Is it morning in America, or has hope given way to malaise?
(CNN) — Nearly a year after the presidential election, the excitement of Barack Obama’s campaign has faded into the reality of an Obama White House. As observers try to determine what time it is in American politics, they arrive at opposite conclusions. To some, said Tulane University political scientist Thomas Langston, Obama is like Jimmy Carter, and the nation will soon hammer the nails into the coffin of a dying Democratic coalition just as voters, tired of the Carter “malaise” era, handed the White House to Republicans in 1980. To others, Obama has come to usher in a new understanding of the relationship between the government and the people. To them, Langston said, it’s the dawning of a new age, as depicted in a famous 1984 Ronald Reagan campaign ad that declared, “It’s morning again in America.” Both Obama and Carter were elected into office at a time when voters were hungry for change. Carter represented the antithesis of President Nixon and a break from the disillusionment an
