Many people have recently compared Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan. It is a good comparison. Both are great orators. Ronald Reagan had a touch for exciting a crowd, as does Barack Obama. “Yes we can” was a brilliant way to fire up a crowd. But the similarities go deeper.
Ronald Reagan was brilliant at what I call the “Look at the Birdie” game. Reagan could distract the American People with his great speeches, so they didn’t really pay attention to how the sausage was made. Barack Obama is just as good at that. His September ’09 Health Care Speech was a perfect example of that. He presented a Health Care plan that was almost completely what everyone agreed upon. And this gave him the ability to answer the critics by saying “It’s not in my Health Care Plan” This focused everyone on his plan, ignoring the fact that his plan wasn’t what was going through Congress. What he spoke about in September had absolutely nothing to do with the Health Care Bills in the House and Senate.
Ronald Reagan had some thugs in his Administration. Sometimes, you just need thugs to get things done. Barack Obama has learned that well. I think if you held up a list of the criminals in each administration, they would be similar lengths. Make no mistake; both men know how to surround themselves with people who get things done.
Now, what makes Obama the Anti-Reagan? How they apply these skills. Reagan attempted to build up America. He took a country beaten down by the late ‘70s and gave them hope. He distracted America from the ugliness of rebuilding the economy, unemployment, and the threat of the Cold War by generating a nationalistic movement. He inspired patriotic feelings and pride in this country. Things might not have been great, but he made people feel as if it was. Barack Obama uses the same tools in the opposite manner. Barack Obama emphasizes what is wrong with America. He wants to tear down the country to rebuild it in his image.
During Ronald Reagan’s campaign, he said, “A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.”
During Barack Obama’s campaign, he said, “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, a lot like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
On speaking of race in this country, Barack Obama said, “This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation — the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
On speaking of race in this country, Ronald Reagan said, “Abraham Lincoln freed the black man. In many ways, Dr. King freed the white man. How did he accomplish this tremendous feat? Where others — white and black — preached hatred, he taught the principles of love and nonviolence. We can be so thankful that Dr. King raised his mighty eloquence for love and hope rather than for hostility and bitterness. He took the tension he found in our nation, a tension of injustice, and channeled it for the good of America and all her people.”
Finally, let’s look at quotes by both on socialized medicine. Barack Obama has said, “Well, I think it should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can’t pay their medical bills–for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they’re saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.”
Reagan on health care, “The doctor begins to lose freedom. . . . First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then doctors aren’t equally divided geographically. So a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him, you can’t live in that town. They already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it’s only a short step to dictating where he will go. . . . All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it’s a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won’t decide, when he’s in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.”
They say Barack Obama speaks of hope. Barack Obama speaks of a desire to turn this country into something it is not, and something most Americans do not want it to be. Ronald Reagan spoke of hope for our nation to celebrate the good. Barack Obama speaks of hope to overcome what he sees as bad. It may not seem like a big difference, until you look at the meaning behind it.
The Democratic Party is pulling out all the stops to make sure that the Senate Seat held by Ted Kennedy remains in the hands of the Democratic Machine. Republican Scott Brown has closed within 2 points of the liberal Democrat who is running against him. This is our chance to change the balance in the Senate to prevent the Democrats from steamrolling massive government spending through Congress.
