The Blog to Be Named Later returns from hiatus to discuss Fred Thompson, the actor turned senator turned actor turned prospective presidential candidate and heir to the legacy of Ronald Reagan.
For those who aren’t familiar with Old Fred, you might remember him from various supporting roles in movies such as The Hunt for Red October, the second Die Hard movie, and Days of Thunder. He also followed up a stint as a real life Republican senator with a role on Law and Order, and you don't hear "Law and Order" and "Republican" used in the same sentence very often.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Tip your waitress.
Anyway, GOP faithful, as previously alluded to by yours truly, are not particularly enamored with their field of candidates. Now Fred Thompson, without actually having announced his candidacy, has surged to second place in the polls merely by acknowledging that he’s considering a run. And so Republicans everywhere are stirred by the idea of a second Ronald Reagan, a conservative actor turned politician who won the White House with folksy charm and promises of small government.
But hang on a minute, dear neo-cons. Time for a history lesson.
There’s a myth among historians and politicos that the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was a shift toward conservatism in this country. And on the surface, that would seem to be accurate. In that election, Reagan won the first of two electoral landslides, solidified Republican control of the South, and paved the way for two Bush presidencies and a long period of Republican control of Congress.
However, it’s not particularly credible to claim a basic philosophical shift among the American people based on those events. Let’s consider how these things happened, what the real lessons are, what they mean for the presidential race of 2008.
Presidential elections that feature an incumbent president are inevitably a referendum on that particular president’s performance in office. This is always the case. Even the election of 1976 was a referendum on the incumbent, even though the president in question, Gerald Ford, had never been elected to that office in the first place. So 1980, fundamentally, was about Jimmy Carter.
Anyone who was alive at the time or has read about that period in American history knows that the Carter presidency didn’t go well. The economy was in terrible shape, there was a resurgence of the energy crisis, American citizens were held hostage in Iran for over a year. But the larger problem for Carter was the lack of confidence he inspired in the American people. He could get re-elected despite a poor first term (George W. Bush, anyone?) – in fact, no elected president had failed of re-election since 1928. But he could only win a second term if A) people still believed in him or B) they just couldn’t pull the lever for the other guy.
In 1980, people just wanted a president to rely on again. They hadn’t had one since Eisenhower: Kennedy got killed two years into his term, LBJ led us into a disastrous war (George W. Bush, anyone?) Nixon disgraced the office (George W. Bush, anyone?) and Gerry Ford proved to be an ineffectual administrator (George W. B.... ah, never mind. You get the idea.) And Jimmy Carter, for all his decency, for all his hard work, was not the answer. So there was an opportunity for Reagan.
It’s often difficult to see clearly through the haze of time past. Presidents and other public figures leave office, resentments fade, nostalgia develops, and their image changes. It’s true for both Carter and Reagan. The late former president is regarded differently now than he was in 1979. Back then, many people wondered if Ronald Reagan was dangerous. He had made frequently reckless and uninformed comments about foreign policy and the use of nuclear weapons. Many wondered whether he might start World War III if elected.
Granted, Reagan’s image as a potential warmonger was the creation of his political opponents; Barry Goldwater was undone the same way. But the point is that was his image as he began his campaign for the presidency, fair or not. He spent much of the 1980 campaign persuading voters through charm and affability that he was a safe choice. He did that because all he needed to do to win, and win big, was to be a safe choice. Reagan didn’t win in 1980 because of some seismic shift toward conservatism. Ronald Reagan won because he wasn’t Jimmy Carter.
What does all of this have to do with Fred Thompson, you may ask? It’s simple. Thompson can’t fulfill some sort of political Arthurian legend and pull the sword from the stone if Arthur never existed. So if there was no great shift toward conservative philosophy, then the only Reagan legacy that Fred Thompson could lay claim to would be this: He would be, in the minds of many, a suitable alternative for the average voter who just couldn’t bring himself to vote for the other guy. Or girl, in this case.....
