Candidates Focusing on the Past

Bloomberg has noted that the 2008 presidential candidates on both sides of the political spectrum have been relied on themes from past when conveying their stance on issues. For Republicans this means Ronald Reagan and a return to Reaganomics when talking about the economy and government spending.

A return to the ideas that drove policy under Reagan is just what the Republican Party needs, says Bob Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a Washington-based group that advocates fiscal restraint. “The Bush administration has embraced a kind of big-government conservatism,” he says. “If that sounds like an oxymoron, it is.”

For Hillary Clinton it has been about recalling her husband’s record on taxes and other issues but distancing herself from his support of free trade and NAFTA as the Democratic party has moved more towards protectionism:

In her role as First Lady from 1993 to 2001, Hillary Clinton held out trade as a solution, not a problem. “The simple fact is, nations with free-market systems do better,” she said in a 1997 speech to the Corporate Council on Africa. “Look around the globe: Those nations which have lowered trade barriers are prospering more than those that have not.”

Since Bill Clinton left office, Americans have soured on free trade. In a January Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll, 41 percent of respondents said trade had hurt the economy, while 28 percent said it had helped. Among Democrats, the margin was 39 percent to 18 percent. In a 1997 Los Angeles Times poll, 39 percent of respondents said trade helped the economy.

Even John Edwards has gotten into the retro game with his ‘war on poverty,’ which recalls heavily the views and rhetoric of RFK’s 1968 presidential campaign