Dems Haunted by Revived Stereotypes By David Paul Kuhn
Election Day 1988 was only days away. Ronald Reagan was headlining a rally in Nevada. He said the options were the same as "when I stood before you." Reagan framed the Democratic "choice" as one for "liberal policies of tax and spend, economic stagnation, international weakness, accommodation, and always, always blame America first."
Reagan-era framing is regaining its relevance. Fair or not, liberalism's worst stereotypes have returned from the dead to haunt Democrats. "Tax and spend liberal," it's back with the charge of being soft on security threats – a claim that dogged Democrats from debates over crime to the Soviets to terrorism.
Democrats branding deteriorated across the board from November 2008 to the close of 2009, according to the McClatchy-Ipsos poll.
A January AP-GfK poll found that 59 percent of Americans expected their taxes to still rise "a lot" or "a little" under the Obama administration. One year earlier, only 35 percent said the same. The portion of adults who believed their taxes would rise "a lot" had also doubled in that period, from 17 to 33 percent.
In March 2009, 32 percent said Obama was an "old style tax-and-spend Democrat" in the ABC News/Washington Post poll. By July, 43 percent believed the same. The question has not been asked since. But it's a reasonable guess, amid lost ground on related issues, that more adults would likely apply the term to Obama today. Then there is the return of "socialist" as a rhetorical dodge ball, evoking mid-twentieth century framing wars.
Read the rest: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/02/04/dems_haunted_by_revived_stereotypes__100155.html
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