Don't you think we'd be lucky to get a Gerry Ford? I don't support Rich's "reasoning." He should stick to theater reviews. But Ford, indeed Nixon, were incomparably better than anything seriously up for POTUS now.
[WS:] Autre temps, autre moeurs. The USSR was still going strong, elites believed in détente, coexistence and convergence, and the state was the unquestioned guarantor of economic stability and the funding source of choice for major investment. That changed rather dramatically between mid 1970s and 1980 (the onset of "Reagan revolution.") As a result, the elites as well as the significant part of society at large now firmly believes in free markets.
Views of political candidates simply reflect that sea change. If Ford, Nixon, or for that matter Lincoln or even Karl Marx himself were running today, they would be preaching the same mantra as the mainstream Democrats and Republicans or be swept aside with the popular support in the low single digits.
One explanation of that sea change is a "blowback" from conservatives and foreign policy hawks - which may have a kernel of truth in the US - but does not explain the rampant spread of neoliberalism overseas. Neoliberals have been preaching their mantra since the end of WW2, yet few took it seriously until the late 1970s. So clearly we must look for structural changes that created the elective affinity between elite interest and neoliberalism.
One conjecture is that the exponential growth of international commerce, transnational corporations and international finance caused the ascent of new elites associated with these sectors. For this international elites, neo-liberalism had a greater elective affinity than conventional Keynesianism, and that explains the spread of the former well beyond the US.
It also explains why the old battle cries of the left (old style Keynesianism, welfare state, or dismantling of the international financial institutions) amount the latter days Luddism are essentially a lost cause. Just as the 19th century industrialists would not turn back the clock and destroy the machinery, as Luddites demanded it, the 21st century financiers and corporate bosses will not turn back the clock and dismantle the international organizational conduits for the flow of goods and money.
It certainly will not happen here, and it probably will not happen in countries like Venezuela, Cde Chavez notwithstanding. Folks like Chavez may adopt socialist rhetoric to boost their popular support, but they will almost certainly NOT pull their countries from global capitalism. At best, they may be able to negotiate somewhat better seats in the global theater.
The Iron Lady was right, there is no alternative in sight, at least for now, especially that the left has been for the most part reduced to the latter-days Luddites and third-tier rabble rousers.
Wojtek