Fred Hiatt: We've Seen These Political Debates Before
[Fred Hiatt is the editorial page editor of the Washington Post.]
Politicians always like to assure us that our future lies before us. But in this midterm election they seem increasingly pointed toward the past.
On the Republican side, the reigning model remains Ronald Reagan, who was elected president three decades ago. Reagan blithely showed that government can't cut taxes without increasing deficits, but that hasn't discouraged GOP candidates from recycling his discredited fairy-tale economics this fall.
A hot issue for some Republicans is the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, ending people's right to elect their senators and returning that task to state legislatures. Repeal would take us back to 1913. Then there are Republican candidates, such as Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, who would let schools teach the creationism myth. That would take us back to, oh, 1859, when Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species."
By contrast, the Democrats go back only a couple of years when they seek to turn the election into a referendum on an ex-president these days seen mostly at Texas Rangers playoff games. They go back another century or so when they cast the election as the little guy against "Big Banks, Big Oil, and Big Insurance companies," as Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently wrote in a fundraising letter, and never mind the donations Democrats happily took from "Big Oil" and "Big Banks" when the D's were comfortably in the majority....
Read entire article at WaPo
Politicians always like to assure us that our future lies before us. But in this midterm election they seem increasingly pointed toward the past.
On the Republican side, the reigning model remains Ronald Reagan, who was elected president three decades ago. Reagan blithely showed that government can't cut taxes without increasing deficits, but that hasn't discouraged GOP candidates from recycling his discredited fairy-tale economics this fall.
A hot issue for some Republicans is the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, ending people's right to elect their senators and returning that task to state legislatures. Repeal would take us back to 1913. Then there are Republican candidates, such as Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, who would let schools teach the creationism myth. That would take us back to, oh, 1859, when Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species."
By contrast, the Democrats go back only a couple of years when they seek to turn the election into a referendum on an ex-president these days seen mostly at Texas Rangers playoff games. They go back another century or so when they cast the election as the little guy against "Big Banks, Big Oil, and Big Insurance companies," as Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently wrote in a fundraising letter, and never mind the donations Democrats happily took from "Big Oil" and "Big Banks" when the D's were comfortably in the majority....