Ramesh Ponnuru on 2008 campaign: In Carter's Shadow

TIME (Magazine) ^ | May. 28, 2008 | Ramesh Ponnuru

[NutCrackerBoy]

The ghost of Jimmy Carter is haunting the 2008 campaign. Well, let me restate that: the ghost of his presidency haunts the 2008 campaign. As for Carter, he certainly has not passed on; he is an active freelance diplomat and campaign consultant. In recent days he has told Hillary Clinton to "give it up" in June and estimated the size of Israel's nuclear stockpile. (Other previous Presidents have kept tactfully silent about its very existence.) Earlier, both John McCain and Barack Obama had felt compelled to denounce Carter's meeting with representatives of Hamas. Carter's almost predictable intrusions into the news have done little to sway events, but they have conjured memories of a past that the current President and his two would-be successors are trying not to repeat.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Obama and McCain will spend the fall fighting to be the 44th President. Both they and Bush will also fight to avoid any comparisons with the 39th. -Ramesh Ponnuru

[NutCrackerBoy]

When Carter won in 1976, Democrats thought they had gotten a new lease on life. Democrats ran the White House and Congress, and the congressional leadership was more liberal than ever before. But Carter's win was an anomaly in a nation that was at the time moving rightward. Carter had eked out a paper-thin victory only because of Watergate, stagflation and defeat in Vietnam. McCain might win a narrow victory this year by running away from his party, but conservatism is fading now as liberalism was fading in the '70s. -Ramesh Ponnuru

It's speculation. The situation is dynamic. The current leftward drift may turn out to be slight. I don't see a tidal wave of liberalism coming. Anericans will reject "nannyism".