The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project's goal is to get something—anything—named for Reagan in each of the more than 3,100 U.S. counties. Obama? Well, there are some schools and a shaved ice treat. Here's why.
From Left: George Rose/Getty; Sean Gallup/Getty
It's not that Obama has gone entirely unrecognized—there are about 20 schools and 20 roads named after him around the U.S., and his adopted state of Illinois has turned his birthday, August 4, into a commemorative holiday. But in contrast with Reagan, there is no organized effort by progressives to canonize Obama's legacy.
POLITICO co-founder John Harris echoed admiration for the right's canonization of Reagan and the left's failure to dolast summer."A generation of conservatives recognized that history is an instrument of power, and built a virtual industry dedicated to celebrating Reagan's legacy and renaming things in his honor," Harris wrote.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum is shown February 26, 2004 in Simi Valley, California, the day National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, lectured at the site as part of the"Reagan Lecture" series sponsored by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.Obama biographer David Garrow says Obama may be as significant and iconic a figure on the left as Reagan was on the right, but there are practical differences in their post-presidencies.
In Obama's case, another thing that hasn't helped is the fact that the traditional linchpin of a president's legacy, the library, has been mired in controversy and confusion. By this point in the post-presidencies of Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes, those landmarks had opened to huge fanfare. Those events served as a launchpad for a certain level of hagiography necessary to bolster a former president's transition between the realms of politics and history.
Torres-Spelliscy says she's also surprised by the lack of Obama savvy in his post-presidency, given how clever and effective the Obama camp was in creating iconography like the rising-sun logo and"Hope" posters to help get him elected."I have no idea whether he liked being branded or not, but a lot of that went away when he started governing," she says."It definitely died down once he was in office. It's really possible he just doesn't care.
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