<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/59124558@N06/7749264614/” title=”John Anderson buttons2_Page_1 by dengre.bj, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8433/7749264614_c5693dd607.jpg” width=”500″ height=”247″ alt=”John Anderson buttons2_Page_1″></a>
Look, I know that Ronald Reagan has been converted into a mythical American figure like John Henry, Paul Bunyan and Mike Fink. And like these larger than life folk heroes, I get that the myth must always trump the real facts and details of their story. I’ve heard the Wingnut message that reality cannot be allowed to cast a shadow on their Holy St. Ronnie fantasies. I understand that in their America we must pretend that Ronald Reagan spat liberty, shat freedom and crushed the USSR with just a quip and a wave of his hand. And I understand that the price to buy into this myth is that we must erased history from our memories.
It is a price I’ve never been able to pay. There are actual events that happen and they cannot be ignored no matter how much the cult of St. Ronnie seeks to erase truth.
A case in point is the Wingnut/Romney talking point that the 2012 election is just like 1980.
They are turning to the Reagan myth in an effort to explain how Mitt will win despite being unlikable and consistently down in the polls. The distinguished turtle from Kentucky started beating this drum over a year ago:
“I’m reminded of what the Carter White House thought in ’79 and ’80: ‘If they just nominate Reagan. He’s too old, he’s too extreme. We’ll be just fine.’ And the common view at that point was that it was a pretty bad field.” Shifting to the present, he added: “I think one of these candidates is going to get on a roll, and they’re going to start winning, and they’re going to look a lot better.”
And ever since then, the notion that 2012 will be like 1980 is regularly brought up in Wingnutopia as an explanation of how the race will play out in the fall. Here it is in a recent Byron York word salad:
Romney aides believe strongly that this race will play out like the 1980 campaign, in which President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan for much of the race until Reagan broke through just before the election.
The meme is being hyped by political commentators with no fresh ideas and no memories. All of it spin to explain how Mitt can still win by wrapping himself in the magical cloak of St. Ronnie. It is such a growing Republican meme this year that Greg Sargent has devoted a couple of posts to explain how 2012 is nothing like 1980. He reported comments from Ed Rollins on why the years are different:
Reason one: Obama is a better and more likable politician than Jimmy Carter was, and Romney has not proven himself to be Ronald Reagan. [snip]
Reason two: The electorate is far more polarized now. [snip]
Reason three: Rollins notes that both campaigns — unlike in 1980 — will have all the resources they need.
The third reason was interesting (as I did not remember that Reagan had more resources than Carter), but there is a fourth reason–a reason that has been unmentioned. That reason’s name is John B. Anderson.
Through the fog of the Reagan myth it is hard to remember that there was a third party spoiler in the race who changed the narrative/structure of the campaign and pulled votes away from Jimmy Carter. In the Reagan myth John Anderson has been erased, but without him Reagan’s victory would have been harder to pull off.
Anderson was a Liberal Republican. His big idea for the campaign was a 50 cents a gallon gas tax to offset cuts to Social Security taxes. He ran in the Republican Primary. When it was clear he would not win, some GOP operatives convinced him that he should run as an Independent and so he did.
Carter and Democrats saw Anderson as a stalking horse for Reagan–which he was knowingly or unknowingly (just like Nader was a stalking horse for Bush in 2000). Carter refused to be in a debate with Anderson and Reagan refused to be in a debate unless Anderson was there. Three Presidential debates were schedule in 1980 along with one VP debate. These were the days before the Presidential Debate Commission ran the show. Back in 1980 it was the League of Women Voters. Late in the summer of 1980 they set Anderson’s polling number (15%) as the new threshold to be included in the Presidential debates. They invited him to attend a September 21 debate in Baltimore. Carter refused to attend. The LoWV decide to hold the debate with just Anderson and Reagan.
The other planned debates were cancelled. By late October there was an indication that momentum in the race was shifting to Carter for the first time when a small number of polls showed him beating Reagan. Team Ronnie decided to accept a debate with just Carter if it was held a week before Election Day. The debate was held and Reagan won it and then he won the election.
But without John Anderson pulling votes away from Carter, it is possible that Reagan would not have won enough states to break 270 Electoral Votes. He had 254 EV regardless of the Anderson effect and in every other State he won, the votes Anderson pulled from Carter were more than the difference between Carter and Reagan.
It is heresy to mention this inconvenient fact, but what the hell: without John Anderson running in 1980 Carter may have been re-elected. At the very least it would have been a hell of a lot closer.
And yet the myth of Reagan endures and we are treated to this lame Team Romney inspired hype that 2012 is just like 1980. Obama is Carter and Romney is Reagan and the economy will insure that blah, blah, blah… It is all bullshit. Even the myth that Reagan came from behind in the last few weeks of the campaign turns out to be bullshit. At this point in 1980 Reagan was leading Carter in the polls–a lead he never really lost. A big factor in Reagan maintaining that lead was John Anderson.
By August in 1980 John Anderson had reshaped the Election. His inclusion in the debates blew up that process. It would have been different if Carter and Reagan had met–one on one–for three debates and Mondale and Bush had met for one. Perhaps Reagan would have won, but he would have had to do it without a stalking horse and a stacked deck dealing him aces under the table. Without those advantages I don’t think Reagan would have been able to pull it off. I think Carter would have closed the gap.
So if 2012 is just like 1980 for Team Romney, then who is this year’s John Anderson? Who is the third party candidate that has already won an invitation to debate President Obama and Romney in the fall? Who is the third party candidate that President Obama will not join on a debate stage and Romney MUST have on that stage before he’ll attend? Without a third candidate changing the dynamics of the Election, 2012 is nothing like 1980.
And Reagan led Carter throughout 1980 in the polls. How is that like Romney’s performance this year?
Yes, there are some economic factors that make 1980 somewhat like 2012, but then again, you can find economic factors to make 2012 somewhat like any other past election year. The comparison is bullshit. The only way you can claim that 1980 is like 2012 is to erase John Anderson from history.
Sure there are some similarities between Romney and Reagan. For examples, both were grifters willing to do anything to win and both used racist dog whistles to sell their campaigns to fearful/angry white folks. But Reagan played it as a lovable conman, while Mitt only knows how to be a dick.
Cheers
Little Boots
they’re desperate.
this is marvelous in our eyes.
Little Boots
the John Anderson really is a forgotten factor, but in so many ways, they’re just nuts, and doomed.
Little Boots
Romney is almost insanely unlikable, and Reagan never was. And Reagan was certainly never hated by his own base, but Romney absolutely is.
Patricia Kayden
Keep dreaming, Repubs. Keep dreaming right up to the election. Your candidate is a repulsive robot. I don’t know how much money you’re going to have to throw away in ads to get anyone to vote for him, except those with Obama Derangement Syndrome.
MikeJ
If planes crash in the Iranian desert during a hostage rescue mission Obama might lose this.
Cacti
If Romney gets the same percentage of the white vote as Reagan in 1980, he’ll lose in a landslide.
That’s why the Repubes are so terrified.
beltane
Reagan was slick and beloved by his base. Romney is stiff, awkward and beloved by no one. It would seem the only thing our pundits excel at is the creation of stupid analogies. It’s bad enough that they’re hacks, why do they also have to be such ignorant hacks.
Little Boots
Dennis, who do you think will control the House and Senate next year? seriously just wondering.
lacp
Peculiar Republican fever dreams. 1980 and 2012 aren’t at all alike; shoot, a lot of Republicans liked Reagan. Nobody likes Willard.
Little Boots
Romney’s fucked. but will that be enough? I’m not so sure.
Cacti
@beltane:
Reagan was also the son of a shoe salesman from Tampico, Illinois, as opposed to an auto executive from Bloomfield Hills.
He knew how to be “jes folks” in a way that Romney never will.
jrg
Run, Palin, Run! Murica needs you!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
My favorite zombie-meme is “Reagan Democrats!”, especially now that “Clinton Democrats”– aging white mostly males who can’t quite bring themselves to vote for Obama because um… cultural differences and connection, is being used by some (Tweety and his guests last night) interchangeably with RDs. I can vouch from my own family that there are a few honest-to-god “Reagan Democrats” (cast their first vote for Truman or Kennedy, stuck with Johnson, probably wavered with Humphrey and/or McGovern) still with us, and still voting, and I know more than a few people of my own generation (I’m 44) who will be voting for Romney, against their own economic interests, because of um… cultural differences, but none of them have ever voted for a Democrat in their lives. My “Reagan Democrat” aunts and uncles, and a few of my cousins, hated Clinton, some more than they hate Obama. In fact, one of those RD uncles voted for Obama.
