Paul Krugman:

This is, in short, a time when progressives ought to be driving home the idea that the right’s ideas don’t work, and never have.

It’s not just a matter of what happens in the next election. Mr. Clinton won his elections, but — as Mr. Obama correctly pointed out — he didn’t change America’s trajectory the way Reagan did. Why?

Well, I’d say that the great failure of the Clinton administration — more important even than its failure to achieve health care reform, though the two failures were closely related — was the fact that it didn’t change the narrative, a fact demonstrated by the way Republicans are still claiming to be the next Ronald Reagan.

Now progressives have been granted a second chance to argue that Reaganism is fundamentally wrong: once again, the vast majority of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track. But they won’t be able to make that argument if their political leaders, whatever they meant to convey, seem to be saying that Reagan had it right. [emphasis added]

Krugman really gets at two points that I’ve been trying to make quite well here. First, Republican ideas for governance, be it in economics, in foreign policy, in social policy, or military matters, just don’t work. Republican administrations leave the American people worse off. This should be cause for Democrats to stand up for what they believe in with pride.

Second, those people with the opportunities to speak out – our presidential candidates – have to be the ones leading by example. John Edwards’ message against corporate power is a good example of what it looks like when a proud Democrat stands up to conventional wisdom about how Republican ideas are right. Edwards has been so successful in that messaging that even Hillary Clinton is co-opting it, as evidence by this New York Times article.

Narratives change when the people with the power to change them step forward to do so. In the Democratic Party, the two people with the greatest power to change how our country thinks about policies are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I’m in agreement with Krugman that Obama’s Reagan comments are troubling (one of my first posts on this blog last week was on the subject). The narrative says Reagan was a good President and Reaganomics worked. But Reagan wasn’t a good President and his policies left our nation in a very bad place.

The best way for Obama or Clinton to frame their administration’s for being treated as successful is for them to take the time now to define what success does and does not look like. Who gets left behind? Who is enriched? What role will the government play in the rise or fall of the poverty rate in America? Answering these questions now by way to trashing everything the Reagan years stand for would be a good way to set the tone for how people can look to whatever either of these Democrats accomplish if the succeed in winning the White House. And if we can recognize this as an important opportunity to be seized by Democrats in 2008, it’s far easier to understand why Obama’s Reagan comments are not only troubling but damaging to his ability to succeed (and be treated as a success) if he is elected President.