This is something I've been thinking of for a while now, but, prompted by Obama's Reagan comments, thought I should post. Bear with me, it's been a while since I've posted a candidate diary.
The biggest split in the Democratic Primary right now is not one of gender or race, but a generational split. Voters under the age of thirty are among the strongest supporters of Barack Obama. Older voters who fondly remember the Bill Clinton years are among the strongest supporters of Hillary Clinton.
The gap isn't simply age, though. This is about a generational outlook. The narrative that has driven Barack Obama's campaign: Clinton is the past, we are the future. Many in this party want to go back and refight the wars of the past, but the next generation of Democratic leaders believes we cannot effect change that way.
The blogosphere jumped on the comments that Barack Obama made regarding Ronald Reagan.
I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.
History is written by the winners. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, it's true. There's some among the netroots right now who want to paint Reagan as someone who painted an overt ideological message. But the reason why Reagan won, the reason why he was able to take this country in a radically different (and detrimental) direction was because he cloaked his conservative message in the message of change, hope, and optimism. Remember "It's morning in America?" There were a lot of Reagan Democrats. He was able to change things because he put together a coalition that enacted his agenda. Barack Obama can do for progressives what Ronald Reagan did for conservatives.
Maybe it is a generational thing. Maybe someone who was only two weeks old when Ronald Reagan won reelection in one of the biggest landslide victories in history can't possibly understand what Ronald Reagan did to this country. But I know that we can't possibly enact the change we need by refighting the wars of the past. Especially the ones we lost. It's 2008, not 1984. And America needs a President who can move forward.