to the presidency after an unpopular predecessor and also fundamentally shifting the direction of American politics.
“They came at the end of a period of one-party hegemony,” David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief political adviser, said of his boss and of Mr. Reagan. “Both of them were major candidates of change.”
I'd probably better not post Paul Krugman's article.
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