Let's leave aside Reagan's astounding accomplishments in actually getting his ideas implemented, and the great political and cultural revolution they produced. Let's just focus on the fact that Reagan had the vision and he had the specific policies to produce it. Where is Obama's vision for America that goes beyond "bringing us together"? How exactly does Obama propose to do this? What are his imaginative fiscal and monetary proposals? If Obama wants to get troops out of Iraq, what is his alternative strategy for winning the war against radical Islam? Does he have anything more to offer other than the vacuous "really going after Bin Laden"? To ask these questions is to answer them.
Of late Obama has been responding to charges of inexperience by saying, in effect, that experience doesn’t matter. And there is a grain of truth in what he says. True, people with experience sometimes screw up. But in the end Obama’s argument is a non-sequitur. Just because good generals sometimes make bad maneuvers, it doesn’t mean that military companies should from now on be headed by people who have never previously served in combat. Experienced skaters sometimes slip and fall. Still, it doesn’t follow that the U.S. Olympic team should therefore be made up of people who haven’t skated before.
The conventional wisdom is that it would be harder for John McCain to beat Hillary Clinton than it would be for him to beat Barack Obama. From what we've seen of Obama so far, I’m not sure this is so. But it may be useful for let Democrats think this. The party that by all reckoning should win the White House in November may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.