El Cid
Forgetting all the other relevant context, anyone trying to suggest that Mitt possesses even a tiny, vacuole sized portion of Reagan’s occasionally appealing personality and his ability to deliver lines well — and for that matter, discuss policy — is sorely deluded.
There’s just really, really something wrong with Mitt Romney. Or a whole pile of things, however you want to say it.
JoyceH
There’s a third party spoiler this time around too – Virgil Goode is running on the Constitution Party ticket. I don’t think he’ll get many votes anywhere but Virginia, but he’s polling about 9 percent here, and those are votes taken from Romney.
Little Boots
@El Cid:
exactly. He just doesn’t have … well, anything.
who the hell likes this bitch?
Maude
@beltane:
They don’t care and they are lazy. They don’t talk to people who work for a living. They only talk to their own little ignorant social set.
They get a lot of money to be mediocre.
Just Some Fuckhead
Fuck me, I always thought that was Phil Donahue.
Robert Waldmann
Interestingly I have a very opposite impression of the Anderson effect. I vividly recall that Reagan and Carter were close in the polls back when Anderson had around 20% support and then Reagan pulled ahead as Anderson faded (down to 8% in the actual election). Note the slogan “anyone but Carter.”
Yes Anderson’s policy proposals were very different from Reagans. And we know that late deciding voters decide based on policy proposals. My sense is that there were about 58% for anyone but Carter who split around 50% for Reagan and 8% for Anderson.
Your evidence is that Carter didn’t want Anderson at the debates (Reagan refusing Carter’s terms no matter what they were makes sense — his campaign knew he was ignorant and didn’t know that the undecided viewing public scores debates roughly oppositely from political junkies — I mean Mondale destroyed Reagan). From this we deduce either that Anderson helped Reagan or that Carter was not a political genius. Of course I would never say that Presidnt Carter didn’t know how to campaign but uh come on.
Note the Republican line — that things will shift their way at the end. At the end support for Anderson collapsed (as support for third party candidates usually does) when people realized he had no chance of winning. That’s when Reagan pulled ahead. Your story doesn’t fit that fact.
Tripod
Things change.
The youngest 1980 voter is now fifty. Voter demographics shift. Zombie Reagan would be getting clobbered in California and trailing Obama.
MikeJ
Weren’t we discussing Son of Boss yesterday? Did anybody talk about the new ad while I was at dinner?
Percysowner
I am ashamed to admit that I voted for John Anderson. To absolve myself, I had no idea how bad Reagan would be and I believed that Anderson was a principled candidate. He was in my very naive view someone who was trying to raise money, make gasoline more expensive so we would become less dependent on big oil and a good guy. I still think he was a good guy, unlike Ralph Nader. If I could change one vote, that would be it, although I have read that Anderson really get enough votes to change the election.
The truth is, the Iranian hostage situation and the failure of the rescue mission probably sealed Jimmy Carter’s fate. If I could really change history, I would stop the sandstorm that foiled that attempt. Every single day CBS, NBC and ABC counted how many days our embassy people were being held by the Iranians. Each mention made Jimmy Carter look weaker and weaker. In a final slap in his face, the Iranians refused to release the hostages until Ronald Reagan was President. That should have been a big clue that they thought Reagan would be better for them than Carter, but the nation didn’t see it that way.
I’m sorry Jimmy Carter, you deserved better from me. I do turn my heat down to 55 degrees in the winter and wear sensible sweaters, so you did teach me something.
The Moar You Know
I was there. It was obvious for months before the election that Carter was going to get his ass beat. With or without Anderson. Kennedy had already done a lot of the dirty work during the primary. There’s a truth Dems don’t like to acknowledge. Ted Kennedy made it Reagan’s race to lose.
Reagan tapped into an incredibly huge lurking reservoir of racism, rage, and shame (we’d got our asses beat in Vietnam and wanted to feel good about ourselves again, dammit). I honestly was surprised the election was as close as it was, and was relieved (and also surprised) there was no Enabling Act passed. He could have done so in 1984 with ease, he was that popular.
Little Boots
@Percysowner:
jimmy was over his head, he really was. he had great ideas, but he really sucked as president. too petty.
he was a good guy, but doomed.
actually, that’s why Obama will win. he’s willing, finally, to understand what he’s dealing with and stop dicking around. good for him.
Maude
@Robert Waldmann:
The hostages in Iran played a major role in that election year.
afferent input
Wow. I’ve never heard of Andrson, and I follow politics religiously. Of course, I was two when RayGun made it to the White House, so I suppose that could be forgiven. But Anderson really was thrown down the memory hole.
Little Boots
@afferent input:
like 99% of the history of this country.
Steve
Has anyone outside the Romney campaign seriously compared Romney to Reagan? If I were a Reagan conservative, I wouldn’t know whether to be outraged or tickled pink at the attempted comparison.
amk
Have the wingnutz seen the latest poll from their own cone of bubble, the pox news ?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
Ron Paul. SATSQ
ETA: Adding, sanctimonious firebagging Paulers like Greenwald and his flying monkeys are cordially invited to go fuck themselves.
eemom
@Tripod:
NOT TRUE. I am only 49 and fifty/fifty-seconds.
sb
@The Moar You Know: This.
That’s what I remember most, more than Anderson. Kennedy gave what was thought of as an incredible speech at the convention and was, IIRC, very cool to Carter on the podium.
Anderson was a factor but not the key factor, IMO. Kennedy’s damaging primary run was far more damaging, again IMO.
Anoniminous
Romney’s doomed. He has the personal skills of a pile of rusty razor blades. He has the political skills of Sarah Palin.
The important thing in this election is to make Obama’s coattails as long as possible to keep the Senate and flip the House. Both are possible tho’ I grant flipping the House is the longer shot.
Although the odds are getting better as the weeks go by.
Little Boots
@danah gaz (fka gaz): @amk:
No John Anderson needed.
He’s John Kerry. There might be some drama, but he’s doomed to lose. Nobody likes him. Sorry, Mitt. nobody.
Just Some Fuckhead
Oh dear God of Embarrassment, now I’m remembering all the times I opined wisely about when Phil Donahue ran for president.
NonyNony
Jeebus. Mitt Romney is now Ronald Reagan? The fug?
Ronald Reagan was an amazing campaigner who turned his B-list acting skills into the kind of sincere-looking charm that politicians kill for. The thing that held Reagan back in 1980 was that he was perceived by the mooshy Republican middle as crazy-nuts. So he spent the summer of 1980 tacking to the center to convince the mooshy Republican middle that he wasn’t nearly as crazy-nuts as they’d been led to believe and that he was the one who was going to kick Carter out of office. Once the mooshy Republican middle bought into that (mostly, IIRC, because his debate performances didn’t make him look like a crazy-nutbag) the non-partisans fell in line and turned out to vote for him. He was a winner, Carter was looking like a loser, and non-partisans do not vote for losers.
Mitt Romney has none of that. He has half the charm of a Disney animatronic and not quite half the humanity. The base hates him and the mooshy Republican middle smells the stink of failure on him. The base will turn out to vote for him (barring some major third party dark horse that shows up to let them have a “protest vote” outlet for their anger), but if the mooshy Republican middle don’t start smelling some eau d’victory on the Mittster, they’ll stay home rather than be part of the losing side.
Little Boots
the worst thing about Mitt Romney is that he will make Newt Gingrich propetic: the worst choice for the the Republicans.
Marshall
On that Carter-Reagan debate, I saw it live and thought that Carter had obviously won it. Remember, Reagan couldn’t get through anything unscripted without making mistakes, even in 1980 (it only got worse), and he wasn’t a very clear thinker. I was astounded when the network analysis afterwards gave it to Reagan. I remember that as the first time when I became aware of how badly the press was in the bag for him.
By the way, knowing what we know now, it seems hard to believe that Reagan’s team wasn’t conniving with the Iranians. The whole thing was just a little too neat, and it’s not exactly like these people have proven themselves unwilling to sink to any depths necessary to win elections.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots: To be clear, I’m not saying that Rmoney would win absent Paul
Not that at all.
Please read my comment as nothing more than
1. An observation that Ron Paul is a spoiler candidate and a moron
2. a gleeful shiv in the neck of firebagging ratfucking hippies who don’t know the first thing about voting in their own best interests. (I’m happy that he’ll peel off some of the black helicopter vote, but the fucking dippy pachouli sporting assbags that support that racist fuck need to be curbed. hard.)
mclaren
There are other huge fundamental differences between 2012 and 1980, of course.
[1] Mitt Romney is a creepy sociopath who gives off a horribly bad vibe to everyone who sees him, unlike the genial charming Ronald Reagan.
