Most Apt Obama Candidate Analogy

JFK 1960

he reminds me of the young Rutherford B. Hayes.

James Monroe (tall and slender, included phrase "Laters" on private school yearbook page)

hahahaha

WARE IS IDI AMEEN OTPOIN?

i guess that JIMMY CARTER is too, um, "gauche" for this poll?!?

http://thepage.time.com/2008/06/27/mccain-carter-a-lousy-president/

I voted for Emiliano Zapata.

http://img34.picoodle.com/img/img34/4/1/10/f_speechm_ef98ce7.jpg

He reminds me of the moment when a small rural community finally gets its first Chipotle.

G00b, did you do OrnaldoBloomps.jpg yourself? If so, good work.

As for the poll, my heart says FDR (will SAVE THE WORLD), my head says JFK (Is more important as a symbol than he is as a policy-maker).

If Obama turns out to be as strategically gifted as Lincoln I will be amazed and gratified.

FDR came after three years of a terrifying flatlined economy, so almost all of the nation was ready, eager and willing to take a leap of faith in almost any direction that promised relief. I doubt Obama will have that kind of hope riding with him into office.

He's several miles smarter than Bush 2000 or Reagan (whose great trait was framing his hatchet job on the government as genial affability).

Stevenson is a v. bad fit. Adlai was more of an egghead than Obama.

It really comes down to Clinton or JFK.

Clinton was a different kind of animal than O, and he needed Perot to drag him over the finish line.

JFK is a pretty good fit in many ways - even unto his pretty wife. A big generational shift. Great speechifier. The big Q of whether the country was ready for a Catholic president.

I hope to hell that Obama has a clearer idea of what his top policy priorities are. AFAICS, JFK just liked the idea of being president. The country was in much better shape in 1960 than in 2008 , so we need a doer, not an onlooker.

I'd have to place him about midway between Clinton and JFK, and off to one side. Sorta, um, triangulating the two of them.

Nick, please direct your approbation to I DIED.

JFK seems to be the most popular comparison. Almost every person I've talked to in Europe brings up the last hope for a dying nation idea though...is this a fluke of my sample or a really common idea?

Jimi Carter

^^that isn't a putdown BTW

oh right that's my mom's favorite! she loved jimmy carter and wants obama to be the next one. but i have a conservative friend who says obama could be the next carter with HORROR.

that said obama is way more inspiring -- and inspired -- than jimmuh. the similarities are strongest in how the general electorate is pissed-off at the republicans, even more now than in the post watergate malaise.

carter was my first presidential vote in 1976. he was appealing in his idealism but more naive than obama.

one hopes.

my mom was a classic bleeding heart liberal who voted for carter despite her anti-southern prejudice. he's been unfairly maligned by republicans over the years but truth is jimmy was a weirdly ineffective president.

He's like Hoover -- a technocrat with no affinity for the job.

what does that even mean? i think obama's resume shows quite an 'affinity for' the job - rather than working as a corporate or legal drone, he got started early on leadership, as law review president and then community organizer, and then on getting things done in politics, as a dealmaking legislator. his decision to run so early in his career may well reflect in part his impatience with the Senate, especially with a GOP president and no filibuster ability.

No, bro -- I'm talking about Carter.

- benazir bhutto (write-in joek)

oof

carter was "weirdly ineffective" bcz a democratic congress trashed his presidency, just as clinton was "a strong president" bcz he loyally carried out every betrayal the party leaders wanted.

obama could well turn out to be the next warren g. harding.

he is Washingtonesque to me

(srsly)

st1ff

obama could well turn out to be the next warren g. harding.

i think bush was already the next warren g harding, if you're talking about corruption.

at the very least, i hope obama becomes an expresident like carter; clearly the best and most admirable expresident in memory.

o i think reagan's expresidency had some things to recommend it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

o i think reagan's expresidency had some things to recommend it.

no

I'm going to wear my McGovern button on July 4.

http://www.bbcok.org/images/bbcok_wal2.jpg

poll results giant LOL

Matthew Dowd and David Broder would be so proud.