Andrew Sullivan says that Barack Obama, if reelected, will become the left’s Ronald Reagan. He’s right about that. It should be obvious. The only Democratic president to be reelected since Franklin Delano Roosevelt died is Bill Clinton, and he was promptly impeached. Even though Bill Clinton is now wildly popular, and not just among Democrats, he was tarnished by his tawdry affair with a White House intern. Among Democrats, he is revered for his communication skills but not for his policies. His greatest legislative successes were not bills that Democrats could wholeheartedly support, and some of them were downright terrible. Democrats hated NAFTA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the Defense of Marriage Act, and the Iraq Liberation Act, and the deregulation of the banks. Welfare reform was a worthy issue, but the actual bill that Clinton signed was so bad that he had to promise to fix it at the same moment he signed it. He never did.
These are the reasons that Bill Clinton will never be the left’s Ronald Reagan. But, if Barack Obama is reelected, he will be the left’s Ronald Reagan for a whole host of reasons. Most obviously, he will have created a new winning majority, just as Reagan did by completing Nixon’s Southern Strategy. As a multiracial man with exotic roots, he will be an indelible symbol of the rainbow governing majority that emerges in the early part of this century. And he will not leave a legacy of poor compromises that immediately become ripe for repeal. The project of the left will be to strengthen his reforms, not repeal or water them down. We will attempt to build on ObamaCare and the Wall Street Reforms rather than working to fix NAFTA or repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DOMA or re-regulate the financial services sector.
Like Clinton, Obama will be immensely popular on the left for the simple reason that he won, twice, but he will be much more likely to serve as the model for future candidates than Clinton. People will definitely be naming roads and schools, and perhaps even airports after Obama, just as they have done with Reagan.
Reading Sullivan’s column, it is interesting to see that he believes Reagan’s positive legacy was mostly accomplished during his second term. I’d disagree with that. For me, the Iran-Contra affair and Reagan’s descent into dementia in 1987-88 made Reagan’s second term a failure. His tax and immigration reforms were lasting legacies, but neither are why he is revered on the right. Likewise, Obama is likely to be revered on the left not for any deal he makes on the budget next year, but for winning with a new coalition and for passing health care reform, saving the auto industry, stabilizing the economy, and making investments in new energy.
And, although they will remain very controversial on the left, his foreign policies and national security stances will be revered because he was the Democrat who finally won over the trust of the American people and made them stop looking to the right for protection.
Provided that Obama doesn’t let the American people down in a second term like Nixon did, and like Clinton did, he will immediately join the upper echelon of American presidents. And, I’d argue that, on the left, he will sit just below FDR in the pantheon of heroes.
Like Reagan, whether he deserves it or not, this is what will happen.
