A Reagan of the left? No chance

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has speculated on what kind of president Barack Obama would make. “Is Barack Obama going to be a Ronald Reagan of the left, a president who fundamentally changes the country’s direction?” he asks. “Or will he be just another Bill Clinton?”

Polls, say Krugman, indicate that Americans are “very unsatisfied” with the country’s current direction. This means that that “it’s very much Mr. Obama’s election to lose”. If he were to get into office however, how much change would he deliver?

Reagan delivered massive change to the country: “He ran as an unabashed conservative, with a clear ideological agenda… he had enormous success in getting that agenda implemented. America at the end of the Reagan years was not the same country it was when he took office.”

Bill Clinton ran on a platform for change in 1992 and like Obama Clinton promoted himself as a politician who could rise above party lines. Ultimately though, claims Kruger, Clinton was a president who followed Reagan’s lead. Obama looks most likely to do the same – to follow Clinton’s lead.

Not only does “Obama’s economic plan looks remarkably like the Clinton 1992 plan”, there are other parallels. “During his speech accepting the nomination, Clinton led the audience in a chant of ‘We can do it!’ Remind you of anything?”

Compared to when he wrapped up the nomination Obama is looking a lot more like a centrist than a reformer. He has given his support to a wire-tapping bill that “among other things, grants immunity to telecom companies for any illegal acts they may have undertaken at the Bush administration’s behest”. Does this sound like the Reagan of the left?

“Just to be clear, we could do a lot worse than a re-run of the Clinton years. But Mr. Obama’s most fervent supporters expect much more.”

FIRST POSTED JUNE 30, 2008