Barack Reagan

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post makes the case.

The Last 'Yes, We Can' Candidate
WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama's critics bear a remarkable resemblance to the liberals who labored mightily to dismiss Ronald Reagan in 1980.
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Like Reagan's enemies, Obama's opponents concede that this Democrat gives a great speech. Indeed, both Obama and Reagan came to wide attention because of a single oration that offered hope in the midst of a losing campaign -- Obama's 2004 keynote to the Democratic National Convention and Reagan's 1964 "A Time for Choosing" address delivered on behalf of Barry Goldwater.
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The Reagan metaphor explains why Hillary Clinton was in trouble from the moment she failed to knock Obama out of the race in Iowa. During the last two months, Democrats in large numbers have reached the same conclusion that so many Republicans did in 1980: Now is the time to go for broke, to challenge not only the ruling party but also the governing ideas of the previous political era and the political coalition that allowed them to dominate public life.

"This is our time," Obama says in a short sentence full of meaning. The conservative age is as dead now as the liberal age was in 1980. Jimmy Carter, in many ways not a liberal at all, became the whipping boy for the end of liberalism. George W. Bush, no pure conservative, has come to symbolize the collapse of conservatism. "It is time to turn the page and write a new chapter in American history," Obama says -- exactly the sentiment of the Ronald Reagan who invoked Tom Paine.