[FoRK] Barack’s Cool Pop

[Stephen D. Williams]

http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/51166/
> Then he snapped off a couplet that you’ll likely soon be hearing ad 
> nauseam: “Back in 1980, Ronald Reagan asked the electorate whether you 
> were better off than you were four years ago. At the pace things are 
> going right now, you’re going to have to ask whether you’re better off 
> than you were /four weeks /ago!”

> Others pushed Obama to embrace a full-throated, John Edwardsy brand of 
> populism. But every time he tried to play that game—notably around the 
> Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries, when he suddenly started trashing 
> every free-trade deal in sight—it proved ineffective, mainly because 
> he plainly didn’t believe a word he was saying.

> On the other hand, the specter of another Great Depression may keep 
> the electorate focused on what really matters. Certainly it did back 
> in 1932. “When times are good, people say they want someone like them 
> to be president, but when times are bad, they want someone who can 
> solve the problems, no matter how unlike them he is,” says the Obama 
> confidant. “FDR was hardly a fucking man of the people, you know?”