Obama praises GOP as being the "party of ideas the past 10-15 years"

just watched the part of the interview AFTER what we see here (20 minutes into it, http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/VIDEO/80115026&oaso=news.rgj.com/breakingnews - he actually goes on to say ---

"fair to say the the republicans were the party of ideas the past 10-15 years", and they "challenged conventional wisdom", but they're now only talking in debates about "tax cuts". But let's back up - read those first two comments.


Very disheartening. The Democrats have fought for the rights of gays, women, workers, more so against the Iraq occupation, the environment - the GOP has fought to stop any advancements.


Yeah, Reagan put us on a fundamentally different path from Carter, Sen. Obama... totally different.

I'm sorry, I RARELY have put any comments on DU about candidates that I'm not backing, usually I'm cheerleading for Edwards - but watching this video, and seeing what he said right after it, and hearing something I consider just as bad or worse uttered by him really leaves me hoping for John to have a miracle happen in his favor.

Dude, Where's my party?

He is merely stating facts. They were evil ideas, but look at what they've been able to accomplish. Obama is absolutely correct.

were so EVIL as you are QUICK to point out on his behalf - then he needs to say something totally different than the past 10-15 years they were the party of ideas - because that sounds incredibly BAD. Sorry, no dressing that up if you don't say they were heavily misguided ideas, because the tone of his voice, and his wording says they were the leaders of change the past 10-15 years and the Dems weren't and only now that he's around running for president the GOP has lost its way...

He really is all over the map with his comments - it's like gobbledygook. Sorry, it just is.

you always say things curtly if they need to be. Party of ideas is an extreme compliment. Thank you for your input!

the economy, foreign policy, education, health care.

Dem's have had superior ideas in these areas but have not implemented them. They lost the propaganda war against the Repukes on these topics. They are left with having to wait until people are dissatisfied or have an epiphany that the Repuke vision in these areas is entirely to help the Upper class. That is just the situation we are in right now.

Reagan set this country back at least 50 years. You can pinpoint the slide of the middle class and the poor beginning with the Reagan presidency.

So Obama thinks Reagan and the Republicans are the party of idea.

:puke: :puke: :puke:

are you joking?

How could he possibly mean what he says? If Obama has an opinion, it automatically becomes historical fact. Whatever.

All of this Reagan defense garbage is exactly why the ignore button was created. :eyes:

wretched ones. I'm glad this is all coming out now, because I had no idea he was thinking along these lines.

this isn't all fabrication, lies and distortion, and YOU know that if Clinton had made the same statements as Obama, she'd be crucified for it.

But I think it will still appeal to the college kids who have never had to support themselves.

It's so funny that there is a candidate who is finally getting college kids excited about a presidential election, and because of that he gets bashed and we get bashed. You old folks say you want us to vote and when it looks like we're going to, you just bash us? How nice. And believe me there are plenty of college kids who DO have to support themselves.

I'm not even an Obama supporter but I feel the need to call people out on this kind of BS. And yes the Republicans were the party of ideas. Awful ideas. And the Democrats have been the party of caving-in and spinelessness.

that's a great way to make your point. What was your point btw, hmmm, stereotyping?

It's pretty simple really. It just angers when me people bash the youth vote at a time when we're actually starting to vote in bigger numbers.

but I hope that you realize just how condescending your reference was also.

We're upset that a frontrunner for the DEMOCRATIC nomination has such peachy things to say about the opposition! Take off the blinders. Does Obama sound AT ALL like a Democrat to you? He doesn't to me.

Bake

You should read aquart's post and get back to me. I think it's hilarious that people are getting in such a tizzy over Obama's comments. Yeah they were a bit clumsy but accusing of him being some kind of Republican Reagan-worshipper is dishonest to say the least.

Why? Because I've got college-age kids (and older) who have never had to support themselves, yet think they know everything.

I'm thrilled (and frankly, a little surprised) that anyone is able to appeal to the "youth vote." I'm all in favor of anything that gets them away from the XBOX. But you would have to admit, those of us who lived through the Reagan years might know a little something that those who weren't around then don't know.

Bake

That puts me at the bottom of the political food chain. Never mind that I spent 40 years educating
smart young college students.

