"Take our country back." Has anyone ever heard this used during an election until BO was elected?

[CurtEastPoint]

I think not. It is NOT subtle. Take it back from..... C'mon Repubs... say it.

[SixthSense]

1. Google is your friend

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/29045-clinton-we-have-to-take-our-country-back

[jimlup]

2. Well I'll confess that I used it while W. was resident /nt

[orpupilofnature57]

3. The whole 8yrs !!!!!

[Arkansas Granny]

4. I'm pretty sure I heard it a lot during 2004 and 2008 elections.

Thom Hartmann talked about taking our country back a lot on his show.

[Autumn]

5. Yes, for eight long horrible years. n/t

[silverweb]

7. Yes.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]We used it a lot during the Dean campaign. As usual, the reTHUGs just co-opted it, since they're incapable of any original thought.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

8. Not from the right wing...

The real irony is that it was only about two months into Obama's term, and to hear them talk you'd think the liberal socialist commies had been oppressing them for decades.

[Raine]

9. Yes, this is an old one

and both sides have used it.

[JackRiddler]

10. It was possibly the most common slogan in 2004.

[oldhippie]

11. Yeah, I've heard it in about every campaign since .......

..... Eisenhower. From both sides. Nothing new.

[lynne]

12. Uh, yeah. In every election I remember -

- beginning with Kennedy. Said by both sides. And independents, too.

Nothing new in this, that's for sure.

[quaker bill]

13. Howard Dean used it alot

[IcyPeas]

14. I want someone to take our country forward

[Initech]

15. What does that even mean?

[jberryhill]

19. Whatever you want it to

That's why it's a beautiful phrase.

Here's the deal. Everybody ages. And everybody has a sense of nostalgia about the past when things seemed "better". Well of course they did. They were younger, didn't have as many burdens, their eyesight was better, they had more hair... whatever.

They've got commercials pitching testosterone to guys my age who think having to relax a bit more often is some kind of handicap.

The "taking America back" thing taps into that vague sense of "things used to be better in some way, but I just can't put my finger on it".

[jberryhill]

16. Oh, it's an American standard political phrase

It's like being against crime and for education and energy independence.

[Skip Intro]

17. Yes...been around a long time.

*sigh*

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

18. It's cuz we Knee-Grows have taken over the White House and will take all the white people's

hard earned money for ourselves!!



Nothing but pure, unadulterated RACISM!! Period!!

[RZM]

22. Haven't you been reading this thread?

It's old stuff. It's a standard line that both sides use.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

23. I've never heard black people utter this nonsense. I've never heard Democrats, either.

Well, not in the way that the RepuKKKes are saying it. When they say it, they mean "from black people!"

[RZM]

24. This thread is full of Democrats who have used it and/or heard it

I can't speak as to whether any of them are black or not, but why would that matter anyway?

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

25. Because the context within which the Teabaggers and Republicans are using it has everything

to do with the president's race. Nothing that you can say will change my mind on this.

[RZM]

29. I get what you're saying and I'm not trying to change your mind

The context is that the president is black and certain types of criticism smack of racism. You can make that case if you want. But I don't think you should include stock phrases that have been used by the opposition in just about every election year since 1992.

Republicans don't like Democrats. That's how it goes. They hate Bill Clinton, they hate Al Gore, they hate Hillary Clinton, they hate Harry Reid, they hate Joe Biden, and they hate Barack Obama. That's kind of what they do. If Republicans want to criticize the president using the same language many Democrats did in 2004, I don't really care.

Now, if you want to point out brand new types of criticism that are unique to Obama (he's a Kenyan Muslim, for example) then you have something. But 'take our country back' is old news.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

31. O.K., so you've made your point that both parties have been guilty of this, but I don't think

that's the spirit of what the OP was trying to get us to discuss. I think he/she was trying to get us to talk about the racism (and hypocrisy) of the Tea Party (who remained silent after 8 years of Bush), and the Republicans who were responsible for the out of control spending, increasing the deficit and raising the debt.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

26. Nope! I don't believe that the argument is the issue. I think CONTEXT is!

[RZM]

20. All the time

In fact, it's been used so much, that it really doesn't even mean much anymore. It's become just a rote way of saying 'I want the guy in the White House gone,' which is kind of a given if you didn't support them in the first place.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Yes... you missed the 2000s.

It was also used during the Clinton years... but seriously BOTH parties have.

[boxman15]

27. Yes.

But I've never seen it said so repeatedly.

[suffragette]

28. This video doesn't use those exact words

but does express the sentiment. I included it in the 1st OP I ever posted on DU back in 2004:
http://www.thebattleforamerica.com/

[itsrobert]

30. Yes

n/t

[cthulu2016]

32. The genral sentiment started the day Clinton won.

The Regan/GHW Bush era created an overwhelming RW sense of entitlement to the WH.

[demmiblue]

33. President Obama spoke at the Take Back America 2007 conference.

Howard Dean wrote a book called Winning Back America.

As others have mentioned, it was a common phrase used many Dems during the Bush years.