[2] Inflation isn’t nearing 20% and the economy isn’t just starting to massively stall out — instead, the economy is slowly but steadily recovering from the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, under the leadership of president Obama. 150,000 jobs added per month may be pretty crappy…but if that continues for another 3 years, the U.S. economy is not going to be in such bad shape, and unemployment will slowly but surely drop. All courtesy of Barack Obama, as compared to his ignorant incompetent sociopathic screwup predecessor.
[3] The Republican party has gone batshit crazy and everyone knows it. There are no moderate Republicans in 2012, only crazy and crazier.
[4] In the midst of ongoing grinding high unemployment an tepid economic growth, the Republicans have chosen to run Gordon Gecko as their candidate for the presidency. An actual real live job-outsourcer who got rich shipping American jobs overseas. Wow. Just…wow.
amk
@eemom: Show us your burth certificayte.
angelfoot
@The Moar You Know:
Kennedy had already done a lot of the dirty work during the primary.
Good point.
dead existentialist
I pine for the days when I could vote for a Republican running as an Independent (which I did) because the candidates of the two parties were so fucking dysfunctional. I thought that John Anderson actually believed in the American people. At least that’s what I though 32 years ago.
OTOH, I have usually voted third party out of disgust. This year I’m voting Dem out of pure, unadulterated fear.
Also, too: Little Boots STFU. You’ve ruined enough potentially interesting threads here. (And I don’t care if you’re DougJ acting the fool or not.)
Old Dan and Little Ann
I was 5 in 1980 and never heard of John Anderson until now. So thanks for that. Fuck him. Also, too.
Little Boots
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
oh, I know, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
but romney is such a loser. he really does seem like the walking dead at this point.
can’t wait to see who he picks to pull into the swamp with him.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots: Also, ahem.
I’ve said this early and often (since the GOP primaries opened up)
Romney will win the nomination and lose the general.
I’ve never wavered.
I’ve put money on it (unfortunately, no takers)
Just so we’re crystal.
ETA: we posted at exactly the same time. hehehe =)
karl
@Percysowner: You have nothing to be ashamed of — Anderson was a principled candidate; and yes, with Anderson’s slide Reagan’s lead dramatically increased, showing that his early support was bipartisan. As for the Electoral College breakdown, I never read that Anderson provided a Nader-like difference but I’m willing to give that notion the benefit of the doubt.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to Dennis’s disgust with liberal Anderson voters (like me); heck, I’m still miffed at leftists who sat out 1968 rather than vote for Humphrey because he “waited too long to oppose the war.” How far back do we want to go here?
Spaghetti Lee
@mclaren:
On your fourth point, I’m sure there’s a whole DSM waiting to be written about how the Republicans were deluded enough to nominate a job-outsourcing corporate baron in the middle of an unemployment crisis. Me, I think history will show that it was the finest hour of conservatism’s epistemic closure. These guys, the teabaggers in congress and the sheltered wonks in the op-ed pages and the blogger crowd, they all read Atlas Shrugged and keep telling each other about how great and wonderful corporate America is, and eventually, any evidence that it some people think otherwise just gets forgotten. Of course America wants another MBA president, sez they. Why wouldn’t it? “Everyone knows” that super-rich businessmen are beloved across the country.
I think it’s kind of funny now, I remember rooting for Gingrich and Santorum against all odds because I thought Romney would be best at presenting himself as smooth and civil and on-the-ball (I never doubted that his actual policies would be right-wing nutso) and really give Obama a run for his money. There are a lot of pratfalls that could be revealed, I’ll admit. But the amount of rancid failure that Team Romney has brought on itself in the last, what, 3 weeks? It’s astounding. It’s almost a spectacle. Has there ever been anything like it?
xyzxyzxyz
I worked for the Anderson/Lucey as a 15 year old. I remember election night when Reagan won and all of us at the campaign headquarters looked at each other and thought, “What the fuck have we done?” So, forgive me BJ community for I have sinned.
Caz
Reagan was one of the best presidents we’ve had in recent times, and perhaps ever. Morale in America was very high, our country experienced economic growth at a high level that hadn’t been seen since WWII. He was extremely popular, won in landslides, and stuck to his values and beliefs. He was a great leader, getting both sides to work together on numerous initiatives that helped this nation recover from the Carter disaster. He caused the release of hostages on the day of his inauguration because the hostage takers knew he meant business and didn’t want to mess with him. He was a great speaker, a dynamic personality, and almost single-handedly ended the cold war.
There are no candidates for president since him who have been anywhere near as good as him, including democrats and republicans.
Romney is a very far cry from Reagan, and not even a true conservative like Reagan was. Romney and Obama are basically the same candidate, except that they reach their goals through a different means – one through class warfare, entitlements, dependency, and socialist policies, and the other through military expansion, religious elitism, and flip-flopping to suit the political winds of the day.
If another Reagan type candidate runs for prez, he/she will get a large majority of votes, including many from the other party.
I don’t understand why liberals want to bash Reagan when he was clearly a great spark for this nation and brought us to great economic prosperity, ended the cold war, and truly spoke to the people.
There’s a reason he’s a legend among conservatives. But I also hate the way these neo-cons and RINOs try to invoke Reagan’s legacy to help their own greedy power grab.
Anyway, that’s my two cents as a former republican.
Little Boots
@Caz:
cause he lied. a lot.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@karl: Firebagging appears to be a timeless American pastime.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@danah gaz (fka gaz): I’ll admit, I never thought a Mormon would make it through the GOP primaries. And I still think if Perry had just come off as stupid instead of drunk, if Pawlenty had been taught to stick to his guns, or if Daniels, Huckabee or Thune had got in, Romney would be speaking mid-afternoon on the second day
Cacti
@Little Boots:
I’m anxious to see who’s willing to take one for the team, as they will be committing seppuku on any future national ambitions they might have.
JoyfulA
@JoyceH: Yes, the former VA congressman running on the Constitution Party ticket to the right of Romney makes it impossible for Romney to win Virginia, but your comment is only the second time I’ve seen this mentioned.
Quincy
TNR had a solid post on this very topic. http://www.tnr.com/blog/electionate/105853/obama-romney-undecided-voters
Really like their new election blog. Not as good as Silver, but worth reading.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Caz: “I don’t understand why liberals want to bash Reagan when he was clearly a great spark for
this nationwhite resentment and brought us to greateconomic prosperityamounts of useless debt, endedthe cold warfunding for treatment for the mentally ill, and truly spoke to the people about how government was their enemy.”FIFY
Little Boots
@Cacti:
I’m hoping it’s Jindal.
He’s just silly enough to think, yes, this is my time!
dance around in your bones
My Pandora station is playing A Message To You Rudy by The Specials.
That is all. Loved those guys.
eta: so now they’re doing Rock The Casbah, so….whatevs. Sigh.
dead existentialist
@Caz: You are a fucking idiot. I doubt that you’ve had your 40th birthday.
No, let me amend that comment. You’re a little prick who wasn’t an adult trying to make a living during that dolt’s reign. He raised taxes 11 times. Crashed the economy twice. Got his ass run out of Lebanon and invaded Granada to compensate. He was a disaster. IF one person set us up for the failure we’ve become, it was that fucking idiot.
Cacti
@Caz:
Fix’t.
Little Boots
If Jindal will exorcise someone from the pulpit at the Republican convention, well, I might have to vote for him, just for that.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ” I’ll admit, I never thought a Mormon would make it through the GOP primaries”
(warning: half snark)
My calculus was based roughly on this:
Hair. There were three candidates with acceptable hair. Of those:
Perry was too like Bush Jr.
Huntsman was too reasonable.
So the only hair candidate left was Romney.
It was an easy calculus.
Whatever you think that the GOP “values” are, it’s bullshit. The candidates are chosen based on hair. I’m pretty sure I can prove this empirically.
Hill Dweller
Reagan opened his campaign with a states rights speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
It went down hill from there…
Steve
@Caz: I remember those myths too… the idea that the hostage takers released the hostages because they were afraid of Reagan… the belief that he ended the cold war almost single-handedly. It’s a little disconcerting to be reminded that people still believe these things, but it’s important for folks to understand that this was how a lot of people looked at things, back then in real-time. No one really understood what Iran’s motivation was so, for lack of a better theory, it actually seemed plausible that they were cowed by Reagan’s steely gaze. An awful lot of things had yet to unfold.
freelancer
@Caz:
Morale? Popularity? Stuck to his values? Fuck you, go hug your Dad if you want to “feel” better.
Bill Hicks was right in 1988 and he’s right today.
MikeJ
@dance around in your bones: Have you seen the new live album from The Specials? Comes out Tuesday, I think.