How are you being bashed because Obama's getting college kids' support?

:shrug:


Also, don't expect too many Dems to jump on your "Republicans are the party of ideas, and Democrats are the party of caving-in and spinelessness" bandwagon.

And would you deny that's how it used to be? Hell the Democrats are still the party of spinelessness, which is why I support John Edwards. I think Edwards is by far a better candidate than Obama or Clnton. But that doesn't mean I think Obama is some Republican numbskull because of his comments about Reagan.

When I think of Democrats acting like Republicans I think of Democrats who supported Kyl-Lieberman.

That's what he said and its what he meant, in context.

Obama's flaw is that he went to Harvard Business School at a time when they were teaching all that Reagan era bullsh*t, so he actually believes it. He's so inexperienced and so eager to please that he really believes the BS about Reaganomics and "small government" and mistakenly thinks it was beneficial.

He's certainly a good argument against electing young, inexperienced people to the highest offices in the land. Making good speeches is one thing, knowing what the hell you're talking about is another.

among all the candidates' supporters. Last week another group was so ugly, that I just away for most of it.

My question is whether Edwards voted against Reagan or not. That was in his non-political years. (He says he doesn't know if he voted for Nixon or McGovern.)

that's what happens when you try to work and post at the same time.:blush:

It still surprises me at how many Dem Gen X and Gen Y people don't realize what a terrible president Reagan was. I hope they're not canonizing him now in the history books, but it certainly seems so. Gack! I hated the Reagan years! Poppy was even an improvement, though not by much.

A year or so ago, the question came up on what was taught on Iran/Contra, in both cases it was taught reasonably well. They had the second year of AMerican History 6 and 4 years ago respectively. Both schools also had a 60s/70s/80s class that went into more detail, but neither kid took it. (In one case, I'm sure they did not whitewash the Reagan era :) )

My very thought. We have to be careful electing someone that does not have breadth and depth of knowledge to understand the kind of impact Reagan had on our country.

-P

and has a decidedly Republican bent to his recent history. I keep wanting to support him, and he keeps saying stuff like this. Why should I support him if he doesn't support me? Reagan was an empty suit. Obama's too smart to be an empty suit. Why does he keep cutting the older generation from the democratic party? This is not a small thing for me.

If you're an Obama supporter and you haven't read the book, with a critical eye, you are just going
to be going around defending this kind of crap from him until he drops out.

It's all in his book.

no need to shout, truly. just defend it or agree that what he said was very misguided.

"our supporters getting overzealous", and "spouting off" because the race is close - Obama.

Your judgment, saying it will show people's true colors, is so ridiculous and so overcharged that perhaps you should relax, have a nice tea, and watch the birds for a few minutes. I'm pointing out his words, and stating some commentary about why he would attack his party so badly, repeatedly, talk about that - not about people's true colors, or risk showing your own.

perhaps not in the way you might think.

My true colors! Was I ever hiding them?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3254346&mesg_id=3254808


and golly, gee, it was titled "Don't get me started about Reagan..."

Because the M$M trumpets their ideas and won't give Dems' ideas a fair shake?

This is shocking.

And cutting aid for students... and for head start programs...

:crazy:

I never saw a homeless person (maybe the odd "hobo" or two when I was a kid) on the streets of my city until Reagan took office. This is shameful. Now we have families with children on the streets. Thank you, Ronnie!

Hubby is a shrink--don't get him started on this--and there was this great Republican push to get people out of state hospitals and taken care of in community settings. Only problem? No funding for the community setting, so the mentally ill without health insurance (no parity) are left to the streets, jail, or emergency rooms.

This has been playing out in states for 20 years. In fact, it's now happening in NC.

Another 'great idea', huh, Obama?

Did Reagan say something about Ketchup being a vegetable?

probably to benefit Heinz--huh, Teresa?

And trees cause pollution.



Man, it's actually making me sick thinking of all the asinine crap that vile person spewed.

:hi:

He is pandering to all these (sic) Republicans - Maybe For Vote?
but cant trust them (sic) Republicans (Except in primaries, maybe)

I know you got to get every vote - but come-on, (sic) Republicans are tied up with there own mess- don't see many coming over - soon

Remember when (not too long ago, really) it was said that the first African American POTUS would be a Republican?

