It probably started when folks started using “Republican” as an epithet, well –when conservatives started using “Republican” as an epithet. Then, of course, we have the economy, the “new” talk of conservation, and the open-war on Jews and Israel. But it does seem to me like an Obama presidency would be much like Carter’s Second Term. Like Obama, Carter’s primary win was the result of a fractured Democratic party (his Iowa plurality win was the result of a split among support for a wide field of Democratic candidates). Like Obama, Carter utilized pop culture cues to the electorate (e.g., concerts in support of his candidacy from the Allman Brothers and Marshall Tucker bands). And like Obama, Carter promised to present a new way of governing. Apparently I am not the only one to feel this way (see here, here, here, and even here lauding this particular comparison).
Of course, Obama has surrounded himself with some of the remaining Carter era relics, has enjoyed exceptional support from President Carter himself, and has even resurrected Carter’s malaise speech. Carter, by letting the Shah into America, is the one who put radical Islam on its current path (of course, Reagan’s abandonment of Lebanon certainly emboldened our enemies even more). And Democrats should also be forewarned: Carter’s handling of our economy is what led to the complete disintegration of the Democratic Party’s hegemony and the rise of the Reagan era. What kind of backlash will an Obama presidency stir? In Carter’s defense, he inherited one of the worst economies and worst foreign policy situations in the modern era. He, however, made them both much worse.
