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12 THE COUNTERREVOLUTION PROCEEDS We often as not elect presidents who appear to be the opposites—in temperament , personality, approach to public policy—of immediate predecessors considered unsuccessful by the electorate. Franklin Roosevelt,in 1932,made economic-policy proposals even more conservative than President Herbert Hoover’s, as a nation looked for leadership to climb out of a Great Depression. Yet his determined, optimistic disposition, contrasting with Hoover’s comparatively flat, bureaucratic approach, gave voters undefined hope that positive change would take place. Only later did Roosevelt, through trial and error, develop his New Deal approach to governance. In the end it took World War II to pull the country out of its economic doldrums. Similarly, a former war-hero general, Dwight Eisenhower, succeeded a president, Harry Truman, associated with an unpopular (Korean) war he seemed unable to end.Eisenhower,moreover,had a“command presence”not possessed by the populist Truman, and certainly not by Eisenhower’s 1952 opponent,Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson.His vague pledge to“go to Korea” was enough in the 1952 presidential campaign to help him win decisively. By 1960,voters were restive about a stagnant domestic economy and what increasingly was perceived as a lazy, caretaker Republican administration. Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard Nixon, lacked Eisenhower’s popularity and was given only token endorsement, in any case, by his boss. John F. Kennedy,pledging to“get America moving again,”won a razor-thin and controversial victory over Nixon. Kennedy’s comparative vigor—pronounced “vigah” by the candidate in a broad Boston accent—gave the impression, as Roosevelt’s had in 1932, that more energetic times lay ahead. Kennedy, in taking a harder-line position than Nixon on international aªairs, neutralized Republicans’traditional political advantage on defense and foreign policy issues and made the candidates’ personal styles a decisive factor. Nixon’s narrow 1968 victory over Humphrey was facilitated in part by his pledge—comparable to Eisenhower’s 1952 pledge to “go to Korea”—that 181 he had a firm if undisclosed plan to end the Vietnam War. Polling data also had indicated that the American people thought the Johnson-Humphrey years had brought too much welfare-state government to the country. Nixon, in contrast, oªered more traditional less-government-is-best Republican approaches,and also,via shorthand messages,implied that Democrats’active advocacy of racial minorities would be blunted. Carter’s 1976 message that he was “not a politician” but merely a patriotic peanut farmer resonated among voters disenchanted with what they saw as the constant political maneuverings of professional politicians Johnson and Nixon, and then further disillusioned by President Ford’s pardon of Nixon. But by 1980,they were prepared for someone and something as far from Carter as they could find. They associated the Carter years with energy shortages, long lines at gasoline stations, high inflation and interest rates, the failed Iran hostage rescue mission, and Carter’s talk of a “national malaise” in which he blamed citizens, rather than himself, for the country’s failure to act on a public agenda largely centered on limits. Reagan’s sunny growth-uber-alles optimism provided exactly the contrast they were looking for. Reagan proposed to strengthen defense, cut taxes, generate prosperity, reduce big government, and,notleast,makethecountryfeelgoodaboutitselfagain. Ashishero,Franklin Roosevelt, had been the anti-Hoover, Reagan was the anti-Carter. Democrats had taken Reagan too lightly as a candidate and leader.They discounted his largely successful tenure as governor of California and tended to see him as nothing more than an aphorism-spouting, if personally charming ,movie actor who would be overcome by serious national governance.They also had forgotten that, as a onetime liberal and Screen Actors Guild president , he knew the context of voters outside the Republican base. Reagan soon proved to be a highly skillful national politician and leader. His 1980 campaign rhetoric—while often directed against 1960s Great Society programs—generally lauded the New Deal initiatives of Roosevelt, although this went largely unnoticed by the media.He took care,too,to treat gently the universal,Roosevelt-style programs while taking aim at more narrowly directed federal programs. He ridiculed so-called “welfare queens” for refusing to work while living oª the public dole, but drew into his orbit senior citizens benefiting from Social Security. Reagan’s greatest substantive blunder, early in his term, came when he struck a deal with House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a fellow genial Irishman, whereby Reagan would get his requested...

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