Little Boots
why is Suze Orman yelling at me?
Dennis G.
@freelancer: Yes. Bill was right!
Spatula
Anyone else have trouble telling DougJ posts from DennisG’s?
Same subject matter, attitude, and style.
Sly
American’s Elect could still pull it off! They’re the iTunes of politics!
/Friedman
MikeJ
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
lim
x→hair+ (It always approaches from the right)
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@MikeJ: hehehehe
Little Boots
no need for anderson.
history’s already repeating itself, as farce.
I know we’re not supposed to do this, but romney’s a joke, and doomed.
Disco
Jimmy Carter discussed John Anderson a bit during the 2004 campaign. The issue was whether Nader should run again. Carter claimed that Anderson did have an effect.
freelancer
@Spatula:
I can, instantly. It’s subtle, but there are differences. DJ’s posts incorporate contemporary punditry more. DG uses pundits, but also looks to modern history for source material and parallels.
Little Boots
@freelancer:
Dennis really does have a stronger sense of history, period.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Hill Dweller: Who knows to what extent Reagan understood what he was doing there. That was Buchanan’s choice, no? Not to defend him. He believed in those black bucks buying T-bones with food stamps, and that welfare queen (did his campaign actually invent that term?) who lived in the St Regis and drove a Cadillac. Like Reagan, Rick Santorum was being utterly sincere when he talked about wanting to help black people by cutting the benefits they’re addicted to. Romney and Gingrich, OTOH, are very cynically and knowingly exploitng racism. Doesn’t mean they don’t feel it, but they know not to say what Santorum said. Like Poppy Bush (and Baker and Atwater) using Floyd Brown and Willie Horton.
@danah gaz (fka gaz): You half snark, but if Romney looked even a little bit less like Wink Martindale, if he had a reedy voice like Poppy Bush or shifty eyes like Nixon, it would be that much harder for him to get away with being such thin-skinned, whiny, evasive, flip-flopping coward.
freelancer
@Little Boots:
I didn’t say that, you did. I said Dennis incorporates history into his posts more than Doug.
The Moar You Know
@Caz: 10/10. I’m shocked the thread isn’t at 250 extremely butthurt comments already.
Don’t ever change.
dance around in your bones
@MikeJ: No! I will look it up, thanks.
STILL love those guys…..’ya done too much, too much too young, now you’re married with a kid when you could be havin’ fun with me”
hahahahahaha!!
Calouste
@Cacti:
So we’re looking for someone with no national ambitions, bland white guy, impossible to upstage Mitt. I’d say there must be a few 60-something GOP Senators who know their chance has gone and are not up for reelection. Isakson, Enzi, Sessions, Coburn, Crapo.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ” You half snark, but if Romney looked even a little bit less like Wink Martindale…” yes, this was the half that wasn’t snark =)
Little Boots
@freelancer:
yup, I know. I really do think he has a better sense of history, and I like that.
hilzoy
Ha. I remember John Anderson. I campaigned all over NH for him, even though I had to take buses all the way from Princeton NJ every time I did it. I *became a Republican* for John Anderson: I didn’t think the race between Kennedy and Carter was nearly as important as the race between Anderson and Reagan, and at that time primaries were all closed, so the only way to vote for him was to become a Republican.
It really was a huge turning point: Anderson was running on the idea of being honest about our fiscal situation, which at that time wasn’t code for cutting Social Security and Medicare; it was plain English for “no, tax cuts will not pay for themselves.” 1980 really was, as far as I could see, the moment when Americans decided to vote for myth over reality. We can have tax cuts and a huge defense buildup without paying for them! We can invade Grenada and tell ourselves that winning over an infinitesimal little island shows we’re walking tall again! We can elect someone who — well, who was plainly, by 1984, showing signs of senility, and that’s OK, because he makes us feel good about ourselves! We can trust charlatans who pretend to be economists, and that won’t matter!
Anderson was the candidate of reality, Republican style, back when Republicans were the perfectly reasonable party with whom I disagreed. I really wished he had stopped after the Republican primaries, though.
dance around in your bones
@Caz: You really are an idiot. Reagan, really?
A 3rd rate actor with early onset Alzheimer’s. Yeah, Stellar President. It is to laugh.
Little Boots
where IS John Anderson today?
don’t say, dead.
Just Some Fuckhead
And this also means that Marla Gibbs was never almost First Lady. DOH!
KG
Hang on, I’m confused. Anderson got 6.6% of the vote nationally, Reagan beat Carter by 9.7%, carrying 44 states for 485 electoral votes. You’re suggesting that Reagan would have lost 216 electoral votes if Anderson wasn’t in the race? Which states swing if Anderson is not in the race?
I’m honestly curious, because this seems like the same bitching that some Republicans use when talking about Bush-Clinton-Perot in 1992, despite plenty of polling data that showed that Perot pulled evenly from Bush and Clinton in that race.
Spaghetti Lee
@Little Boots:
Alive and kicking at 92 years old.
patroclus
One reason Reagan appeared more moderate than “normal” in the summer of 1980 was because, after a feint towards Gerald Ford, he picked George H.W. Bush as his VP. Bush was a pro-choice moderate with orthodox economic positions and some foreign policy (China; CIA) experience. Who thinks Romney is going to choose a pro-choice moderate as VP? (Of course, Bush later morphed his positions…but that’s not important here).
Also, at this very moment in 1980, the U.S. was boycotting the Moscow Olympics. Instead of feel good moments watching U.S. athletes win medals, everyone just got mad at Jimmy Carter.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Caz:
If you said he almost single-handedly invented masturbation you would be just as correct.
danielx
@mclaren:
Yup. Reagan was an actor, for chrissakes, if not an A list actor. He could present whatever face he wanted to the public, and as an actor he had the ability to charm people. Romney doesn’t know how to act like anything except what he is, a rich Wall Street asshole, and the only people he’s interested in charming are those who can do something substantive for him – a damned short list, to be sure.
The Republican Party used to win elections by landslides, but that was when they were actually interested in governing. Today’s Republicans, at least on a national level, aren’t interested in anything except burning the motherfucker down, to use a phrase from those horrible days in the 1960s. You know, that period which is directly responsible for America’s downfall.
I know this because David Brooks told me so.
Little Boots
@Spaghetti Lee:
damn.
Origuy
I voted for Anderson as well. After that, I looked at the state by state totals in the World Almanac. (The Wikipedia of the day. Yes, kids, we looked things up in books. If we didn’t have a book with the answer, we stayed ignorant.) I assured myself that if everyone who voted for Anderson had voted for Carter, Reagan still would have won.
James E. Powell
@The Moar You Know:
I was there. It was obvious for months before the election that Carter was going to get his ass beat. With or without Anderson. Kennedy had already done a lot of the dirty work during the primary. There’s a truth Dems don’t like to acknowledge.
I was there, too, as a mid-level Carter campaign person. And the “Destroy Carter” movement in the Democratic Party began before he was even inaugurated. Kennedy & the congressional Democrats forced a mid-term convention solely for the purpose of damaging Carter.
But there were other factors. The economy was not like today. It was more like fall 2008. Lines at the gas stations, inflation and interest rates climbing. And there were the hostages in Iran with a show on every night called America Held Hostage. It was ugly.
The major force at work was the race-driven shift of white working class and middle class voters. People discussing 1980 almost never mention busing, a major issue in the late 70s. Those voters had gone with Nixon in 1972, giving him a landslide. Watergate and its aftermath led many of them to go with Carter in 1976, but they were never really with him or the Democrats after 1972. In 1980 they swung back with a vengeance.
Little Boots
@James E. Powell:
he was impressive as a candidate … and much later as an ex-president.
but, damn, man, he really did seem weirdly diminished by the office itself. what the hell happened?
piratedan
I too voted for Johnny A. and have few regrets, he actually embodied politics for me, a candidacy run on ideas not on character. It’s kind of strange but his forlorn hope more or less signalled the end of the Liberal wing of the Republican Party and may have even been the harbinger of doom to the Party itself.
Cacti
@Calouste:
That would be too perfect…
Shitt Romney is going to take a Crapo on the middle class.
Nah, I don’t think even his people are that dumb.
KG
@KG: doing some research, as far as I can tell, there were seven states where Anderson got more votes than the difference between Reagan and Carter: Maine, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin. That’s 96 electoral votes by my count. Numbers from here
Karl Rover
awesome.
Well, it was.
KG
The other thing that comes to mind is that recent examples of presidents who lost re-election had primary challengers. Ford had Reagan in 1976, Carter had Ted Kennedy in 1980, Bush had Buchanan in 1992. Just one of those things.
