With gas prices at record highs, confidence in government at record lows and an unpopular war dragging into its sixth year, the 2008 election is looking more like an episode of “That ’70s Show.”
Forget the comparisons of John McCain to George W. Bush. The Republican presidential candidate’s real challenge is to avoid looking like another Gerald Ford. For his part, Democrat Barack Obama must takes pains not be seen as the next Jimmy Carter.
Carter’s media adviser, Gerald Rafshoon, sees strong parallels between 2008 and the 1970s.
“I’ve never seen the numbers so bad, in terms of right track/wrong track, in terms of people’s confidence in government,” Rafshoon told The Examiner. “We’ve got an unpopular war, we’ve got a horrible economy. All institutions seem to be under siege now.”
The Associated Press recently began a dispatch with the apocalyptic question: “Is everything spinning out of control?” Conservatives mocked the wire service for hyperventilating about “a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country’s sturdy conviction.”
Still, there is no denying polls that show most Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. And although the economy is not in a recession, McCain adviser Phil Gramm was pilloried last week for describing the economic slowdown as merely a “mental recession” exacerbated by “whiners.”
Craig Shirley, who raised money for Ronald Reagan’s successful presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984, observed that “all elections are unique and all elections are similar.” He said this election could also be compared to the one in 1968, which was played out in the 1970s.
“After all, you have an unpopular Texan [LBJ] leaving the White House after presiding over an unpopular war. Middle America is in flux and frustrated and angry. The economy in bad shape.
“You have a Southern, third-party candidate — whether it’s George Wallace or Bob Barr — potentially threatening the establishment. And then you have Hubert Humphrey as John McCain, bogged down in defending the status quo, versus Richard Nixon, who was, believe it or not, the change agent in 1968.”
In a comparison that will give Obama’s supporters heartburn, Shirley suggested that the Democrat is reprising Nixon’s role. “Nixon had a secret plan to end the war. He was going to give voice to the silent majority. He was all about ideas, with an army of thinkers working for him.”
Why would anyone actually want to be president during a period of such “malaise,” to reprise a term from the 1970s? Analysts said this is the besttime for a new commander in chief to take over because things can only improve and then the new president can claim the credit.
Which is essentially what presidents have been doing for centuries.
So much for the 2008 election being all about “change for the future.”
