ECHOES OF HISTORY.

From time to time, I have dipped into Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series to take stock of what has changed, and what we're still dealing with.  In one of those posts, I was under the impression that the series ended in 1972.  In those posts, I had occasion to call attention to the excessive Washington process worship that he chronicles and that the Sunday talkers pontificate about.  "Perhaps, one of these years, we will come to understand the implications of 'The Presidency had become a job of paralyzing complexity and bloated power' and ask whether the White House really ought be the 'center of action' for 'the price of your milk' or the school curriculum or the hangnail you're suffering from."  Richard Nixon was the Coastal Chattering Classes' warning bell, and the 1972 election set the stage for much of what followed.  "It's fitting, I suppose, that one Joseph Biden, who benefitted from Richard Nixon's short coat-tails, might end up holding the bag for those McGovernite nostrums."

Dear reader, I had forgotten about the capstone, America in Search of Itself, which, in the fashion of the Norns in Götterdämmerung, retells the whole story up to 1972 and then it's the twilight of the Coastal Chattering Classes.  Turn to page 376.

What was the proper role of government in a country of free people?  In defining that role, Roosevelt had built his grand coalition based on the underprivileged and led by an administrative and scholarly elite drawn from the ever growing middle classes.  That coalition had governed Congress and shaped the nation's policies ever since.

Could it be broken up?  Could it be defended? How?

All would depend on how the candidates penetrated the thinking of the American voters in the eighty days between the Democratic convention and the November election.  And in that perspective, campaign strategy would have to deal first of all with images.

The two candidates seemed evenly matched — two small-town boys, characters out of Mark Twain, Zane Grey, or Sinclair Lewis.

In that passage, is he already casting shade on the choice, Twain properly understood being a social critic, and Lewis lauded for trashing his neighbors?

There was the one, Jimmy Carter, earnest, pious, a Sunday school teacher, whose eloquence at it best could twinge the inner chords of conscience.  He was the preacher.  There was the other, Ronald Reagan.  His campaign poster showed him as he wanted to be seen, in broad-brimmed Western hat, stern yet smiling.  He might be the sheriff, quick on the draw for the high-noon shoot-out.

Mr White anticipates, or perhaps echoes, the "dangerous cowboy" canard beloved of Tass and the faculty lounge alike.

Behind the one, Carter, stood all the formidable resources of the Democratic party, still, as it had been since Roosevelt, the majority party of the United States.  Behind him, too, was the formidable authority of the presidency, with all its power to control events and make things happen.  But what was he doing with this power?

Dithering, vacillating, and whining.

Behind the other, Reagan, stood the Republican party, with its superior financing, and its renascent force in the West and South.  Behind him, even more importantly, was the strange restlessness of the nation, humiliated by madmen abroad and, at home, apparently powerless to control either the terrifying inflation or the economy as a whole.  What was the government doing with all its power? asked Reagan.  What should it do?

Cut taxes, deregulate, call the Soviet Bloc an evil empire.  Those choices are not without tradeoffs, and yet, the people bought the message.

Mr White, at least, had the sense to understand that hanging out only with his fellow mandarins was not the way to understand the mood of the electorate.  See page 404.  (Yes, dear reader, when you turn a book to page 404 there is print on it.)

I made the mistake of listening to this 1980 debate with a group of friends, almost all of them upper-level Democrats, in the comfort of a New York parlor.  I have listened to the debates in the past in the auditoriums, behind the scenes, and at home.  It is best, I have decided, to watch presidential debates at home, alone or with family.  Surrounded by people at a party, one listens not to what the candidates say, but to how they say it.  Performances engage a party more than issues, and the chatter is one of applause or groans, of smart comment overtaking smart comment.

Peacocking.  He crossed the final summit before live-blogging and other social media instant reaction became a thing, and the substance, such as it is: when the emcee gets to make a long speech and request a thirty second answer, there's precious little substance.  That the days of voters for the losing side accepting the outcome seem to be gone offers more cause to be fretful.  "The Obama presidency, with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, has the potential to be Illinois on a grand scale at worst, or yet another crack at New Deal - New Frontier - Great Society nostrums at best. That those nostrums will work no better when legislated by a more diverse Congress might be the reality check people will deserve."  The reality check now includes weakness overseas, and monetary and fiscal turmoil at home, and yet, reality is checking in.