Irony Abounds
@Percysowner:
I voted for Anderson and am not the least bit embarrassed or regretful. I think he was the clearly the best candidate. A credible third party candidate without being a nut job or an ego maniac. Of course, living in Arizona Reagan had things wrapped up here so my vote didn’t matter.
Little Boots
@KG:
we took a big wrong turn, and I have to say, I took it with the rest of the country.
but damn, can we get over it now?
Supply Side Economics is bullshit. do we not get that 30 years later?
MikeJ
@KG: Did you notice the name of the Libertarian veep candidate on that chart?
James E. Powell
@Little Boots:
but, damn, man, he really did seem weirdly diminished by the office itself. what the hell happened?
The New Deal coalition, damaged by the storms of civil rights, finally and forever collapsed. We are still repairing the damage and trying to rebuild.
The federal government dismantled the legal structure of a political culture founded on racism. That culture was built and maintained for more than 200 years. We, meaning those of us who championed those changes, were naive to think that removing the legal and formal structure would cause the cultural structure to evaporate. It will likely take two more generations, at least.
Cacti
Let’s not kid ourselves about Carter as a national politician. He might have been the weakest candidate to capture the White House in the 20th century.
Even against the guy who pardoned Nixon, he won a modest 297-240 victory, with 50.1% of the popular vote.
KG
@Little Boots: my point was just that Dennis’s point about Anderson flipping the election is off. The math, it does not ad up. I was 2 years old on election day 1980, so I don’t know the world with 50% marginal tax rates.
@MikeJ: heh, no, didn’t look that close.
dance around in your bones
Gads, this must be The Specials night on Pandora X channel – now they are playing Gangsters.
I am having some kind of flashback. Not acid, was done with that by the 80’s. Maybe shrooms?
Sick of politics.
James E. Powell
@KG:
The other thing that comes to mind is that recent examples of presidents who lost re-election had primary challengers
Primary challengers are evidence of what was happening rather than causes of what happened.
MikeJ
@KG: Yes, it’s the same font of evil we’ve come to know and loathe.
Little Boots
@James E. Powell:
the Democrats decided labor didn’t matter. i’m convinced that’s the problem. Obama is still so ambivalent, and so are most Democratic Pols. They’ve finally woken up to the class warfare that’s been happening forever, but damn, so many still can’t quite deal with the fact that they have to speak to the working class.
Little Boots
@KG:
I keep getting into fights that aren’t actually fights.
I think you’re right, and I do not mean to argue with you.
we went off the rails at some point, as a nation and definitely as a movement.
we need to get back on track. we have made some serious errors of judgment, and we need to figure those out, and stop.
I think abandoning Labor was our biggest mistake.
KG
@James E. Powell: not saying it was a cause. And you’re right it’s a sign of what was happening, which generally suggests dissatisfaction with the incumbent within the base. Can’t hold the base, can’t hold the office.
Little Boots
I really wish Dennis were awake. cause it’s getting kind of interesting, and i would honestly like to know his opinion.
eemom
It’s an interesting thread, but I have this observation: 2012 has absolutely less than zero the fuck in common with 1980, for the reasons which have already been stated, and many more — and the only reason it ever occurred to anybody to even make such a ridiculous comparison is
So what does it tell us, about “our side”, that we have gobbled that bait right up and are having this ridiculous discussion at all? Taking a comparison which is utterly asinine on its face earnestly debating it to the point of asking “Who is this year’s John Anderson?”
Iffen the republicans don’t do us in, Teh Stoopid will.
mclaren
@xyzxyzxyz:
I voted for Anderson but I have a really good excuse. By the time I got off work and could get to the polls to vote, the media projections had already called the election for Reagan. So I figured, what the hell? Why not vote for Anderson? In my state it was already a done deal and the election was basically over.
Little Boots
@eemom:
we haven’t. I think deep down we know, they lose, we win, but we don’t want to get too complacent.
dogwood
@Little Boots:
The Democrats didn’t abandon labor. The rank and file members abandoned the Democratic Party over cultural issues. The Dems have been in a tight spot when it comes to the demands of labor unions. What the union leaders want is well and good, but they can’t deliver the votes. I live in a union town that was Democratic until the Reagan revolution. Now the vehicles in the unionized plant that is the economic engine of the county display Republican bumper stickers. The party is stuck advocating for groups that are unreliable voters (poor, working poor, minorities) or hostile voters (blue collar union workers.) It is much easier to be a Republican politician. The people they advocate for actually pony up money and come out to vote.
Little Boots
@dogwood:
You’re right. that is fair.
but obama should have come to Wisconsin last year. that might have helped to heal the breach. but he didn’t.
there is this weird ambivalence. the Democrats have to stop with the ambivalence.
Little Boots
and what’s interesting is Obama has finally started to talk about class warfare.
finally.
FlipYrWhig
My parents, both of whom were on the fringes of hippiedom, liked Anderson much better than Carter because, as I recall (being about to turn 9 at the time), Carter’s born-again Christianity creeped them out. I don’t know how widespread that attitude was…
mclaren
@dead existentialist:
Bingo. Every single insane self-destructive policy Republicans espouse today was invented by (wait for it…) Ronald Reagan.
Claim the Last Days are soon upon us and we’re all going to be raptured? Yup — first done by Ronnie. (Look it up. Ronnie told Jim Bakker in an interview in 1980 that “We may be the generation that sees Armageddon.” Before that, in 1971, Reagan commented to James Mills regarding events in Libya, “For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.”) Bring the crazy evangelical fundamentalist Christians into the Republican party and turn politics into Talibangelical witch hunts? Yessir, invented as an electoral strategy by Ronald Reagan. Giant military spending surge combined with huge tax cuts for the mega-rich? Dubya didn’t start that, Reagan did! War against women? Ronnie was the original anti-women’s-rights anti-abortion warrior — he even vowed to repeal Roe v Wade. Coded dog whistle messages against black people? Ronnie’s your guy! Vast deficits spurring claims that “we need to cut social programs to balance the budget”? Yes indeedy, Ronnie once again.
Every single crazy Republican meme today comes straight from the demented drooling Alzheimers-slackened mouth of Ronald Reagan.
Villago Delenda Est
I did not think it was possible for a President in my lifetime that could be worse than the shitty grade Z movie star was.
Then the deserting coward came along.
RadioOne
I think Clinton has a pretty good shot of beating Reagan, legacy wise. The thing about Reagan was that he was just a little bit better of a President than his Republican successors and predecessors.
In GOP circles, this means we must carve a new face into Mount Rushmore.
Little Boots
@mclaren:
yeah, but shaking the spell is the problem.
I think we will win the presidency, but the idea lives on.
we need a better narrative.
mclaren
@Little Boots:
You know, one thing no liberal seems to have yet realized — and no obot either — is that if Obama keeps up with this populist hammer-the-billionaire-crime-lords rhetoric, Obama’s campaign has the potential to ignite a surge of populist fervor that won’t die down when Obama gets re-elected.
Obama thinks he can do another bait-and-switch and after he gets re-elected, he’ll just tell all the liberals to go lick a dog’s ass till it bleeds and then he’ll go back to business as usual signing off on more tax cuts for rich people and presiding over slashed social programs to pay for more military spending.
I don’t know about that. If the rage against the Mitt Romneys of the world who’ve gotten rich by shipping American jobs overseas gets whipped up to a fever pitch by the Obama campaign, they may face a broad-based electoral firestorm of demand for genuine economic justice that they can’t control.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@mclaren: To be fair, I think Nixon had the racism-as-an-electoral strategy sewn up before Reagan came along, but basically, your point stands.
Redshift
@eemom: Nah, the only point to the questions in this thread asking who is this year’s John Anderson is that there isn’t one. And the reason for discussing Anderson is to point out that they aren’t even making an argument that this year is like the actual 1980, they’re trying to make an argument based on the idea that this year is like their collective myth about 1980.
This goes beyond believing their own propaganda (which lots of conservatives seem to be doing lately) and is well into believing their own delusions.
Little Boots
@mclaren:
I’m not as down as Obama as you, but you have a big, big point. this stuff does not need to end. and it certainly does not have to end where Obama says it ends.
but that really is up to us, all of us. we have got to stop settling for so little in this country.
Redshift
@Little Boots:
It’s okay to be optimistic. The key is to remember that we’re in good shape to win if we all do our part. A good chance means that you win with a good campaign, not that you don’t need to worry about all that campaign work.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots: I draw the line at ponies and herds of unicorns, and I tend to get pissed when people ramp up the firebagging so close to an election.
At least on this thread for sure, mclaren isn’t going there, so all of this noise is fine by me.
