The Republican party has never replaced Ronald Reagan as a leader. Every would-be Republican candidate tries to cast himself as the next Reagan; in my opinion, none has succeeded. There would be some Republicans who would say Bush, Jr., but I doubt that will continue past the end of Bush’s presidency. I know Reagan is widely hated on this board, but the fact remains that Reagan was a bridge-builder and a unifier in a way that Bush, Jr. is not. There was a substantial faction of Reagan Democrats in 1980 and 1984; I have seen almost no Bush Democrats.
Who is the last Democratic president that the Democrats remember as fondly as the Republicans remember Reagan? I don’t think Bill Clinton fits the bill; a lot of Democrats liked him, and certainly most were more pleased with him than they would have been with Bush Sr. or Dole, but his lack of principle and pandering seems to have alienated a lot of Democrats; even Molly Ivins found some of his weaseling hard to take. I am sure most Democrats would happily take Clinton in 2004 over Bush, but I doubt most of those Democrats, if they could have anyone they wanted in the White House, would choose Clinton.
Jimmy Carter is remembered as a good man by many people; even many Republicans concede that he had a good heart, but even the many Democrats who liked him probably don’t consider him to have been a great president.
As for Lyndon Johnson, I think there are more Democrats who hate him than there are Republicans.
Which brings us to John F. Kennedy, who I think is the Democrats’ Reagan, the man they really wish they could have back in the White House again in the same way the Republicans wish they could have Reagan back. Even though he was elected only once and that by a razor-thin majority, Kennedy was charismatic and appealing, perhaps even more so than Reagan.
But perhaps Harry Truman is the Democrats’ Reagan, as the man who turned the Democratic party into a force for black Americans’ rights, who was tough and no-nonsense in a way that Clinton could never dream of being.
Or is the Democrats’ Reagan Franklin Roosevelt, the creator of the New Deal and the vision of government as the people’s caretaker that still animates so many Democrats today? But he is also the man who interned the Japanese-Americans, threatened to pack the Supreme Court, and thus attacked the constitutional rights many Democrats hold very dear.