IMO, the low taxs and the stimulus effect of heavy military spending greatly increased teh economic recovery.
If I comment, someone will yell at me, but it was Volcker that created the recovery. I'll budge and let you say that other stuff allowed a boom, but Volcker is the one who deserves credit for the initial thing.
Perhaps true about the economy, but I think your wrong about the foriegn policy stuff. Someone will draw attention to it. I recall Carter taking a beating over the Panama Canal Zone, "losing" Nicaragua and the Salt treaties.
I think you're misunderstanding me a bit here. Those were things Carter was actually involved in and/or had attention paid to US involvement in. I'm talking about things he'd just let slide under the table. Lack of doing is not the same as doing in a Presidency here, because the former doesn't draw criticism half the time because not a lot of people focus on something that doesn't exist in a place they could care less about. I'll give you an example; say there's a civil war in some small Asian country in 1992. If the President prioritizes that, discusses it, lends aid to the favored side, there can be all sorts of criticism and derision to come if he fails and public focus. And that civil war will become a memorable part of US history and generations will recall involvement and blah. If he ignores it and it can be ignored, the public won't focus on it, the media won't focus on it, and it'll fade away and no one will have given a damn. If he mutes discussion to boot, all the better for distracting any focus on it. Or at least that's what you could get away with before the information age.
You know, something else that occurrs to me. I've heard more socially conservative people discuss that they feel that their activism is a response to an agressive secularization of society were not only their interests, but their participation is/was under attack.
Another Carter term leading to a more liberal Court could spur this feeling on.
Or conversly, if we lost Carter and got a more socially conservative president this backlast could be avoided.
My problem here is that I think a lot of you folks see the Conservative movement taking charge of the political scene as inevitable, which I disagree it was. Elements existed that would later form a foundation for the Reagan Revolution (white anger at the Civil rights movement; middle America's wanting to end the chaos of the last few years before the 1980's; disillusion on all fronts) but the Conservative movement funneled those more so than those being principally and actively interested in the Conservative movement. Or at least that's the vibe I get from the history there.
A moderate who does not give people reason to vote for him again. A ok economy, a slightly stronger but still defensive posture to the SU, acceptance of social "progress".
I could see him as a one termer.
Simple competence is a powerful tool in retaining the Presidency. A "Caretaker President" isn't glamorous but they also don't give too much of a reason to vote against them.
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I'm interested here on another point. Firstly, and this is a small issue, I'm interested in what Romney's positions and political opinion would be. As I said earlier, I believe a lot of those Republicans influenced by Reagan and party doctrine to be Conservatives would reflect the more varied factionalism of the GOP before Reagan were the Conservative Revolution never to have come about. Similarly, while my knowledge of Romney is limited, if I recall correctly he's at least relatively Conservative whereas his father was a Rockefeller Republican. So therefore, would his views reflect more his father's faction?
Secondly (and I know this deviates from the topic a bit, but it has my interest), as the Reagan Revolution deals not just with the rise of the Conservatives in the GOP, but Conservatism as a whole, what would become of those media and radio figures of a decidedly Conservative ideology?