I thought all the high priests attempting to raise Zombie Reagan were in the other party.

So now he's praising those Repukes that Clinton/Gore fought???; he should have limited it to the Reagan era, (even though that praise was dead wrong as well).

The Repuke Party hasn't been a party of ideas in at least 20 years; as the Reagan era was heading past its peak.
And how does Barack explain the Repukes free-fall in 2006????? Even Repukes have been saying for the past couple of years that THEIR OWN PARTY IS LACKING IN IDEAS. But here comes Barack to give them hope.

This is amazing. Obama is showing lousy political skills here. Maybe he isn't ready after all.

I'm with the O.P. on this. I for the most part have stayed out of "other candidate bashing" (with a few rare exceptions) but this shit has me up in arms. I once thought I might be able to accept Obama as a second choice, but this video has painted him in a bad light for me. I fear for America should he become president. Does he really need votes this bad? Aren't all the starry-eyed college kids giving the great orator enough support? Or is reaching out to the right with kind words for this administration and its evil predecessor (Reagan) more than vote collecting and actually part of his political philosophy?

The party of ideas? WTF!

Obama embodies the Peter Principle. Someone who was promoted too young and too fast and is now well above his level of competence.

Or is he just shilling for more campaign contributions? No doubt he's going through cash at a rapid clip.

and aren't too thrilled with the selection on the Republican side.

He's going to alienate all those young and liberal voters. Bad move, but I'm glad he's doing it. He's not ready for prime time.

He really is a shapeshifter. Wow.

but I guess that's too far back in our history. Does anybody even remember him anymore?

He's still a pivotal figure used in defining the difference between the republicants and the Democrats.

Remember when the right wingers took over and began threatening school and university funding if they didn't teach revisionist history?

And also the media does as well... with the wrongwing's constant drumbeat against FDR's legacy... and the Dems' consistent promises to work to keep those wonderful programs effective & around to help more and more Americans for generations to come.

:(

regardless of the context he is just providing all the fodder the GOP will need for their GE campaign commercials. We are going to see these clips - taken out of context - regardles of the context - thousands and thousands of times. Never have posted anti Obama but this is a disaster and he needs to shut up.

...that's why they voted for them.

Do I agree with them, no, but I cannot deny that a lot of Americans were interested in them.

do for your country but what your country can do for you, because it's your money!

Their hero was Gordon Gecko in Wall Street: "Greed is good!"

This is sort of and endless argument about what history says vs. how we feel about history.

At least it's topic other than race. At least we're talking ideology here again.

to be self-interested and selfish. Of course people liked that.

and he said no, that Reagan made people comfortable with their prejudices. That was, after all, the angry white man's revolt, when the working man was co-opted in the privatization of our government. People liked being told they could openly hate liberals. They hated blacks, gays, feminists, environmentalists, union organizers - you know, the people responsible for where this country has gone in the years since.
:eyes:
Republican responsibility? Naw, that's an oxymoron.

We've suffered under the Clinton approach of offering mild proposals and trying to stop the worst of what Republicans propose. I'd say 13 years since we lost the '94 election. We have an entire generation of young voters who have never seen the Democratic Party really stand for anything. I'm glad Obama understands that its a big problem for the party.

Killer Trees.

After opining in August 1980 that "trees cause more pollution than automobiles do," Reagan arrived at a campaign rally to find a tree decorated with this sign: "Chop me down before I kill again."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0309.mendacity-index.html

"Reagan spoke to the failure of liberal government, during a period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them." - Barack Obama

Does Obama say he agrees with that assessment? No.

...be quoting Reagan. You're telling me there is no Dem who hasn't made a similar point to the one Obama attributes to Reagan, but who wasn't a front man for worthless, country-destroying termites.

i am not understanding this "he doesn't agree with it" argument.

You have two choices. You can take an honest look at the party and ask why we keep losing elections that we should be winning, which is all that Obama is doing here.
Or you can have a defensive, knee jerk reaction like a right wing talk radio fan and keep making the same mistakes over and over again. I know which way I'm going.

with fearmongering and pre-emptive blaming isn't exactly "hopeful," if you know what I mean. It's really more of the same.

