PrintSeptember 11, 2009
Win one by being like the Gipper
Rasmussen reports that all political labels are trending negative except one.
"Liberal" is still the worst and remains the only political description that is viewed more negatively than positively. Being like Reagan is still the most positive thing you can say about a candidate.
It also seems that the left's re-labeling attempt is failing.
Aware of their low ideological ratings, political liberals have shifted in recent times to calling themselves progressives, but that name, too, has begun to lose its luster. Thirty-two percent (32%) now consider it a positive to describe a candidate as politically progressive, but that's down from 40% just after the last election. Twenty-seven percent (27%) see it as negative label, up from 16%, and 36% put it somewhere in between the two.
As Scott Rasmussen noted in a Wall Street Journal column last fall, Barack Obama campaigned a lot like Ronald Reagan. He had a lot of assistance in that effort from a media that refused to look beyond the campaign rhetoric to the reality of Obama's past positions on the issues and his radical left wing associates. Now Obama is governing like Jimmy Carter and sounding more bitter by the speech and voters are getting restless.
Some in the Republican Party have been saying for several years that it was time for candidates to stop trying to position themselves like Ronald Reagan. That the voters wanted something different and we needed as a party to move past Reagan. At it turns out, a great many voters don't want something different.
Reagan never sounded bitter or partisan. He made a point of inviting Tip O'Neill and Dan Rostenkowski to the White House on a regular basis. Barack Obama doesn't even talk to Republican congressional leaders for months about crucial issues. Nor did Reagan ever respond to petty provocation and piling on by the media, and there were many times the press bayed like a pack of addle-brained hounds that he needed to back off or even apologize. (The Evil Empire speech comes immediately to mind.) But while largely ignoring the disdain of the chattering class, Reagan also didn't turn the other cheek when faced with attacks by political rivals that he thought were unfair or mendacious. He deflected them with an unflappable wit that made the accuser look small whiling underscoring the validity of his position.
While few have Reagan's grace or wit, the lesson remains valid to never let the slings and arrows of the media keep you from a pursuit of the truth. It may take a while for voters to see through the media fog, but eventually they do tend to come to the right conclusions about political leaders. That is one reason that despite the ongoing disdain of most of the chattering class, Reagan's popularity grew while he was in office. It is also the reason that both interest in all things Obama and political support for his agenda has been melting away.
