Now that Barack Obama has won the Democratic nomination, a persistent meme of the presidential campaign has resurfaced, equating his candidacy with that of Ronald Reagan, the last truly insurgent candidate to win his party’s nomination.

Much has been made of their stylistic similarities, their cool, camera-ready styles, how each decisively broke with their party’s reigning orthodoxy. The first wave of Obama-Reagan comparisons surfaced last January, after Obama explicitly linked himself to the Gipper:

“I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times…I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

Obama’s Democratic opponents promptly went nuts, accusing him of treason, cozying up to the Dark Lord of the GOP, etc., etc., but several pundits picked up his observation and ran with it, saying it was a pretty good analysis of how two utterly different candidacies had seemed to tap into the Zeitgeist.

Now, in the wake of Obama’s victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Obama-Reagan comparisons are firing up again.

Old Reagan (and Nixon) hand Pat Buchanan established the link this week:

Democrats may talk of making the economy the issue this fall, but Republicans are going to make Barack the issue. Story line: We cannot entrust our beloved America, in a time of war, to this radical and exotic figure who has so many crazy and extremist associates.

Barack’s problem is thus Reagan’s problem.

As the country wished to be rid of Jimmy Carter in 1980, so the nation today wishes to be rid of Bush and his Republicans. But America is apprehensive over a roll of the dice, in Bill Clinton’s metaphor.

How did Reagan ease the anxiety? In the debate with Carter, he came off as conservative, yes, but also traditional, mainstream, witty and the more likable man. The real Reagan came through.

With his persona, Barack may be able to do the same.

Bob Beckel, who got a ringside seat to watch Reagan when he managed Walter Mondale’s 1984 campaign, devoted an entire column to the comparison. Money quote:

Barack Obama’s current political circumstance is eerily similar to that of Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign for president. Both Obama and Reagan, from the beginning of their insurgent campaigns, were viewed as transformative political figures. Both enjoyed passionate grassroots support.

Both men had defeated centrist establishment candidates for their party’s nomination. Reagan defeated George H.W. Bush, who was viewed by the growing conservative base of the Republican Party as too moderate. Obama beat Hilary Clinton whose husband had been elected twice by moving away from his party’s traditional progressive roots and running as a centrist, a path Clinton herself followed (at least at the beginning of her campaign).

In 1980 most conventional political observers failed to recognize the growing grassroots power of the rock solid conservative activists who propelled Reagan to his party’s nomination. In the 2008 presidential campaign supporters of Hillary Clinton failed to recognize the growing assertiveness of the Democrats progressive base.

More comparisons to come, no doubt.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, John McCain, Presidential. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.