Morning in America Again

Andrew Sullivan takes a look at how Obama's message of change this election is similar to Reagan's message (though their policies are vastly different) back in 1980.

It seems to me that if "optimism" means always saying that America has never fallen or failed, then Ronald Reagan was an inveterate pessimist. His campaign in 1980 was premised on the notion that America had objectively declined as a nation under the hapless presidency of Carter. His optimism was about how to improve that. How, after all, could it have been "morning in America" if it had never been night?

Obama's position is exactly Reagan's in this respect.

Sullivan goes on to outline how America has declined during the Bush administration and concludes with this great line...

To vote for the party that gave us the past eight years is not optimism. It's clinical denial.