ETA: Most of the firebagging unicorn herders need to direct the bulk of their disappointment at their congressional representatives, also too. The president can’t really do all that much when congress is so fucked up.
Little Boots
true to both of you.
I do not mean to ever be complacent.
specially with all the voter suppression efforts.
Little Boots
now somebody post awesome 80’s music.
policomic
I also voted for Anderson (in the first election for which I was old enough to vote), and though I agree that he was a principled candidate (I’d say the best candidate running that year), I regret that vote, nevertheless. I no longer believe that one should vote SOLELY on the basis of voting for The Best Man/Woman For The Job, Damn Everything Else.
At the same time, I think it’s important to remember why a fair number of liberals (including Gary Trudeau–or, at least, Mike Doonesbury) supported Anderson, and why Carter was challenged by Ted Kennedy. Carter did suffer from some bad luck and bad timing, and when he became president, the political acumen he had shown earlier in his career seemed to desert him (or, he seemed to think his old pragmatism was now beneath him). But the main reason Kennedy and Anderson opposed him was that he was seen by some (like me) as too conservative. He was a deregulator, and he reinstated draft registration (which, as an 18-year-old male, I was not happy about). He also, I think, did a lot to pave the way for the rise of the religious right (look back at how much fun was made of his use of the phrase “born again” at the time–before Carter, that was not part of mainstream political conversation).
I don’t think Carter comes within 3 million miles of being “history’s greatest monster” (and let us not forget that was just an absurdist Simpsons joke to begin with), but because he’s a nice man and a great EX-president, let’s not pretend he was a liberal hero, either.
Still, if I had it to do over again, I would have voted for him, because Reagan really was a monster (though not history’s greatest).
Little Boots
Dennis?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots:
Recoil: Hydrology (the entire thing)
Most of 80’s was a cultural wasteland, IMNSHO
ETA: IOW, the 80’s was the musical equivalent of “fly over country”, speaking generally. Most of the good stuff during the 80’s was a continuation of earlier good stuff. Very few mainstream goodies came out of that decade. Maybe stereolab, the art of noise, as I said recoil (not mainstream then though), and maybe the cure… each of these is of course debatable – except maybe recoil
Little Boots
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
so no tear for fears from you?
well fine.
dance around in your bones
@Little Boots:
good enuf?
Little Boots
@policomic:
you and me buddy, we learned a lesson.
teach others.
Little Boots
okay, I can’t stop it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST86JM1RPl0&feature=related
Steeplejack
@Little Boots:
Hate to be the codependent enabler, but I was thinking about this song today: the Cure, “Boys Don’t Cry.”
And don’t harangue me for more; I’m going to bed.
Okay, one more: Sheila E., “Glamorous Life.”
Little Boots
@dance around in your bones:
what about euythmics?
there was art! dammit.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots: Tears for Fears?
umm not as far as I’m concerned. I’d take 80’s depeche mode over tears for fears any day – but even then, I’d only listen to either one at gunpoint.
Little Boots
I KNEW steeplejack would come through.
I knew.
dance around in your bones
@Little Boots: Good enuf?
(sorry, fucked up the first link) +4
Little Boots
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
don’t you want to rule the world?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@dance around in your bones: I never got quite wasted enough to enjoy hardcore ska – though I liked operation ivy which was a bit different than 80’s ska stuff…
Although in my defense, I was two when reagan was elected, so by the time I was old enough to get really fucked up, the 80’s was a distant memory.
dance around in your bones
@Little Boots: Jimmy Tomorrow
One of my favorite 80’s bands. Saw them live several times. The Waitresses!
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots: god I remember that song. The first time I remember actually LISTENING to it, was toward the end of the movie “Real Genius”
And even at that tender age (i was young) I distinctly remember that it represented everything that I hated about people.
Lust for wealth, and essentially lust for being popular, famous or powerful. It was IMO (even at the time) singularly about empty want. I found it repulsive and artistically void. It DID do a good job of representing the zeitgeist of the era though. That’s not an endorsement.
Little Boots
oops, Eurythmics, ladies and semi-gents:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMFqkcPYcg
Little Boots
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
you wenen’t THERE man. this was our Nam.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots: Another on my long list of things I can be thankful for, I suppose.
dance around in your bones
@danah gaz (fka gaz): I guess I don’t think of The Specials as hard core ska… that song kinda spoke to me since I had a kid very young (18) and the ‘done too much, too much too young’ kinda….resonated.
Made up for it later :)
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots: okay, that was actually a good song. thanks for the link. I nearly forgot about that track.
Little Boots
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
you’ve no idea, but you did miss eurytmics, which were awesome.
Little Boots
see?
David Koch
I’m surprised the wingers aren’t insulted when St. Ronnie is compared to a cultist like Romney.
Steeplejack
Damn your eyes, Little Boots, now I have gone down the YouTube hole.
Not ’80s but ’70s, but this fits my mood for the evening: William DeVaughn, “Be Thankful for What You’ve Got.”
Little Boots
@David Koch:
they’re all lying nonstop at this point.
two months ago, my wingnut relatives despised Romney, completely. Now? he’s awesome and the best candidate ever. pathetic.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@dance around in your bones: Yeah, I mean, I’m sure punk purists would berate me, as real ska sounds like white reggae nearly (with a drunk lead vocalist)… but I guess that leaves me without a clear classifier of that style.
Operation Ivy, again – had a similar flavor but was more smoothed out, IMO – Rancid was spawned from operation ivy, and I’m ambivalent about Rancid (I think most op ivy fans are).
I’m also weird in that the cure kind of struck me as punkish – or maybe even what new-wave sort of aspired to when not completely watered down into 80’s pop.
So maybe my punk labeling is cockeyed. It wouldn’t surprise me. I was extremely high through most of my punk years.
piratedan
@danah gaz (fka gaz): danah gaz, I believe we’re still referring to those folks as “the poniless”.
I’m just hoping the Mitt fcontinues down this path of offending everyone and every faction to the point where we can make some serious strides in the downticket races and perhaps get a few more things done in this country by electing enough Dems that would render the well crafted obstructionism moot and still allow those few remaining Blue Dogs to vote their “conscious” on a few items and not get in the way of progress for the rest of us.
Steeplejack
“I Know What Boys Like.” Sucker.
“Goodbye to You.”
Little Boots
and for danah, let’s all bless the rains down in Africa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCca5mPMp9A
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@piratedan: hehehe.
WRT to Romney. Don’t worry, Romney’s doing his best to ensure that. As long as we keep the camera rolling and the mic hot it’s pretty much a certainty
dance around in your bones
Ok, Jim Carroll
Perhaps not the best video but damn, he was good.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots: toto? fucking toto?
(or at least, IIRC)
in any case, now you are just messing with me.
Little Boots
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
true. again, I know, I know, never get complacent, but come on, seriously, who is going to vote for this dick?
Steeplejack
The Motels, “Only the Lonely.”
Little Boots
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
how can you not love toto? why must you hate dorothy?
Steeplejack
NRBQ, “Ridin’ in My Car.”
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Little Boots: one of my favorite parts of all this is seeing all of the goopers driving around, and not a single one has a Romney sticker on their car. It’s always “Anyone but Obama” or other such nonsense.
Good luck with that, you stupid tools. =) HAHAHAHA
Steeplejack
Howard Jones, “What Is Love?”
Little Boots
@Steeplejack:
damn, I’d forgotten that. awesome.
dance around in your bones
@Steeplejack:
Oh gawd, you made me remember The Motels!!
You are increible, Steep!
Little Boots
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
He. Is. Doomed.
I know it, I just know I’m not supposed to say it. Can’t jinx it.
Steeplejack
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
I get the opposite feeling from that song.
A good song and a weirdly great video.
And the second-greatest song of the ’80s: the B-52’s, “Love Shack.” Another great Athens band.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Steeplejack: shit. I like the b-52’s =)
forgot them, for some reason. It’s late…
speaking of which time for me to get ready for bed and put on a show dumb enough to fall asleep to (this is half the reason I have a huge digital archive)
Steeplejack
Los Lobos, “Don’t Worry, Baby.”
Mark S.
Geez, if this trade goes down, the Lakers have won big time. It sounds like they only have to give up one player (often-injured, occasional nutcase Andrew Bynum) to land Dwight Howard. That sounds really fucking lopsided.
jayackroyd
I voted for Anderson. Absentee. From central Sudan, which meant I missed the campaign drama.
And everyone should read Will Bunch’s book Tear Down This Myth on how the Reagan mythology was created.
http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781416597636
Little Boots
and not quite 80’s but it seems it to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px__SsVXX_0
Anne Laurie
@hilzoy:
Quoted For Truth. I was in Michigan then, but for a lot of people it really did break down to “I’m bored with Carter, Anderson keeps lecturing about hard choices and long slogs, but Reagan promises us MORNING! IN! AMURKA!”
