The Decade of Obama?
January 1, 2010 - by
The Teens may come to be Barack Obama’s decade the way the Eighties were Ronald Reagan’s decade.
Ideology aside, the two Presidents have much in common.
Both were outsiders who ran campaigns that upset conventional wisdom.
Both had lives before politics – Reagan as an actor and union leader, Obama as a community organizer and law professor. And both were ridiculed for those pursuits.
Both made themselves into good writers – and great public speakers.
Both came to the White House when Americans desperately wanted change.
Reagan’s sunny optimism was a welcome relief from the gloom, malaise and economic stagnation of the Seventies.
The question is whether Obama’s laid-back style will wear as well as a contrast to the last decade’s hyper-partisanship, terror of terrorism and near-economic catastrophe.
If it does, this will be his decade.
The Decade of Obama?
January 1, 2010/
The Teens may come to be Barack Obama’s decade the way the Eighties were Ronald Reagan’s decade.
Ideology aside, the two Presidents have much in common.
Both were outsiders who ran campaigns that upset conventional wisdom.
Both had lives before politics – Reagan as an actor and union leader, Obama as a community organizer and law professor. And both were ridiculed for those pursuits.
Both made themselves into good writers – and great public speakers.
Both came to the White House when Americans desperately wanted change.
Reagan’s sunny optimism was a welcome relief from the gloom, malaise and economic stagnation of the Seventies.
The question is whether Obama’s laid-back style will wear as well as a contrast to the last decade’s hyper-partisanship, terror of terrorism and near-economic catastrophe.
If it does, this will be his decade.