History Hits the Campaign Trail
While it’s been a long time since any of the founding fathers made a personal appearance on the campaign trail, they continue speaking from beyond the grave through the mouths of present-day candidates, weighing in on matters as disparate — and perhaps unimaginable to them in life — as health care reform, gay marriage and abortion rights.
Barely an hour after last month’s Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, Mitt Romney was promising to uphold “a course that the founders envisioned” by acting to repeal the law. On other occasions, Mr. Romney has cited America’s 18th-century leaders in support of limited government and in opposition to same-sex marriage.
Nor is it only Republicans who invoke the opinions of long-dead white males in powdered wigs: President Obama recently quoted George Washington in a speech calling for new taxes on wealthy Americans.
In fact, history is often the lingua franca of our national politics. And the heroic rhetoric goes beyond just the 18th-century founders. In his campaign addresses, Mr. Obama has deployed a litany of 19th- and 20th-century accomplishments to claim precedent for his own grand initiatives (and grander intentions). “We built this country together,” he said in a stump speech in Miami Beach last week. “We built railroads and highways, the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Interstate highway system, the transcontinental railroad — we built those things together.”
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/history-hits-the-campaign-trail/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120708