I support Obama because I'm tired of a Democratic Party that doesn't stand for anything and so are a lot of other people. He's right.

Count me out.

the 35% Democratic base. Good luck winning elections that way.

If we stand for something different than Ronald Reagan, we shouldn't wave him around. It's that simple.

Reagan won in a landslide. Wouldn't you like Democrats to win in a landslide election too? Maybe we should give some thought as to why and how Reagan won so much public support. Maybe if we do that we can start winning elections again, but with a progressive agenda like the one Obama is proposing.

But if you're happy holding your hands over your ears and chanting "Reagan bad! Reagan bad! Reagan bad!" without thinking about the point Obama is actually making, go right ahead.

I may disagree with what Obama said, but it isn't personal.

My guy doesn't wave Zombie Reagan around, he doesn't use Republican talking points like "tax relief" and he stood up for people like us against the Republican slime machine when he refused to fire his feminist , atheist campaign bloggers on Bill Donohue's say-so. Obama has made it clear that he views evangelical votes as more valuable than gay votes.

He co-sponsored adding sexual orientation to the Illinois Human Rights code and has marched in the Chicago Pride parade. I know a lot of people are easily impressed by Edwards' slick stump speech but I want a candidate whose actions match their words.

And his record backs that to the hilt.

When he was a trial lawyer, his words and actions said he was speaking for the victims of corporate greed

When he was a senator, his words and actions said that he was speaking for his conservative constituents in North Carolina.

Now as a candidate, he intends to speak for all of us, and the actions he's taken since he left the senate (walking picket lines, advocating and studying solutions to poverty, speaking out against the bush administration and lay down and die democrats) back that up.

Some people are willing to abandon their values to win and maintain a Senate seat and others are not. Tell me this, if the American people elect a Republican Congress in '10, in a repeat of the '94 loss after Clinton was elected, will Edwards go back to representing conservative values again? Will he change himself completely again and do what's politically expedient like he did as Senator?
I see a lot of Bill Clinton in Edwards since Clinton ran as a progressive populist too and gave us something very different when the going got rough.

When Edwards enacts his progressive populist platform, by standing for that, the American people will reward the Democratic party. The fear you are selling applies as easily to Obama. What if Obama loses his majorities, what will he do? Will he reach out to the new Republican majorities, will he triangulate, just like Bill Clinton? See how easy that works?

Obama has been consistent. He started knocking on doors in the housing projects of Chicago as a community organizer in his 20's and has built a solid progressive record throughout his entire career. Obama is consistent about who he is, unlike Clinton and Edwards.
There's reason to have doubts about how Edwards will act because he EARNED that doubt by joining the DLC and voting as a moderate in the Senate. So, no the comparison is not the same for both candidates.

in a blood red state, now that would have been impressive. If America starts voting like a red state, how will Obama react? Who knows! The same scenario still applies. Edwards, on the other hand, was a trial lawyer, not a popular group with conservatives, and yet he still managed to win by standing up for those who had nowhere else to go. When he got to the senate, he couldn't pick and choose his clients anymore, because his client was the whole state. This time, his client will be all America, and America is ready for the progressive government John Edwards offers.

I'm talking about what actually happened in the real world. At the end of the day only one of the three top candidates has a liberal platform AND a liberal record to match.

You offered scary speculation, and I showed you how your candidate wasn't immune to the same thing. Moreover, Barack Obama's platform is more conservative, and Edwards' is the most liberal. Obama supports nuclear power and the so-called clean coal (without any specific mention of carbon capture and sequestration). His healthcare plan doesn't include the mandates health care experts say are necessary to cover everyone. His plan for ending the Iraq war only involves one to two brigades a month (just like Hillary, and unlike Edwards who would bring 40-50k troops out immediately).

So you see, being a Chicago organizer is not more liberal than a North Carolian trial lawyer, and differences in voting records stem from where they lived, not who they are, and the platform comparison favors Edwards as more progressive than Obama.

Edwards won the mine workers endorsement by promising $1 billion a year in corporate subsidies to the coal industry for "clean" coal research. That's far more than the amount Obama proposed for coal to liquid fuel research that he got hammered over. Obama has an excellent energy platform and a long history of supporting the environment.

