Election 2008

Let the King Reign

Yesterday’s Times profile on the history of that quintessentially American tradition — the peaceful, loyal succession — ought to raise a question for today’s Democrats. Has the tradition been followed in this administration, in fact as well as in form? And if not, what can we say about it?

Consider Senator McCain’s dignified concession speech that night three years ago, offered in the best tradition of small-r republican magnanimity, in which McCain embraced his opponent and acknowledged the President-Elect’s mandate for change… to a chorus of boos. Since then, it’s fair to say that congressional Republicans, and presidential candidates, have treated Barack Obama’s presence in the White House as an imposition, an aberration to be corrected, rather than anything to which he might be entitled by virtue of 69 million votes (and 9-and-a-half-million-vote margin over his opponent). We’ve been reminded that America is a center-right nation, with the implication that Obama’s win is something to be explained away; heard trumped-up charges of voter fraud aimed at delegitimizing the process that gave him his position; and dealt with a Congress that’s gleefully broken its own rules and ended longtime truces to block the President at every turn.

If President Obama ever had a honeymoon phase to his presidency, we might say — as seems to be the usable thesis of Ron Suskind’s otherwise factually-challenged, narrator-driven tome on Obama’s first few years in office — that he squandered it on an unnecessarily divisive issue, healthcare reform, when he could’ve taken bold, consensus-generating steps to right the economy. But even this evaluation should be tempered by a reminder of how quickly the Republican opposition rushed to Total War on the President.

This is a story we should play up — that for the past three years, America has functionally lacked a loyal opposition, one that works against the President but within expected norms, and votes against his interests, but offers their own affirmative plans for action in response. Rather than accepting the consequences of eight years of mismanagement under Bush, and acceding to the result of a lawful election, the Republican Party offered us that first part of Tennyson’s famous line, glorifying the fight, without the peace that comes thereafter:

Blow trumpet! he will lift us from the dust.
Blow trumpet! live the strength and die the lust!
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

This is a case we can make in 2012, provided it’s mixed in equal parts with a reminder of those positive plans the minority derailed for their own benefit, and at great cost to the country. And we can start with the unemployment extension.

Chemistry, Timing, and the Transformative Presidency

Certainly without knowing it, President Obama, in this pre-inaugural picture plucked from the New York Times, manages to pull off a fair impression of the famous classical statue, the Augustus of the Primaporta, matching almost perfectly the second Caesar’s raised arm, held either to indicate a more prosperous future and recovery from Rome’s century of civil wars, or to address his gathered legions moments before a great victory. It depends on who you ask. But in either case, it’s a promise the administration has, by and large, failed to live up to. We can play the blame game another time — I for one continue to blame a Republican party more interested in killing the Democratic resurgence, embodied in Obama, than in running the country — but we’ve had a hand in it too. We haven’t fought when we should have, we’ve fought when we should’ve kept quiet, and overall blanched from the Total War the administration so obviously faced as early as January 21, 2009. Where did we go wrong? To start, let’s rewind to 2008. Maybe it should’ve been Hillary.

Let’s assume — correctly, I think — that there was little policy difference between Hillary and Obama, except possibly as to Iraq. Instead, the choice between Hillary and Obama reduced to a choice of visions for the country. With Hillary, we had a proven fighter, someone who could stand toe-to-toe with the ideological violence of the Bush-era Republican Party. Choosing her would commit us to another eight years of fighting the culture wars, but probably a victory. With Obama, instead, we had the promise of the beginning of a national healing period. Time after time, Obama shrugged off the divisive rhetoric his opponents hurled at him, and always seemed capable to draw us back to our common denominators. Choosing him, it seemed, gave us a fair shot at national unity, consensus politics, and an end to the hyperpartisanship, brinksmanship, and overall reduction of American values that characterized the Bush years.

Like so many, I opted for the latter vision. This was a mistake, but a well-intentioned one. I never expected, nor thought the post-Bush Republican Party capable of, an actual net increase in partisanship. It’s the rare faction that gets handed a crippling loss, and decides the solution is to radicalize. But that’s the opposition we received — as was evident pretty early on — and Obama was not the right President to fight that war. Nor has he truly endeavored to become that type of President. He’s stuck by Bush’s quickly-abandoned goal of being a “uniter, not a divider,” with some exceptions, and if that’s what we need eventually, it’s not what we need now. Though we may never know, a President Hillary Clinton might have understood that.

