The 1980 election illustrates why we have to take these people seriously...

[steve2470]

Yes, the economy was not doing well. Yes, Carter had had some failures. However, anyone in their right mind in November 1980 KNEW that Carter was head and shoulders above Reagan in almost every category. Reagan might have won the category of public speaking, big deal.

I've always voted for the Democrat in Presidential elections, no matter how bad the economy was or how bad our candidate was. I've always known that the Democratic Party, in general, is more favorable to social justice than the Republicans.

I don't know of any survey data on this, but I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of likely registered voters have no clue that the Democrats will, in general, offer them a better deal in terms of social justice than the Republicans (unless you're filthy rich).

The 1980 election illustrates perfectly that we on the left should, at the bare minimum, monitor these threats from the other side. We have to take them seriously. Reagan was such a GD joke to me. He won twice, legally as far as I know. He beat Mondale in 1984, who actually had the guts to propose a tax increase. Yes, politically speaking it was probably a very bad move, but at least he had some guts to contemplate it.

[Skittles]

1. I'll never understand how reagan fooled SO many people

for SO LONG; that bastard made greed and idiocy fashionable and America has never truly recovered from the turn it took during those years

[steve2470]

2. agreed nt

[mrcheerful]

3. It was rather easy, he told them what they wanted to hear and he was very good at

playing into their beliefs. Then the media, instead of a fair and balanced account of Reagan they printed the myth's. People in Cali were screaming loudly that Reagan was a lying thief as under handed as Nixon, the media said ignore them they are upset because Reagan balanced Cali's budget. What they left out was one of the ways he balanced the budget, he forced the release of Cali mentally ill onto the streets declaring there was no such thing as mental illness.

He was also using code words like welfare queen generations, meaning black single mothers. Where he got the generations of welfare queens baffled the hell out of me as the welfare system he was talking about had only been in place less then 10 years, it started during Nixons term, around the same time Nixon started the SSI agency. Though Reagan and the media claimed that it was an LBJ feed the poor program, it was Nixon that made the sweeping changes that Reagan claimed.

He also played the blame game rather well, the reason folks were losing jobs and the inflation was high was because of Carter and the unions stopping workers from working. After all Reagan was president of a union so he must have insight on how unions worked and besides everybody had the same chance at getting filthy rich as the Rockerfellers. Another group that had a part to play in this was the religious nuts who after 50 years of hiding and breeding were an untapped resource. Reagan was able to pander to their belief's that it was heathens that were running the country into the ground.

[Skittles]

4. I guess since I saw easily him for what he was when I was only 22

it forever boggles my mind that people actually fell for his garbage

[steve2470]

8. thanks for your detailed info btw nt

[LARED]

5. Humm

Social justice will not win you elections. Democrats should look at the Carter years to avoid the same things the killed off his Presidency. Stagflation, very high interest rates, high tax rates on unearned income, etc

I like Carter but there is much to learn about what not to do.

[customerserviceguy]

10. There is a lot to learn, indeed

I've been reading the Time magazine archives during the Carter administration's time, looking for comparisons and contrasts to the time we live in today. Clearly, enough Democratic voters were fed up with Carter by 1980 to enable Ted Kennedy to make a run at the nomination.

If we take the drubbing that I expect we will get in the fall, will the same thing happen to Barack Obama?

[fasttense]

6. Ronnie Raygun won the election because he made a deal with terrorists.

When the terrorist took our citizens as hostages in Iran, Ronnie's thugs made a deal to NOT release the hostages until Ronnie boy was our idiot President.

Why else would the hostages have been released at the very second Idiot Ronnie Boy raised his right hand?

There were many, many rumors about the deal during the campaign but Carter never addressed it head on, so people just kind of shrugged it off. Now, there is much more evidence to indicate the deal was made.

Carter should have investigated and held out the evidence of the RepubliCONS traitorous behavior. But instead he pretended not to believe it.

[Enthusiast]

7. Yeah, candidate Carter

refused to believe that Reagan, a man leading in the polls for President of the United States of America, could be a part of something so fundamentally against the very foundation of our democracy.

Imagine, this is how the GOP "Reagan Revolution" began, with subterfuge and lies. And the subterfuge and lies continue to this very day.

Sometimes I think that liberals are disposed to believe the best of people. Often this is foolhardy in the extreme as illustrated by the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004.

[seattle_blue]

12. You are oh so correct

Lightning can strike twice...There could be some sort of drummed up crisis to make Obama look bad and that the only saviour is republican candidate ----. Yes it could happen. I'm not saying that the hostage crisis was drummed up, but there is tons of evidence that prove that the Reagan cabal was working behind the scenes to insure that the hostages would not be released during Carter's Presidency, all you have to do is look it up.

[AndyA]

9. What was it that Will Rogers said? There's a fool born every minute?

And most of them are registered Republicans.

Reagan caught their attention in the 80s, and Limpballs, Beck, Bachmann, and Palin have it now.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. Just for contrast, I grew up in CA with Gov Ronnie

And none of us found him to be a joke when he ran for President. He'd been Gov of CA, twice. Full terms. He had done that through a huge political machine that had created him first as solution to film industry rules they wanted changed. Years were spent developing Ron. Before he ever ran for Gov, even.
So not to be rude or anything, but personally, I was highly motivated against Reagan from the start, millions were, and this idea that he was discounted 'like Palin' or that he was like her in other ways is simply not accurate. He was my nemesis, but he had a thousand times the skills she does. And he had proven them over and over again. In films, TV, then in hundreds of political speeches, as President of Screen Actor's Guild, then as Governor of CA. He had chops she lacks. Many.