The bill Obama proposed in the Senate would have troops out of Iraq my March of '08. I don't see a huge difference there. And frankly, I don't think its necessarily more liberal to force someone into the ridiculous system of private health insurance. Single payer is the way to go but Edwards isn't backing that either.
There are differences in details between their platforms but conservative is never a word that describes Obama's policies.

carbon capture and sequestration. That's how you make coal more environmentally friendly, but Edwards much prefers the clean alternatives of solar, wind, and biomass. I was delighted when Edwards advocated for a moratorium on new coal plants at the debate. Obama's platform just says he'll examine a wide range of options on coal while not committing to anything specific.

On Iraq, 1-2 brigades a month just isn't fast enough for me, because after almost five years, I want the troops out yesterday. I wish Russ Feingold had run, because he is who I was supporting initially for being among the first to call for withdrawal and get national attention.

You and I both know that John Edwards offers a public option in his plan. If you are going to argue against it, at least be clear about what it is you are against. Moreover, As the public option out competes heavily regulated private insurers, the system will evolve into single payer.

I said Obama's platform was more conservative than Edwards'. I would call it about center-left, somewhere near Hillary. That's more conservative than Edwards' solidly progressive platform.

Carbon capture is not the answer over renewable energies and Edwards' $1 billion per year giveaway to the polluting industries makes me question his anti-corporate rhetoric. Obama focuses less on empty promises about clean coal, which makes his energy platform better.
I still haven't seen you post anything supporting your claim that Obama is more to the center than Edwards on any issue. Obama understands that being forced to pay for monthly health insurance bills isn't necessarily what some people on the economic margins want when they can't pay rent.

You think Edwards would make people buy insurance without giving the non-wealthy help? Clearly not. That's more progressive than undermining health care reform by giving away the issue of mandates before you've even gotten to that negotiating table Obama likes so much.

You think Obama's environmental platform is better? The League of Conservation Voters disagrees. They endorsed John Edwards, calling his global warming plan "the most comprehensive of any candidate to date." As far as coal goes, the plants we have now won't be shut down for decades. What we need is to not build any new ones, and retrofit the ones we have with capture and sequestration technology. That's what the money is for. Obama, meanwhile, supports nuclear power.
http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/energy/

This is how Obama is more conservative: giving away mandates to the healthcare industry before he's even president, looking for clean coal without mentioning carbon sequestration and capture (and supporting nuclear power), and not bringing the troops home faster. On those three issues, arguably the three biggest issues before the economy tanked, Edwards has a more progressive platform than Obama.

on edit: also, Edwards doesn't use GOP talking points like "tax relief", and Edwards has rejected the idea of a "war on terror" as the wrong way to think about terrorism. Obama hasn't, as far as I know. Nor did John Edwards attack Paul Krugman, one of the most visible and respected progressive pundits in the country, as Obama did when Krugman pointed out that Obama's plan wouldn't cover everyone.

throughout his entire career. That isn't John Edwards.

Obama is praising the past in the form of Ronnie Reagan. Edwards is pleading for the future of the middle
class and the voiceless--those forgotten by the 'haves and have mores' of the Reagan/Bush era.

We can demand better candidates and support them. Candidates who don't hire an "ex-gay" clown to headline their campaign events. Candidates who don't pine for those halcyon Reagan years. Candidates who don't pander to the worst elements of our society for votes.

I see what Obama's doing here. He's not talking to us....he's talking to all those Reagan Democrats, assuring them that he shares their slavish idolatry of Saint Ronnie and that, despite his skin color, he'll govern like the Gipper did. Blech.

Just because I bash a so-called "progressive" candidate who waxes eloquent about some of the darkest days in our nation's history does not mean I don't want Democrats to win. I want REAL Democrats to win.

Remember what Dean said about Democrats getting backbone and standing for something again? That's exactly what Obama is saying. He's pointing to Reagan and saying, look our party can win elections in a landslide too like Reagan did if we drop the half hearted DLC approach and inspire people again.

Obama has the most progressive record of the three top candidates. I'm glad to support the most liberal of the three.

