Bayou blowout: Rick Santorum, you're no Ronald Reagan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you missed it -- because, you know, you may have been enjoying the weekend or something, maybe spending time with the family, maybe watching March Madness, whatever -- Rick Santorum won yesterday's Louisiana primary by a convincing 22-point margin over Rommey, 49 to 27, with Gingrich in third at 16 and Paul bringing up the rear with 6.

Santorum is making it out to be a significant victory:

Fresh off a big win in Louisiana, Rick Santorum insisted Sunday that Republicans are rejecting the premise that rival Mitt Romney has virtually locked up the GOP presidential nomination.

"Even though a lot of folks are saying this race is over, people in Louisiana said, 'No, it's not,'" Santorum said on the CBS program "Face the Nation" about victory in Saturday's Bayou State primary.

But of course it is, pretty much:

The win gave Mr. Santorum a much-needed psychological boost but it will be unlikely to change the dynamics of the race. Only 20 delegates were up for grabs on Saturday, with 26 more to be allocated later. Even if Mr. Santorum were to claim most of them, he would still have only half the delegates that Mitt Romney, his chief rival, already has.

Mr. Romney's win last week in Illinois, as well as his subsequent endorsement by Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, dimmed Mr. Santorum's political prospects, although his victory in Louisiana showed how he could still complicate Mr. Romney's efforts to capture the 1,144 delegates needed for the nomination.

In a fund-raising letter sent out Saturday night, Mr. Santorum said the results in Louisiana had sent "shock waves" through the political world.

"Tonight with our strong victory in Louisiana, our campaign has now won 11 states, tying a record and proving we can win in the West, South and Midwest," the letter said. "Not since Ronald Reagan in 1976 has a conservative candidate won as many states as we have."

As I've written many times, I'm an enthusiastic supporter of Rick Santorum. He's a crazy extremist and just the sort of person Republicans should nominate, the ideal opponent for President Obama. (I say that as a Democrat, of course.) But come on. It's over.

Sure, the race will go on, for now, but Romney is now well ahead nationally, with his support going up significantly since his win in Illinois last Tuesday.

And while the calendar, with a three-week gap between contests in April, hurts Romney insofar as he'll have to wait even longer to wrap this up (in terms of public perception, if not necessary in terms of the actual delegate count), the upcoming contests will only push him further into the lead. He'll likely win all three on April 3 (Maryland, D.C., Wisconsin -- yes, in Wisconsin he's surged into the lead) and then all five on April 24 (New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware -- yes, I think he'll win Pennsylvania even though it's Santorum's home state). If he's still be in the race, Santorum could win subsequent contests in Indiana, North Carolina, and West Virginia on May 8, but it'll be done by then. Romney has the math on his side, and ultimately the powers that be in the GOP will do whatever they need to do to end this thing ASAP.

As for Santorum's win in Louisiana, there were no "shock waves." He was expected to win there, just as he's done well throughout the social conservative Deep South. Big deal. We know he can win those states, but they're states Romney will win in November.

This is to take nothing away from him. Look, he came out of a distant nowhere, an embarrassing also-ran who looked like he'd never win anything, or even come close, to Romney's chief rival and candidate of the Republican right (and specifically of the party's right-wing grassroots base). I find him appalling on so many levels, but there's no denying what a political phenomenon he's become, if only for a short time in the spring of 2012. (Maybe he's the next Mike Huckabee, with a profitable future as right-wing pundit.)

And 11 wins -- well, that is impressive. But...

2012 isn't 1976.

2016 won't be 1980.

And Rick Santorum isn't Ronald Reagan.

Santorum can be as presumptuously self-aggrandizing as he wants -- I understand why he's trying to make this case, as ridiculous as it is -- but reality is an obstacle he won't be able to overcome.

How Ronald Reagan unwittingly laid the groundwork for the death of capitalism

Guest post by Marc McDonald 

(Ed. note: This is Marc's second guest post at The Reaction. His first, on how Steve Jobs represented much of what's wrong with the U.S. economy today, can be found here. For more of his writing, check out his great blog, Beggars Can be Choosers. -- MJWS)

**********

Marc McDonald is a Texas journalist who runs the progressive political blog Beggars Can Be Choosers. 

