Dean's World

Stephen Hayes, a writer for the conservative The Weekly Standard, has a must-read article that compares Barak Obama quite favorably to Ronald Reagan.

If you're inclined to believe in conspiracies I suppose you could suggest this is an attempt to alienate Obama from his most fervent supporters on the left, but I somehow doubt many of them are regularly reading the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. And it seems a pretty insightful analysis to me, suggesting that Obama is much more versed on the issues than his opponents give him credit for and that his real gift is in how well he packages ideas while causing his opponents to misunderestimate him.

*Update*: By coincidence(?), Hayes has a piece in The Weekly Standard itself comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter. But what's striking about it is that it mostly strikes the same chords: that a message of hope and optimism that was criticized for being short on substance is what allowed Carter to win in 1976.

I've been thinking the same thing. You know, for most of my lifetime it's seemed that the guy most likely to win a Presidential election is the guy who smiled the most and had the most positive demeanor. If that rule generally holds true, Senator McCain is toast if he's running against Obama and doesn't change his style.

There's a dark undercurrent implicit in Barack Obama's rhetoric, and it may cause him problems in the general election. Every time he talks about "hope" and "change," there's the unspoken assumption America is an awful place that badly needs to be fixed. His wife was just a little more explicit when she talked about being proud of America "for the first time" as she watched her husband run (can anyone imagine Nancy Reagan ever mouthing such narcissistic, unpatriotic nonsense?).

That may play well to unhappy Dems in the primary, especially the guilty rich who support him most strongly, but the general election is a different story. People are going to question those assumed flaws and Barack's solutions to them.

The difference between Obama and Reagan is that Reagan said America was great, a "shining city on a hill," and could be greater yet, while Obama implies America is awful — but if you vote for him, there's hope we can change it!

"More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country, to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values . . . For those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!"

sheesh. that guy's rhetoric is so vacuous and empty. And he doesn't even have any foreign policy experience at all. Plus, what's with the whole pessimism about America thing? Make America great again? So America isn't great now, huh Mr Hope and Change?