He is nowhere near the most liberal of the three--and that's not just my opinion. Look anywhere and you will find Edwards being criticized or lauded as offering the most progressive platform AND setting the domestic agenda.

Please, do some homework.

So I know what Obama was saying much better than someone who reads a hack job article that very selectively quotes things out of context.

Do some homework about Edwards voting record. Anyone can say anything on the campaign trail but what did he really do when he was in office?
I don't want someone who just figured out he was a liberal right before he ran for President the second time. I like what Edwards has to say but some of us aren't so easily impressed by a slick stump speech. Obama has been a progressive for his entire career and has the record to prove it. Edwards doesn't.

well, isn't that why everyone seems to be so ga-ga for Obama?

I don't know... maybe he's just pandering, hoping that he turns on more reagan dems than he turns off liberal dems.

That's because their agenda appeals to the simplest and meanest in people and all of their ideas are terrible.

Instead, the party has shied away from talking about its core values. We've talked about half hearted measures and what the Republicans are doing that we oppose. We haven't told voters what we really stand for in a long time. That's the damage the Clinton's have done to the party and I'm damn glad Obama will finally take us off that path.

I know plenty of "good" people who voted for Reagan. He appealed to them... Obama is just saying we need to take our ideas and appeal to Americans to make meaningful change. That appeal is part of his agenda... which is improved healthcare, withdrawing from Iraq, etc. Using this as an endorcement of reagan and the content of his ideas... is a hasty generalization.

He's giving them all a rough ride!

or just what he stands for.

He wants to get Republican votes.

it's saddening. I was starting to warm up towards Obama despite the McClurkin debacle, and then I watch this interview, and recall his other comments about the Baby Boomers, and other messups in the past few months. They'll (MSM) crucify him, politically speaking, in the GE if he screws up repeatedly, because they're already planning their "Can America vote for a black man?" junta, if you will, you know it, I know it - so he has to be an amazing candidate because he's going to get horribly unfair treatment if he becomes our nominee.

John is amazing in interviews, comes across so genuinenly, and seems to understand what he's talking about on every issue. He really is amazing people when they see him in debates, he keeps winning all the post debate live polls and seems to deserve more attention (cough cough) than he's getting, because it's not like he's at 5% in the polls! I just don't know WHY they don't give him a fair amount of time. :sarcasm:

I'm hoping we all talk or call union groups, or write them emails tonight, and fellow democrats/independents and ask them to donate to John tomorrow.

especially considering Reagan sucked? And the GOP has fought minimum wage increases the DEMS have pushed for for over 15 years, and they've fought against GLBT rights that DEMS try to push through, and health care, and well, a whole other bunch of issues - so I can't see how he could talk so positively about them - it sure drives me away from him. If I was in charge of Hillary or John's campaign I'd run commercials touting what the GOP has 'fought' for the past 15 years and then play Barack saying this stuff, and touting Reagan... blech. He made flag-waving popular - that's about how I remember Reagan's positives, otherwise he crippled the poor working class and threw tons of families into poverty, kicked thousands off federal Soc. Sec. disability, de-regulated industry, and spent the US into oblivion for his star wars plan, and MX missile spending.

But that is what a lot of people like about him. Remember that not everyone is as partisan as the posters at DU. And remember that the way things are done in Washington, you can't accomplish anything without bipartisanship (60 votes in the Senate.) We haven't had it lately so instead we have gridlock, and the American people don't like it.

I know that this message may not be too popular at DU, but it must be popular with some people or Obama wouldn't be doing so well. He was very brave to invoke Reagan and it was very risky. Only time will tell how this all works out.

IMO the 80's were some dark years because of Reagan. One of the low points was when he busted the Air Traffic Controllers Union.

Like I said, only time will tell if Obama made a smart comment or not. Also, look for him to backtrack on those comments.

Who IS this guy?
And why would ANY DEMOCRAT vote for him!?

take good ideas from all. This country is in serious trouble if
we are so freaking divided. Obama is the only democrat talking
BI-PARTISANSHIP, just what this country needs to address problems.

We don't need a Democratic Neo-Con in the White House/

Obama's stock just plummeted with me. I would take him over HRC -- because at least he is being honest about his positions, but if its not Edwards, no donations and no volunteer time.