Thanks to tireless efforts by historical revisionists over the past two decades, Ronald Reagan has gotten a lot of credit for achievements that he had nothing to do with. "Winning" the Cold War is a good example.

In reality, Reagan's policies had little or nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact, the last thing the Military Industrial Complex ever wanted was to see the Cold War's end (and with it the trillion-dollar gravy train of "defense" contractor funding). 

On the other hand, Reagan should get credit for something that he actually did achieve: laying the groundwork for the death of capitalism as we know it. 

Capitalism had its first near-death experience during the Great Depression. Ironically, it was saved by the most progressive president that the U.S. ever had: Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although attacked by the business community at the time, FDR's New Deal in fact resurrected capitalism and gave it new life. The New Deal created the Great American Middle Class: tens of millions of well-paid workers that actually had the money to buy the products that the system produced. 

It was a wonderful arrangement that made America a superpower and the most envied nation on the planet for decades to come. 

However, America's wealthy never got over their hatred of FDR and the New Deal -- despite the fact the latter saved capitalism from itself. The Rich & Powerful constantly plotted to abolish the New Deal. And in 1980, with Reagan's election, the wealthy class finally saw its chance to begin the attack on the New Deal -- a process that continues to this day. 

Under Reagan, middle-class entitlements were slashed, as were programs to assist the poor. And sweeping changes in tax policy began to favor the very wealthy, at the expense of the middle class and the poor. Also, labor unions and labor laws were gutted. Lastly, under Reagan's disastrous "free trade" policies, America started shipping all its good-paying manufacturing jobs overseas. 

The result of all this was that, under Reagan, the Great American Middle Class began to shrink -- a process that continues to this day. And with a much-weakened middle class, U.S. capitalism has hit a major crisis in that fewer and fewer consumers are able to buy the products that the system produces. 

The latter is a crucial component of capitalism that has long been curiously overlooked by the "free market" Chicago School zealots who've long championed a completely deregulated economy. I find it interesting how these zealots are always so concerned about the plight of the "over-taxed, over-regulated" rich (who they claim are the only necessary ingredient for successful capitalism). 

Of course, what these ivory tower zealots overlook is that capitalism as we know it simply can't function unless there is a strong, prosperous middle class around to buy the products created by the system. 

Although Reagan's policies gutted the U.S. middle class, the resulting devastation to capitalism didn't become readily apparent until much later on. This was because the whole crisis was masked by America's increasing embrace of credit-fueled consumption, which created the mirage of prosperity. 

Under Reagan, America simply stopped paying its bills. The government started borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from the likes of Japan. And consumers increasingly started pulling out their credit cards to pay for purchases, rather than using cash. 

Finally, a series of bubbles came along to further create the illusion that the American economy was much more prosperous that it really was. These included the Dot Com bubble and the more recent housing bubble. 

Of course, the whole Ponzi scheme all came crashing down in 2008. Since then, the U.S. economy has remained on life support. The nation continues to plunge further into debt, even as the U.S. dollar continues to hit new all-time lows. The middle class is all but extinct these days, as are the good-paying jobs that once help make the American economy the mightiest on earth. 

Virtually all of this is a legacy of Reagan's policies. And unlike capitalism's first near-death experience, in the 1930s, it's extremely unlikely that we'll see another FDR ever come along to give the whole system a new lease on life. In our Citizens United era, that's simply not ever going to happen. 

Reagan (or more specifically, his wealthy backers) originally aimed to crush the New Deal and return the U.S. to an unregulated 19th century dog-eat-dog form of capitalism. They hoped that this would propel capitalism to new heights. But by ignoring the key role of middle class consumption in their calculations, they unwittingly severely damaged capitalism itself and turned America into a second-rate power. 

We continue to see the corrosive effects of the Reagan legacy to this day. The serious problems that began to emerge during his presidency (out-of-control fiscal and trade deficits, a shrinking middle class, the loss of good manufacturing jobs, and a plummeting dollar) continue to this day. 

Of course, the wealthy class to this day continues to live in denial that the whole capitalist party is now over. They continue to cling to the hope that the crisis caused by the 2008 economic collapse will eventually be fixed and the capitalism will somehow continue. 

The problem is that the good-paying manufacturing jobs are gone for good. And the much-hyped service economy jobs that were supposed to replace the latter have in fact been poor substitutes, offering vastly lower pay and benefits, for the most part. In fact, to this day, America continues to bleed what few good manufacturing jobs it has left, thanks to the utter absence of any kind of intelligence trade policy. 

