Obama: Another McGovern or Another Carter

Andrew Busch makes a plausible claim that Barack Obama is more like Jimmy Carter than George McGovern. 

And, like Carter, despite his flaws, he is still the odds-on favorite to win the presidency in November. Republicans have not gone into a presidential election facing such stiff headwinds since—well, 1976. On Election Day of that year, Carter squeaked by Gerald Ford after possessing a large set of objective advantages. Obama, should he go on to win the Democratic nomination, will go into the election with at least as large a set of objective advantages. (snip)

Not least, like Carter, Obama will inherit a difficult world, filled with inflationary pressures, recessionary tendencies, energy challenges, and an evolving cast of dangerous enemies of the United States who require taming. He has not yet put forward proposals that harbor a significant probability of success in meeting any of those challenges. To the contrary, he offers a Carterish stew of big government at home and naïveté abroad. We all know how that turned out.

This strikes one as highly plausible.  I recently pondered why Obama, who is almost without a doubt the most left-wing candidate ever nominated by a major party, remains relatively popular despite the fact that his views are far outside the mainstream.  As in 1976, voters are sufficiently dejected as to read their aspirations for change into the candidate who most eloquently mouths such pieties. Thus we are set to elect someone greatly inexperienced and perhaps woefully naive about the ways of the world. 

For thoughtful consideration of the Obama phenomenon see Leon Wieseltier and most especially Peter Meyers, who presents a studied reflection on Barack Obama, race, class, and his view of America.  Just one snippet:

In Obama’s populist vision, unity is at best partial and secured by a spirit of division. In a thoughtful discussion of black nationalism in Dreams, he wonders whether genuine self-respect among blacks depends upon hatred of whites, and he answers No. He never directly addresses the analogous question whether working-class and middle-class solidarity and security depend upon animosity toward the upper classes, but the scattered indications he provides point to an affirmative answer. Then and now, the premise of Obama’s economic populism appears to be class conflict. Having grown beyond the black-nationalist critique represented by Rev. Wright and others, he seems to affirm in its place its close cousin, the class-based critique upon which Du Bois and the later King (each inclined to demonize American capitalists) ultimately ran aground.