Damn. This is disheartening in a HUGE way.

This strikes of pandering...trying to peel off indies and repukes...That's all well and good in a general election...and as much as I like Obama, he needs stronger support among Dems in forthcoming primaries to win this nomination.

So praising Reagan and republicans will not do him any favors for now.

Who the fuck is the Obama character?

what an utter lack of understanding of what has happened in and to America since raygun took power

either Obama really believes what he is saying or he is ignorant of history. Either way...I see it as a major problem.

-P

I guess the Apollo project is not an "idea" at all. Race-baiting, misogyny and gay-baiting with dogwhistle politics are "ideas". Who knew?

are in for a rude awakening. I welcome every time one of their zombies comes into a clear and lucid thread and starts spouting "talking points".

You expose your political and historical naivete beyond a reasonable doubt!

And that's the real trouble with Obama's comments on Reagan.

That he and so many others -- in or out of the DLC, but all part of the DC/Euphemedia Analstocracy -- have bought into so much of the Fractured (Neo)Fascist Fairy Tale that (non-sociopathic) Republicans literally need to sleep through the night -- and that "Ofishyl Washington" accepts in lieu of reality (and as an easy alternative to nasty chores like thinking and journalism and responsibility).

The Grand Old Party may once have had ideas, but I've never seen one (and I'm old enough to have voted against Reagan twice).

All they've had in my lifetime has been orchestrated whining -- shielded by increasing amounts of divisive/accusatory rhetoric (now morphing into political abuse of the law), solely-self-interested (ideologic/corporate) funding (often looted from the treasury), cutting edge "political stagecraft" (now centralized at Fauxnewz), and outright deception/criminality (including election theft).

Notions like "big government is the problem" and "family values is the answer (to something)" are complaints, not ideas. It's like the Emperor saying to Mozart that the piece has "too many notes." Try to take their "ideas" anywhere beyond that and you get some version of the Fedex ad where the guy who can't find China reflexively tears the map down off the wall.

Disclaimer: This is not to say that Clinton(s) is/are any less deluded or that Edwards is much less (though he sounds a bit less lately). In fact, Hillary's inclusion of "corporations that employ" among her list of "real Americans" that legitimately lobby their gov't revealed a similarly troubling attitude. They're all still (sadly) raging impeachophobes.

===

Yet his ideas are basicaly the same (his campaign platform is nearly identical with a slight shift right of Hillary).

He has audacity alright.

From the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Democratic Party has not been a party of ideas, but of strategies, like triangulation and making the party friendly to corporate interests. As the Greatest Page post on Obama's comments on Reagan from Kos argue, the result was the atrophy of the Democratic Party.

A Hillary presidence would of course be a return to a braid dead, comatose, terminal party, which has been revived by the good Dr. Dean and candidates Obama, Edwards and Kucinich.

The Republican Party has been the party of ideas -- all bad ideas, but ideas. As Krugman has argued over and over, that's why they have been winning elections.

I find it amusing that candidate partisans here jump on Obama because he is providing incisive analysis of what we need to do both to win and to transform the political landscape.

Why not just put your fingers in your ears and say "nya nya nya I can't hear you"? You'd be much more convincing.

The idea that women should not have the right to choose.
The idea that a marriage is between one man and one woman.
The idea that war is the answer to Iraq's problems.
The idea that democracy can be imposed by force.
The idea that welfare is bad.
The idea that education should consist solely of test-preparation.
The idea that the middle class should be pushed into poverty.

Ideas? Yeah, they got them!

nt

should just be jailed, or thrown in the streets, or sent to the ER if they don't have insurance.

But I would still be right.

Obama is right. Reagan inspired a nation and changed the course of our nation. We need to do that but in a different direction.

Also, the Repubs have been the party with ideas for 10-15 years. What do you call PNAC and banning gay marriage at the Federal and state level. Tell me what the Dem parties radical ideas haev been for 10-15 years. Just because we had many ideas that would have fixed or prevented the mess we have found ourselves in does not mean that we had a radical idea of change. Obama is totally right and it doesn't mean that he is endorsing their ideas.

It is dishonest to say that he is. And by the way, we all have been wondering where the party went long before Obama. he is talking about giving it back.