In a weird, twisted sense, all that Repub blather about “welfare queens” and “young bucks” may have been the official inauguration of the Projection Party. Too many Reagan voters wanted a world where they could sit on their duffs eating junk food & watching the teebee, while somebody else hustled to keep the lights on and the checks coming. Thirty years later, they’ve successfully dumbed themselves down to “Keep gubmint out of MY Medicare!”…
Steeplejack
Chris Isaak, “Gone Ridin’.”
Little Boots
oh, damn, chris isaac.
miss him.
Steeplejack
“I Want You to Want Me.”
(Ha-ha.)
Little Boots
I wonder if we’ll ever have another reality Republican. I wonder if the party will dissolve before that.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
“What is love, anyway? Does anybody love anybody, anyway?” wins Howard my All-time Award for lazy Lyric Writing.
dance around in your bones
Ok, if we are going with B-52’s, you gotta watch Planet Claire just for the weirdness.
James E. Powell
@Little Boots:
two months ago, my wingnut relatives despised Romney, completely. Now? he’s awesome and the best candidate ever.
The right-wingers have developed a remarkable ability to absorb and repeat whatever Fox and Rush Limbaugh and the whole AM-radio country of local Rush Limbaughs tell them to say.
They are driven by fear, anger, frustration, and bigotry. They are never for anything or anybody; they are always against the people they hate. Fox, Rush, and others tell them that their hatred is justified, virtuous, even patriotic. They are fed a few phrases to express their hate and they repeat them faithfully.
Steeplejack
“My Ever Changing Moods.”
Little Boots
@James E. Powell:
too true, way too true.
they hate obama so much.
we need music, not always 80s music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaQDFk0fDTk
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
It’s all about the beat. It covers a multitude of sins.
Bill Murray
@KG: really, Anderson would have had to flip every state (21) Carter lost by up to 10% for Carter to have a chance. If you add up Anderson’s and Carter’s votes by state, and count these as Carter votes, Carter gets to about 180 electoral votes. So maybe Anderson had an effect before voting but the actual votes in the election do not in any way back this up.
Little Boots
I love this site, and all the other sane sites.
it’s weird how insane the right has become. but damn.
oh, well, it happened, and we need to deal with it.
dance around in your bones
@Little Boots: I remember coming out of a movie with my best friend and this Patti Smith song came on the radio and we just wanted to keep driving all night listening to it all night and just dump our current lives.
Really. It was that powerful.
Waynski
I… smell… old people… on this thread. Including me – well, (to steal a word from Reagan), middle aged anyway.
I was thirteen in 1980 and just getting interested in politics and here’s what my 13 year-old brain was thinking:
Carter was weak and Reagan seemed strong at a time when we still actually perceived (despite the reality, as we found out later) a real existential threat from the Soviet Union. The Iran hostage crisis made us feel like wimps. That’s what killed Carter. Period. Full stop.
These days my thirteen year old brain would be considered an independent, low information voter.
Little Boots
@dance around in your bones:
she is so awesome. saw her in concert, just once. will never forget it.
KG
@Mark S.: There was talk originally of a straight up Bynum-Howard deal, but Bynum wouldn’t commit to an extension and Orlando didn’t want to risk it. I like this del better than the one that had Gaol going as well and the Lakers getting Harington. As a Laker fan, I’m excited about this season, probably for the first time since 96, when they signed Shaq and stole Kobe in the draft
Steeplejack
For Ronald Reagan:
Paula Cole, “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?”
Don Henley, “The End of the Innocence.”
Little Boots
@Steeplejack:
heh.
dance around in your bones
@Steeplejack:Groan.
Little Boots
definitely not 80’s but dylan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhr_umSnZH4&feature=related
piratedan
was feeling left out, so….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njvh-eOYMqw
Little Boots
and the best part of the 80s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep72CwFAfyM&feature=related
Anne Laurie
@Cacti:
That’s why a corner of my evil Democratic heart hopes the Teabaggers will angry up a “Draft Herman Cain” drive in Tampa. Dude knows he has no political future, but he’d get two more months of sweet, sweet media attention & a bump in his speaking fees afterwards. All the other TP-friendly possibles have delusions of adequacy for 2016 (Christie, Sanctorum, RandPaul) or “brands” that would be damaged by the Rmoney-bust (Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich).
I just wanna see Willard have to touch Herman Cain with an ungloved hand. Not saying Romney’s a racist, but when it came time to turn over the Mass State House to Deval Patrick, the usual pomp-and-circumstances ceremony was reduced to some Romney coatholder (Fernstrom, maybe?) flinging the keys at the new governor from across the room. (IIRC, Romney tried to absent himself entirely, “unavoidable timing conflict” or some bushwah, until the media made a giant stink about it.) Nutball sleaze that he is, the Hermanator would suck up what little spotlight the Villagers will have to spare for what I suspect will look like “Titanic II: Revenge of the Third-Class Passengers” in Tampa.
Little Boots
@piratedan:
damn,do love that song.
thank you.
Steeplejack
@piratedan:
Good one. Haven’t heard that one in ages.
Little Boots
I tingle.
piratedan
@Anne Laurie: I dunno, if they can resurrect Ralph Reed after all the crap he did with Abramoff and sweatshops and whorehouses for Christ, I’d be hard pressed to believe that the stench of Eau de Romney” is gonna be that big a deal, these folks want the big lie, believe in the big lie and until someone finally ends up in jail or along a wall, they’ll keep on believing.
Steeplejack
Caesars, “(I’m Gonna) Kick You Out.”
“A man with a fork in a world of soup.” WTF?!
Okay, I’m kicking myself out, about an hour late. Damn you kids and your loud, catchy music.
ETA: This song was used in a very erotic beer commercial set in a laundromat where the suds went crazy. Wish I could hunt that down, but no luck so far.
Little Boots
justin bieber does not count
dance around in your bones
@Little Boots: Did you read her book ‘Just Kids’? I recommend it.
Little Boots
@dance around in your bones:
did not, just love her music.
Little Boots
it was posted before, but damn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtDSmkH73LA&feature=related
Little Boots
we must all pick up our feet.
James E. Powell
@Waynski:
These days my thirteen year old brain would be considered an independent, low information voter.
These days your thirteen year old brain would be considered one of the bold, bright intellectual leaders of the Republican Party, a definite ‘one to watch’ for 2016.
Little Boots
dances, you awake?
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Holy shnikeys, I tried using a trans-vaginal cross-tab B-tree search and found it! It was for Smirnoff Ice, and it pretty clearly indicates that drinking in the laundromat leads to vandalism and possibly oral sex.
I got obsessed with the song snippet in this commercial, and it took me a long time to run it down. And now I’ve found the commercial again. The circle of life, hakuna matata, etc., etc.
Little Boots
@Steeplejack:
damn.
Little Boots
who cannot love steeplejack?
dance around in your bones
@Little Boots:
It’s a memoir of her early years in NYC with Robert Mapplethorpe and her development into a poet and artist and musician. Very well-written and engrossing.
Yeah, I love her music, too and always have, from Horses to Radio Ethiopia to Easter and beyond. She’s just fucking stellar.
Steeplejack
@Little Boots:
WTF?! You’re reposting after like 15 minutes?! You’re quite mad, you know.
Little Boots
@dance around in your bones:
she is awesome.
Little Boots
@Steeplejack:
you make that sound like a problem.
dance around in your bones
@Little Boots: Yeah, still awake – it’s only midnight where I am. Damn edit thingy won’t let me edit thingies. FYWP.
Steeplejack
@dance around in your bones:
For you and your late husband.
Please forgive me if this is presumptuous. I had an intuition that it would be appropriate.
Little Boots
okay this is so annoying, but I can’t help mysel. I love it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y7aVx8oZ4s
dance around in your bones
Seems like lil boots and steep and I are the only ones left around this joint….Steep, keep on posting your videos because you seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge, whereas I just remember shit I heard most likely in a stupor of some kind (heh) and do not have Total Recall.
Steeplejack
@dance around in your bones:
I’m played out and going to bed. I have to get up (relatively) early in the morning, because I think I am getting a cat. Talk about the circle of life.
I left one last song above specifically for you.
Little Boots
oh come upstairs goober.
dance around in your bones
@Steeplejack:
Thank you, that was lovely. I still find it hard to believe that he is gone forever – we had a kind of shorthand from living together for so many years, and I miss that with other people. He was funny, and smart, and always entertaining.
I don’t know if I will ever find that (or want to) again.
