Ground Game

Barack Obama stirs up a fair amount of controversy with the netroots over this video interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, in which he compares himself to former president Ronald Reagan.

Obama notes that Reagan fundamentally changed the course of the nation at a time when the public wanted, and perhaps, needed dramatic change in the nation’s outlook and fortunes. Of course, this greatly upsets some left-leaning bloggers and their readers for Obama’s attempt to connect himself to the most powerful modern symbol of the conservative movement.

Open Left’s Matt Stoller calls it “extremely disturbing.”

Matthew Yglesias urges calm, I think correctly, by noting that Obama was talking about the transformational possibilities of a Democratic leader on the level that Reagan was instrumental for his side; not about embracing conservative policies.

But there’s one more comparison in the interview other bloggers seem to have missed: Obama didn’t just compare himself to Reagan and compare Reagan favorably to Clinton – he lumped in Clinton with Richard Nixon as presidents who failed to invoke meaningful change:

“I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way Richard Nixon did not and in a way that President Clinton did not.”

You don’t hear much debate about Nixon’s historical legacy as a failed leader on “change." At least, I don't. So, is it pure coincidence, or a tactical shot, that Obama decided to throw in the only other recent president to face possible impeachment into the Clinton portion of his answer?