Ed Kilgore on the 1972 election analogy

Ed Kilgore also addresses the 1972 analogy to this year's Presidential election in Obama and McGovern 04/23/08. The whole post is good. But I want to call attention to his description of Nixon's electoral strengths in 1972:

The 1972 campaign was waged against an incumbent president whose approval ratings rose steadily throughout the year, and who manipulated both the economy and the Vietnam War ruthlessly and successfully to make himself virtually unbeatable. Obama's running against a Republican struggling to both identify with and separate himself from an incumbent president whose approval ratings will never significantly recover; who's already tried and failed to stimulate the economy; and who has zero chance of credibly declaring before Election Day that "peace is at hand."

It's important to understand the lessons that Republicans learned, or think they learned, from that period. Because it's so decisive to today's Republican "culture war" thinking. And it's also important to the foreign policy conceptions of the neoconservatives. Because to them, it was the "McGovernite" takeover of the Democratic Party that, in their view, drove them to the Republicans.

But we shouldn't fall into the mistake of thinking that their "lessons" necessarily reflect the historical reality. Both "culture warriors" and neocons have an exceptionally, uh, flexible approach to understanding history.

Digby mystery friend she calls Deep Insight observes (Deep Insight Redux Hulabaloo blog 04/23/08):

This is certainly the media's agenda. It is all personality politics and tactics rather than issues for this crowd. The media assumes what the GOP fall attacks will be and then introduces them to the public as “journalism.” No need to change the narrative, just replay the Nixon era debates. It is 1969, and here is the SDS. (my emphasis)

For the Republicans, it seems that "the 60s" will never end.

Tags: ed kilgore, republican party, republicans