I love the ’80s: presidential candidate edition
A lot of people say the presidential candidates are all alike.
Some of those candidates propose similar ideas for putting out the planet-enveloping fire.
But what were they doing back when they had no reason to attend the Iowa Steak Fry?
I looked at three presidential candidates who weren’t in college, in utero or in grade school in the 1980s.
1) Elizabeth Warren was an American Indian (nonpolitical) Republican anti-consumer, anti-regulation law professor who didn’t vote for Reagan but was a big believer in Reaganomics. Near the end of the decade, she went on a cross-country trip to prove that people filing for bankruptcy “were a bunch of cheaters.”
To her credit, she discovered — and admitted — how wrong she was.
She no longer identifies as American Indian.
2) Bernie was marching in pride parades as mayor of the People’s Republic of Burlington.
“Thanks to the enduring influence of the progressive climate that Sanders and his allies helped to create in Burlington, the city’s largest housing development is now resident-owned, its largest supermarket is a consumer-owned cooperative, one of its largest private employers is worker-owned, and most of its people-oriented waterfront is publicly owned. Its publicly owned utility, the Burlington Electric Department, recently announced that Burlington is the first American city of any decent size to run entirely on renewable electricity.”
This was despite city opposition:
“Randy Kamerbeek, the city’s planning director, “tried to sabotage everything that Bernie proposed,” recalled Michael Monte, who worked in that agency. “He told us not to allow Bernie to have any visible successes. He figured Bernie would be out of office after his first term.”
No, really, city opposition:
“Mayor Bernard Sanders left City Hall recently and found a ticket on the windshield of his battered, rusting Dasher.
His offense? Parking in the Mayor’s parking spot. Six months after the avowed Socialist scored a surprise victory to become Mayor of Vermont’s largest city, he is discovering that having an office in City Hall does not make him an insider.”
He was railing against establishment economics in his first year on the job:
“What kind of job is he doing? ‘That depends who you ask,’ he said. ‘If you’re a senior citizen and just got back from a free concert, you might think things aren’t too bad. If you’re a bank president, you might think this is the worst thing to hit the city.’”
More than once, he spoke out in favor of rights for political prisoners.
“Mr. Sanders’ supporters have immersed themselves in city affairs on an unofficial basis. His nominee for treasurer, Jenny Stoler, an economics professor, spent hours without pay poring over city books and advising him.
“Members of an advisory task force include a police detective, an active feminist and a youth counselor. They meet regularly with Mr. Sanders, discussing everything from politics in El Salvador to whether the bushes should be trimmed at a local ballfield.
“‘Some of these people had never set foot in City Hall,’ he said. ‘Bringing them in has been the greatest accomplishment. A year ago, the door to this office was locked.’”
Meanwhile, the guy whose mega-project he thwarted, and who said “You’re the mayor, but it’s still my town” the day after he was elected, said this many years later: “If more rich people were like me, Bernie would feel better about the wealthy.”
(Finding this article was fun.)
3) Joe Biden was probably still thinking up ways to vote conservative.
In 1981, he wrote an article opposing tax credits for child care. He also supported “a constitutional amendment to allow individual states to overturn Roe v. Wade.” Five years later, Planned Parenthood’s Jeannie Rosoff was no more pleased with the man, saying, “Joe Biden moans a lot and then usually votes against us.” (He got better after that, much to Robert Bork’s disappointment.)
In 1982, he voted for the “toughest anti-busing rider ever approved by either chamber of Congress” and an amendment “to remove or reduce the requirement of busing in existing court decrees or judgments.”
Then there are his three pre-1990s crime bills.
Toward the end of the decade, he ran for president, but after he was found to have plagiarized in a campaign stop, he abandoned his bid. That was the only time one reporter found him “appearing on a picket line or otherwise supporting embattled workers” in that decade.
That was two years after this:
“ Biden toured the country in 1985 chiding groups like unions and farmers for being too narrowly focused, and complained that Democrats too often ‘think in terms of special interests first and the greater interest second.’ In the latter case, Biden was specifically complaining about their opposition to his calls for a spending freeze on entitlements and an increase in the retirement age.”
But at least the Human Rights Campaign liked him.
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I love the ’80s.
I’m not sure Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren do.