What's more, given the ever-weakening dollar and the ever-growing trade and fiscal deficits it faces, America has less and less clout on the world stage. For the entire post-World War II era, America could simply print more dollars to bail itself out of fiscal crises, given that the dollar was the world's international reserve currency. That era, clearly, is near an end. 

With the demise of the dollar, America will be a much weaker and less wealthy nation. For the entire post-World War II era, America has been the standard-bearer for capitalism. With the latter now discredited, it's clear that the rest of the world is increasingly rejecting the U.S. model of economics and is instead turning to the regulated, technocrat-led economies of China and Singapore as the new role model. 

Not only did Reagan's era doom capitalism, but his toxic legacy ensured that America will find it extremely difficult to remedy the crises that resulted from his administration. These range from the deterioration of public education that resulted from Reagan's budget cuts to America's crumbling infrastructure. These two factors alone will make it increasingly difficult for America to compete globally in the years to come. 

But perhaps the most toxic legacy of all was Reagan's abolition of the Fairness Doctrine. This ensured that America's mainstream media would increasingly do little more than parrot the official corporate line. Americans today are hopelessly misinformed on the issues these days. And a nation that is misinformed is going to find it difficult to ever take the necessary steps needed to fix the crises unleashed by Reagan's policies.

Some jokes never get old

By Richard K. Barry

Behind the Ad: Pro-Romney super PAC says Gingrich is no Ronald Reagan

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our "Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: Restore Our Future, a Super PAC supporting former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's bid for the GOP presidential nomination. (Romney attacks Gingrich.)

Where: Florida.

What's going on: The Super PAC is taking issue with Newt Gingrich's frequent mentions of Ronald Reagan. According to The New York Times' Nate Silver, Gingrich has actually dropped Reagan's name 55 times in the various nomination debates. As The Washington Post describes it, it is sometimes to honor one of the leading figures of modern conservatism, but it is also to claim that he, Gingrich, had worked closely with the former president.

On the latter point, the ad takes aim at the claim that the two men were at all close, stating that Reagan only mentioned Gingrich once in his diaries and there only to criticize him for his ideas that would "cripple our defense program."

Given how much Newt likes to present himself as a student of history, it seems rather sweet that the ad portrays this sanctimonious twit as little more than a footnote of the Reagan years. My guess is that poking fun at Gingrich's self-importance is not a bad approach. The more we see of him, the more this is likely to become his Achilles heel. Is there any conservative "success" for which he won't take credit? I give the ad two thumbs up.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The rush to disown George W. Bush

By Richard K. Barry

Remember me?

One of the more amazing bits of nonsense that comes out of the mouths of Republican presidential candidates is their claim that President Obama is responsible for the poor state of the economy. We've all heard them say it time and again. It's as if they really think we all forgot the kind of shape the country was in when Obama took over from George W. Bush.

You remember George W. Bush? Or maybe you don't. If you've been watching the GOP debates you can be forgiven if the name of the man who ran the country before Obama is becoming a distant memory.

Yes, for those who count such things, George W. Bush's name has been uttered a mere 56 times by all candidates in the 16 major debates that have happened thus far.

President Obama's name has been mentioned a whopping 560 times.
But, what's even more interesting, as The Washington Post reports:

That's not to say that the candidates didn't have a Republican president at the tip of their tongues. Ronald Reagan, dead these last seven years and whose White House tenure ended nearly a quarter-century ago, by contrast, is a favorite topic -- surprise, surprise -- of the GOP debaters.

They invoked his name 221 times.

Even George H.W. Bush got only two mentions in the debates meaning that Republicans have to go back over 24 years to find a GOP president they are willing to talk about publicly.

I recognize that there is no upside for Republicans to hitch their wagon to the pathetic legacy of "W," but do they really think the rest of us will just forget simply because they are all hoping we will choose to pay no attention to the man responsible for the current fiasco?

As H.W. would say, "not gonna happen."

The electorate may have a short attention span, but I'm assuming that Obama and his campaign team will have no difficulty reminding voters how we got where we are, who was driving the bus at the time and how hard it's been to get back on the road to recovery because of previous GOP incompetence.

You can count on it.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)