Stop Stumping, Obama

Enough with the permanent campaign, writes Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, and both former JFK advisor Ted Sorensen and former Reagan advisor Ken Duberstein—two supporters of Barack Obama in 2008—agree. Speaking at a panel hosted by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, both men said the president should not get sucked into perpetual campaign mode—a legacy of Bill Clinton—or he risks alienating voters who are skeptical of his health-care overhaul. And that skepticism is warranted, Noonan argues, because unlike in FDR’s time, government expansion is not new territory today. Americans have watched government programs grow and multiply across the country for years, and they know the costs in money and autonomy that come with it. Citing an interview by The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove, Noonan says Republican Rep. Paul Ryan has a clear-eyed understanding of the real price of health-care reform.