Truth & Consequences 
Ronald Reagan’s miracle working powers are a staple of Republican writing and rhetoric .
Now comes a theory that the infectious optimism from beyond can smote Democrats, even from the grave. OpenLeft’s Matt Stoller suggests that “swing liberals” heard Barack Obama’s comments on the sunlit days of the Reagan Era, and that was enough to flip them to Hillary Clinton.
“We have been fighting Ronald Reagan’s psychologically diseased followers and predecessors since, well, since they called themselves the Confederacy and fought for slavery. And we will keep fighting them if we are to retain a republic. That’s why the self-identified very liberal Democrats swung away from Obama and took Nevada from him. Because he very self-consciously explained that he is not part of that fight, and they want a leader who is.”
Days of Yore 
City of Dreams 
Time to vote at the Wynn Las Vegas, and casino worker/reluctant Hillary Clinton supporter Don Harris told the Washington Post what his problem with her was:
“I just don’t know how many hours she spends in the Wal-Mart boardroom.”
Good Times There Are Not Forgotten 
Clinton has been endlessly analogized to Nixon. Smart but charmless, not a natural politician but works hard. The problem is that while Nixon voters could at least comfort themselves that he would smite their enemies, potential Clinton supporters have no such assurances. At least Nixon was against the damn hippies. Hillary Clinton wants to “dialogue” with the worst her nominal opponents cough up.
Witness the debate on health.
There’s been some competition among Democratic candidates for who can better curse corporations while devising a health plan for the campaign. John Edwards has gotten some mileage mocking Barack Obama’s vision of a “big table” with Obama as Lyndon Johnson saying “Come let us reason together.”
On this one Obama is in full Git R’ Done,DC Edition mode:
“The key to getting this done is to empower the American people, but you also have to have negotiations and you have to be able to listen. Otherwise, stuff is not going to happen….The notion that they will have no say so at all, is just not realistic.
Hall Monitor Paul Krugman says Hillary Clinton’s health plan 
is an Edwards me-to, but doesn’t let her off probation.
And rightly so. Early January saw the Clinton Library as venue for the who-could-be-against-itly named Better Health Care Together, sponsored by old Hillary pals Wal-Mart. For some reason the event is not mentioned on the Clinton Foundation website.
Yikes! Hard to outdo that headline.
Fortunately the York Town Square story doesn’t try.
All politics may be local, but local history often tries too hard to rope in stray connections with historic figures.
Those Nixon mentions in full:
“The Menges Mills Market is a throwback to old York County. There, customers can still buy fresh, custom-cut meat. The market has also played host to a famous customer – Richard Nixon.”
“York countians long remember Richard M. Nixon’s visits here.”
“It even had a famous patron. President Richard Nixon stopped in the store while he was visiting his parents who lived a half mile from the store on a farm on Old Hanover Road.
Sterling eventually bought the 350 acres that Frank and Hannah Nixon lived on and farmed corn, soy beans, wheat and hay”
….and a link to another rip-roaring Nixon tale, this one involving a park near York named for him. 
With a classic Mr Comfortable walks in the woods picture.
What might be seared into the memory of townspeople is recalling their eccentric left-wing newspaper editor. J.W. Gitt.
Gitt edited the York Gazette & Daily, the predecessor of the blog’s parent newspaper. Gitt’s was the only commercial newspaper in America to endorse Henry Wallace 
in 1948, and survived an onslaught from 50s Redhunters.
Just the novelty of seeing classic cliched editorial cartoons,
but with left wing content, is illuminating.
The New Home of Swank 
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s property manager has announced a new St. Petersburg location for the Presidential Library.
The Library will move from the Senate building to the Synod building. “Before the end of next year we will open the library’s representative office here – but this is going to be the first stage. The works will continue,†Vladimir Kozhin told Tass.
Shirtless to Serve You Better 
Blanket Agreement 
Yet another thing we can blame on the nation’s most distinguished placeholder, Gerry Ford. After he left office!
Along with doing down Reagan, Nixon, much of the 70s, and the Clintons, Ford in the tell-all “Write It When I’m Gone” lets it be known that he was responsible for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
It happened at a 1993 Clinton sleepover in Colorado.
“Up until that point, President Clinton cared less about NAFTA. He wasn’t interested. I spent most of my time with him promoting NAFTA, urging him to take action, to get going … I honestly can claim full credit for getting him off dead center on NAFTA,” Ford recalled in May 1994. “Now, once he got interested, he did a damn good job. He twisted arms, he browbeat Democrats and he put on a good event in the East Room with Carter, Bush and myself. You know, he’s a helluva salesman.”
And the blessings poured fourth! Ourmostathleticpresident
can take the credit and the blame.
For fashion icon Subcomandante Marcos… 
…but also for the NAFTA Superhighway maps which infest the web
[choose one!] 
The blessings continue today. The new year saw the fall of more barriers to American agriculture crushing Mexican farmers.
“The population working in the primary sector (agriculture, livestock, forestry, hunting, and fishing) fell drastically, from 8.2 million people in 1991 to 6.1 million in 2006… Those working in the primary sector represented 26.8% of the total working population in 1991 but only 14.6% in 2006. According to a study commissioned by the government, the number of agricultural households diminished from 2.3 million in 1992 to 575,000 in 2002.”
Wherever did all those farmers go?
The problem with Gerry’s story is that Clinton endorsed NAFTA before the 1992 election. So never-mind.
