The Reagan-Clinton Rule
The Reagan-Clinton rule is something I developed as a way to try and keep myself honest when it came to political discourse and my opinions about political figures. I use the terms Reagan and Clinton because they fit into my generation but any names can be used.
The basic idea is to select on person who you generally agree with and who you generally find to be a good person and one who you tended to disagree with or tended to find a not so good person. You then use it as something of a yardstick to measure if you are being honest when reacting to modern politics.
For example I was and still and an admirer of President Reagan, even if I did not always agree with him on the issues. So when I look to actions by political figures I do not like I ask myself ‘would I still be unhappy or disapprove if Reagan did the same thing.’.
Similarly, while I sometimes agreed with President Clinton I tended to find him a not very admirable figure. So when it comes to actions by people I do like or agree with I ask myself ‘would I approve of this if Clinton did the same thing’. In this way I try to keep myself balanced.
Obviously this rule does not apply to policy issues, since those issues tend to go one way or the other just based on the policy itself. But when it comes to reacting to scandals, both small and large, as well as basic public faux pas events it is quite helpful in keeping you on your toes.
Does anyone else use this rule or a variation of it ?
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I believe Jimmny Cricket had a counterpart character.
Not a bad rule of thumb. I’ll have to try it.
I try to be cynical. Like a politician or not, they are mostly puppets for corporations and special interest groups. Even IF they want to do good for the American public, they still belong to a political party and must tow the party line.
Ironic that I do the same thing with the same 2 presidents, except I respect and admire Bill Clinton and found Ronald Reagan to be respectable but not all that admirable.
beatitudes sermon on the mountain
It’s a good starting point but if people would dig deeper it would help even more. It’s not just about having a ‘favorable’ impression, it’s about trust. Consider examples, for instance, within the same party with which you most identify. A good example for Dems would be the health care bill process; most Dems had no qualms about Obama inviting the health insurance industry to the table but when Blue Dog Dems pushed for certain things they were assumed to be acting in bad faith as they were believed to be in the pocket of this special interest group.
Or when the tape of Obama clearly pandering to black preachers was released- was there the same reaction among Dems as they would have had if seeing a Republican pandering to the religious right? Of course not, because assumptions are baked in, that Obama is not Jesse Jackson while all GOP are assumed to be overly sympathetic to evangelicals even if their record doesn’t back that up.
And from my perspective as a conservative, an example would be foreign policy. i’m not overly concerned about Romney being a neocon because I believe he’s smarter than that, so even if he’s got to position himself to the right of Obama I’m not going to panic about it. (For the record, I don’t think either man has a very coherent foreign policy but at the same time I don’t know what policies would work anyway since there’s so much turmoil and I don’t think the US and our allies have figured out how to negotiate a post Cold War world yet.)
“And from my perspective as a conservative, an example would be foreign policy. i’m not overly concerned about Romney being a neocon because I believe he’s smarter than that, so even if he’s got to position himself to the right of Obama I’m not going to panic about it.”
This is exactly what is wrong with our political system:
Just tell the base, the “believers” what they want to hear, just to win their votes, even if it goes against the candidate’s own beliefs, even if the candidate knows he or she is going to act differently if and when elected — the etch-a-sketch thing. Wow!
(See “Our Next President: The Best Liar?”)
And how are we to know that the candidate is really “smarter than that”?
If we know he is going to change his position, all we know is that he is “shiftier than that.” What a good benchmark to elect a president by.
because that is the only way a Republican can win a nomination.
Well exactly, shannonlee, but that’s why we shrug when we see that Obama went before a black audience and adopted a fake accent and pandered and demagogued to them.
Similarly, Dorian, is there any room for introspection on how much trust a lot of people at TMV place in the Democratic plliticians?
“Similarly, Dorian, is there any room for introspection on how much trust a lot of people at TMV place in the Democratic plliticians?”
Lots of room. That’s why Obama did not do too well during the last debate. He had much more “introspection” than his opponent.
Well it looked to me like introspection was a pretty bitter pill for him to swallow, but it’s in the eye of the beholder I suppose.
Back to topic though, the thread is about the degree of introspection of voters, not the pols thwmselves. Any thoughts on that? Sticking just with Obama, for instance, did a lot of Dem voters not vote for him in spite of his (then) opposition to gay mariage, in part because they didn’t believe him then or at least knew that he mifgt ‘evolve’ on that issue? And would that be an example of what is wrong with our political system today, or not?
CS:
Let me tell you again what I think is wrong with our political system:
Now, I use one example, you use another one. That’s perfectly fine.
Not sure if that means that you agree with both examples or not but I’ll leave it at that.
But although I’m not a fan of pandering, I disagree with you on the extent to which this is the problem wit our system. It’s a bug and not a feature, certainly….but an inevitable one in a two party system. It would be impossible for a candidate to garner support of a majority of voters on a whole range of issues….so while he’s sure to find some people who agree with him on A, B, and C, the same folks might disagree on D….while other blocks of voters are going to see things his way on A and C but not B and D…etc. Electability means reassuring the people who agree with you on some of the issues that you are not their enemy on others.
It’s up to voters to decipher when the pandering goes too far, or when it is used to cover up the fact that a particular candidate really won’t govern in a way that he/she believes is correct.
Mine goes back to the ‘Old Ones’…. How well does a prospective candidate stand guard for the Earth, the elders, and the children? …. It really is that simple for me…
As both sides have said this is the choice between “bigger” or “smaller” government and how to direct the economy.
I disagree with most of the Reps positions on abortion, sabre rattling, gun control, the environment and other of the tertiary issues, and yet I will still vote Rep because of the main issue and some others that I do agree with.