Akkam’s Razor

Michael Barone said the following as posted in an article on Real Clear Politics:

Strauss and Howe put the Baby Boomers as anyone born from 1946 through 1964.  Which is interesting, because the Baby Boomer, especially the Reagan Democrat variety was the perfect GOP customer, especially when it came to race-baiting, taxes, and 9/11 fear-uncertainty-and-doubt.  I was likewise to young to remember that time (born in 1974) but I do remember a lot of talk about Israel.  Strange also, as that era of 'big government' occurred under the watch of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (and eventually Carter). I think Barone is counting on our atrocious education system.  If memory serves me right, the malaise era (that's what one of the automobile blogs calls the cars produced during that period, replete with hideous bumpers and asthmatic engines, although the actual origin was from Jimmy Carter's Malaise Speech) was instigated via the OPEC embargo, which caused Nixon to employ price controls on gasoline, to horrific effect.  Long story short, even though its taboo to mention, it's all about the cost of oil (possibly made even more timely by the price of a barrel of light sweet crude hitting $100 today).

This is a very awkward supporting strawman that Barone set-up - I'm sure Conservatism can come up with much better targets to demonize big government than the 1970s.  The effect of that article is to connect something negative in the minds of the boomer voter and hopefully hoodwink the younger conservatives.  He would have been much better served stating that the building of LBJ's Great Society as well as the Vietnam War (over time)  plus the OPEC embargo were large parts of the problem.  Coupled with that the Reagan increases to military (and deficit spending) as well as tax increases through both decades (again, under GOP stewardship, I might add).  There's actually some frightening parallels.