Well, life sometimes sucks, and sometimes good things happen to good people, like JSF said!
Thank you for the kind thoughts.
Chuck
Haven’t any of the commenters brought up Carter’s implementation of draft registration? I left that part of my ballot blank because of it and the spoiler tag hung on Anderson. It turned out that the electoral vote landslide made Anderson a non-factor.
JGabriel
__
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MikeJ:
Corollary: If a secret helicopter mission to kill or capture bin Laden succeeds, then Obama might win the election.
But, hey, what are the odds of that happening? Everyone knows wars and military actions are only won by Republicans like FDR and Harry Truman.
.
JGabriel
__
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Steeplejack:
Note to self: Combine drinking, laundry, and dating. My god, just think of the efficiencies.
.
Chyron HR
I’m sorry, everyone. I thought I was voting for the guy from Yes.
dance around in your bones
@JGabriel: Heck, we did that back in the day – tequila shots and pinball machines while waiting for the clothes to dry….in my old college town.
I was already hooked up with my forever dude though, so can’t comment on the random sex bit….except for ‘jes lookin’.
I mean, say what you like about the tenets of college laundromats, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
Dennis G.
@KG: Here is the link to the State by State data.
As you may remember, the popular vote does not matter. It is the Electoral Votes that win the race and without Anderson it is not clear that Reagan would have topped 270. He might have, but then again without Anderson the race would have been completely different.
Dennis G.
@KG: The point of the post is to remind folks that John Anderson was a real factor in the 1980 Election. A byproduct of his run was that the normal cycle of Presidential debates never happened. There was only one held between Carter and Reagan and it happened much, much later than normal. This was unusual and happened because Anderson was in the race.
In all the myth making about the 1980 Election John Anderson has been erased. The Wingnuts tell a fable of how Reagan was trailing Carter all year until the last week (after his magical debate performance) and then he leaped past Carter. It is bullshit and Anderson has been erased from history. He shouldn’t be.
He was a significant force in the election. As was the Hostage Crisis, the bad economy, the invasion of Afghanistan and Olympic boycott, Ted Kennedy’s run and his weak support for Carter, the fallout from the Civil Rights movement, the GOP’s embrace of racism and a dozen other factors. Had some number of these factors played out differently, the results would have been different.
A post like this is easy for folks to misconstrue as you cannot fold in all the footnotes. There are a thousand reasons why 1980 is not like 2012. John Anderson is one of them. Had he not ran the results would have been different. Reagan might have still won, but we will never know.
It is far more complicated than just giving his final vote total to Carter, because without Anderson the dynamics and issues of the race would have been different. If you pretend that the vote totals would have been the same (C+A vs R) whether Anderson ran or not then it is hard to come up with a scenario where Reagan is defeated. But had Anderson not run the race and the final results would have been different. The outcome in that alternative reality in unknowable.
I was tempted to vote for Anderson back in the day, but stuck with Carter. The Reagan myth is almost total bullshit and it always starts by erasing Anderson from history. I wanted to comment on that bit of wingnut Reagan worship nonsense in this post.
Cheers
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I don’t know, I do recall the feeling was Carter had screwed up badly as president in 1980 because he was putting his personal morality before the interests of the country. Even my registered Democrat, union member, hates the Republicans and knew Regan was an idiot father voted against Carter in 1980.
This time around beyond the wingnuts no one is accusing Obama as a clueless idealist. It’s Mittens who has that label.
schrodinger's cat
@danah gaz (fka gaz): True, they do like attractive candidates with empty heads and good hair. Palin comes to mind. Romney does have those local newscaster good looks and good hair, though his choice of jeans is rather unfortunate.
kindness
I changed my voter registration to Republican that year so that I could vote for Anderson in the primaries. I would have still voted for Carter in the General though. Didn’t do me any good. Anderson dropped out about a week before the California primaries. I switched back the next year.
low-tech cyclist
When it comes to politics, let ’em believe whatever crazy things they want. If they’re putting their trust in bullshit theories about why they’re really gonna win, that helps us rather than hurts us.
bootsy
Great work, Dennis! I love anything that deflates the myth of St. Ronnie (you would think the death squads, selling arms to Iran, and starting Al Qaeda would’ve been enough).
Anderson’s 50 cent gas tax is an interesting idea, esp. from a Republican. I wonder if Tom Friedman’s next big column will be tout Anderson as the Americans’ Elect candidate? 90 year olds whose politics resemble those of 32 years ago might be their key demographic.
As far as the narrative that GOP are pushing: well, I don’t even think the truest of their true believers believe that. They’re counting on Koch ads, lack of Dem. enthusiasm and blatant Jim Crow policies like not allowing Ohio cities to vote past working hours. Anything else that they think up is what they would consider a fond reminisce to the America that never existed.
McJulie
@hilzoy: 1980 really was, as far as I could see, the moment when Americans decided to vote for myth over reality.
The 1980 election is the first one I remember with any clarity, and that was exactly my perception of it at the time. I described Reagan’s domestic policies as “go back to sleep, everything’s fine” and thought that the economic boost caused by deregulation etc. was a one-time deal that was actually undermining the long-term health of the economy.
I’ve seen modern right wingers lauding Reagan, and they very often cite that he made them “feel good” as a major selling point, as if I’m supposed to care about that. Well, Obama makes me feel good. So there.
Trakker
Another John Anderson voter here. He struck me as a candidate who took his stands based on common sense and how it would help the country, not on who was for it or against it. I’m not sorry I voted for him and would again.
Ed Drone
@Anne Laurie:
The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary’s Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.
…
hey do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not preach that His Pity allows them to drop their job when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s ways may be long in the land.
… From Kipling’s “Sons of Martha,” a wonderful poem.
Ed
accidentalfission
@Little Boots: Jimmy Carter was the last chance to bring our industrial civilization in for a soft landing. In 1977, he called getting off of foreign oil and developing alternatives energy sources, “the moral equivalent of war.”
But fat, dumb, and happy America elected an actor to blow smoke up our assess for eight years. “Turn up the thermostat, buy a bigger car, go shopping. It’s morning in American! We don’t need the doom and gloom of Jimmy Carter.”
And remember these Reagan classis: “I’m from the gov’t and I’m here to help. Ha, ha ha.” And “We’ll increase revenue by decreasing revenue.” Fucking genius.
So the sources of unconventional crude that have been keeping the industrial world going since 2005 (start of conventional crude decline) are now in decline. We’re so desperate for fossil fuels that we’re pressure washing sand in Alberta to get the oil off of it. We’re drilling in 5,000 feet of ocean where 11 men died on the Deepwater Horizon rig and we almost ruined the gulf of Mexico.
And the harder the remaining crude is to extract and refine, the more we’re going to burn doing the job.
So yeah, 40 years ago was our last chance. Now it’s gonna be a crash landing for industrial civilization. Good luck everyone.
NobodySpecial
I know this is way late, but I remember John B. mostly because he was my representative and my dad used to mow his lawn.
He really was the quintessential Liberal Republican. Anyone who wants to see why folks loved him should really read The debate transcript.
Of course, he’s not a Republican anymore, and he’s much too lefty for some places….
Joel
Reason 5: Reagan actually led Carter for much of the year, Carter pulled ahead late, and Reagan made up the numbers in the end.
Katrina Hoch
Another difference between 2012 and 1980 is that in 1980 there was a democratic primary (carter vs Kennedy) that I believe was a slugfest and left carter pretty beat up. not so this year .
Robert Waldmann
@Robert Waldmann:
I note I based my comment on my memory of polls I saw in 1980 (so almost 32 years ago). I said it was close until the very end when Anderson’s support collapsed (probably because his supporters faced the fact that he had no chance). It was then that Reagan pulled ahead. This suggests that policy positions be damned, there was a good 58% for anyone but Carter and that Anderson pulled more support from Reagan than from Carter.
Kos has just published a graph of the polls from 1980.
In it you see (just as I claimed) a very close race in September and most of October then Reagan pulling away. Anderson’s support which is not shown in the graph, declined about then.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/10/1118669/-Romney-campaign-sets-convention-expectations
PanurgeATL
@James E. Powell:
You could argue that the ’60s counterculture was an expression of the knowledge that a new cultural structure was needed. But even today, not everybody gets that. Lots of liberals still seem to want what amounts to “Mayberry, but with women, minorities and gays”. Or at least they say they’ll settle for it.
PanurgeATL
@Little Boots:
The New Left remembered that Big Labor had supported the Vietnam War and was happy to beat up hippies. So did lots of other young people back then. That made them susceptible to anti-labor arguments. (If I had a dollar for every time I heard The Electrician Story…)
PanurgeATL
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Um, neither is the song.