As Romney stumps by evoking Clinton and Obama … well, remember he stumped in 2008 evoking Reagan.

“Presidential candidates occasionally seem to recant their onetime political opposition to a recent president of the opposite party,” said the presidential historian Michael Beschloss. “One reason is that with some historical distance, they may sometimes come to genuinely appreciate leadership qualities they didn’t notice before.” But, he added, “more often it’s politics.”

Mr. Beschloss recalled that Gerald R. Ford and the elder George Bush opposed Harry S. Truman in 1948 but after entering the White House themselves cited him, genuinely, as a role model. Richard M. Nixon derided George McGovern for not living up to the legacy of Mr. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even Mr. Reagan cited John F. Kennedy in arguing for tax cuts, overlooking his own past criticism of the Democrat’s economic policies as “old Karl Marx.”

Things get drearier in the ideological fights away from the politico battles.  An editorial was written by a conservative and bandied about by Libertarian blogs and news outlets recently stating that Roosevelt would hate today’s Social Security.

A couple weeks later, Mr. Obama was at it again. “Ronald Reagan could not get through a Republican primary in this election cycle,” he said. “Could not get through it. Here’s a guy who raised taxes. That in and of itself would have rendered him unelectable in a Republican primary.” Standing with him that evening was none other than Mr. Clinton, no longer a poor shadow of Mr. Reagan in Mr. Obama’s rendering but now a president who accumulated a “remarkable record” as he turned around a party that “was a little bit lost.”

Mr. Clinton has become a frequent touchstone for Mr. Romney lately as well. Instead of the president impeached for lying under oath to cover up an affair with an intern, Mr. Clinton in this telling is the apostle of fiscal responsibility as opposed to that “old-school liberal” now in the White House.

I shudder when we get to Bush as President evoked by Democrats, but it will come.
It’s sort of improbably to remember why Liberals and Democrats found Eisenhower infuriating but they did… and probably justly I may as well ad… though, to a degree it tended to land on the culture at large.  (Interestingly enough, if you read old Progressive magazines from when Eisenhower departed, the editorial on Eisenhower is vaguely positive in the way that Romney’s trying to be positive on Clinton … as they eye nervously the specter of Goldwater.  “Mr Republican” Taft gets oddly “Even the Tory” notices from IF Stone, but probably justly as he came to be noted as having progressive fringes on his Tory core, shading off from old-line Bricker.)

Not that every president from another party becomes suddenly acceptable. Mr. Romney has implicitly compared Mr. Obama to Jimmy Carter, while Mr. Obama routinely links Mr. Romney to the policies of George W. Bush. When Mr. Bush endorsed Mr. Romney before ducking into an elevator this week, Mr. Romney made little note of it, but the Obama camp eagerly spread the news.

To guardians of the former presidents’ legacies, the latest campaign-trail tributes ring hollow. John D. Podesta, a former Clinton chief of staff who now leads the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund, said it was “ironic that Romney is so exuberant in embracing Clintonomics” since Mr. Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, invested in education and technology, and balanced the budget. “Maybe Romney was too busy firing people in the ’90s to have noticed,” Mr. Podesta said.

There’s an interesting little book.  Politically Incorrect Guide to the President.  Like all the other politically incorrect guides things.  Touts Roosevelt as running to the right of Hoover.  He did.  Kind of.  At the same time as he also ran to the left of Hoover.  Also one of the first items of business Roosevelt did was wrap up some Hoover policy with a bill approved by Republicans and Conservative Democrats over mainline Liberal Democrat objections.
Obama and Romney are doing the same thing.  Kind of.  Though we all know where Romney is attached and where Obama is attached.

Sigh.

“Almost a generation ago, Bill Clinton announced that the era of big government was over, even a former George McGovern campaign worker, like President Clinton, was signaling to his own party that Democrats should no longer try to govern by proposing a new program for every problem,” Romney said. “President Obama tucked away the Clinton doctrine in his large drawer of discarded ideas, along with transparency and bipartisanship.”

Romney has invoked Clinton in previous speeches, but this time he went a bit further, suggesting that there is something more under the surface between Clinton and Obama.
 “It’s enough to make you wonder if maybe it was a personal beef with the Clintons,” Romney said.  “Probably, it runs much deeper than that.”

All indications are that Hillary Clinton could care less about the Election of Kerry, and after the nomination of Obama threw at 50 – 50 that he could win… Believe what you must.

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