Like relationships, presidencies are part chemistry, and part timing. Chemistry — here used in the individual sense — our current President has no shortage of. He’s an important, even singular individual, a presidential character if there ever was one. But the Republicans’ dangerous game has functioned to strand him an era not of his own making, nor suited to his strengths, and Obama and the Democrats alike have consistently failed to adapt. America desperately needs a transformative President; but more urgently, we need a soldier to fight the war to get us to a place where we’re ready for a transformation. I suspect the great majority of Americans are already there, but their leaders, at least on one side of the aisle, are not. And until those leaders are absolutely and completely crushed, we’ll never have peace. Octavian had to kill Antony before he could become Augustus.

Fiddling While the Country Burns: A Story Arc for 2008-10

How did it come to this? In 2008, we, Democrats, won a landslide victory, with the public deserting the cynicism and policymaking bumbling of the Republican Party in droves for the promise of optimism, progress, and reasoned solutions to complicated problems. Today, we’re back to square one. Maybe worse. When the sitting President can’t sell middle-class tax cuts to the people, without the promise of pork for the rich, we’re a sorry lot indeed. Apologists may say we’re saving the tax issue for Obama’s re-election; but if we don’t have the spine for the battle now, why will we have it when even more is on the line? How can we come back from this profound political malaise, and why are we even there in the first place?

Since 2008, we’ve offered reasonable, popular solutions to tough problems. “ObamaCare’s” unpopularity stems as much from its failure to deliver on the promise of comprehensive care as from conservative America’s shocking suspicion of regulation. If the causal elements aren’t exactly 50/50, they’re enough to keep the basic idea of “reform through regulation” net-positive. Similarly, reforming the capital markets should be an easy sell during a recession caused, exclusively or at least largely, by reckless financial actors. And if we actually care about the deficit — as tea party partisans would have us believe — hiking taxes on those who can best afford to support their country should be an extremely easy sell, especially to “fiscal conservatives,” those bizarre animals that one hears so much about, but never truly sees.

So what went wrong?

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that Republican obstructionism was far from purposeless, and for far more than short-term gain. From January 1, 2009, two trends were objectively foreseeable: (1) the damage done by the Bush years would not be easily cured, and that (2) the American memory is short, especially when attempting to assign blame. Building on these, the Republicans could sit back, stonewall any attempt at progress, wait for Bush’s sins to be forgotten, and expect that, absent a miraculous and unlikely twelve-month recovery, Obama would drown in the long wake left by his predecessor. As an elegant touch, this recovery could be forestalled, by simply blocking the President at every turn.

And in fact, this is exactly what our honorable opposition has done. Having banished the specter of our last, failed President with no more than some handwaving, and a little waiting, the Party has leveraged anger over the still-floundering economy into something resembling a mandate, all without ever offering any new solutions to the very difficult problems we still face — problems of their own creation.

This anger persists as background noise distorting the national debate, and obscures the critical realization that voters must make, or risk repeating their mistakes: that the Republican Party still has no solution to our tarnished economy, or anything else for that reason.

If this is the problem, no immediate solution emerges. We can wait and hope that, with Republicans back in something resembling power, time reveals their ideas to be not just bad, this time, but also nonexistent. And we can focus immediately and with all our attention on the economy, to blunt this anger, or repurpose it into forward momentum.

And we can remain confident… or regain our confidence. For all our setbacks, this is still the country we inherited in 2008.

The Decade’s Strange Silver Lining

When the first decade of the third millennium (the “decade from hell”; h/t N.P.) closes next week, few will miss it. The “aughts” opened with a controversial election that raised serious questions of democratic integrity, many of which linger to this day, and continued into the first serious attack on American soil… ever. If this attack constituted a test of our moral character, we failed it, horribly, rushing to abandon our values and those unique qualities that make us, as Americans, justifiably proud of what we’ve built here. Realization and redemption came, but rather late, and true recovery finds itself complicated by another crisis of responsibility, this time financial.

Have we learned something in the process? Maybe. But how many times must we be tricked into thinking “conservatives” are actually capable of balancing a budget? And how many times do we have to learn not to go overboard in wartime, before the lesson finally sticks? So far, the answer to both is “at least four.”

Amidst this chaos, it’s somewhat difficult to find a story that is, at a national level, worth celebrating. Here’s one: the experience of the last ten years flatly rebuts the theory, popular in 1999, that politics doesn’t matter. The 2000 election was viewed by most of America as inconsequential, and the candidates were roundly satirized for it. This was the natural consequence of a more secure time. Life was good, and unlikely to deviate from that course; if the pace of growth was slackening, this was inevitable, but not concerning. In the space of a few months, President Bush showed us just how divisive and nasty politics could be, just how little campaign messaging matters, and just how carelessly the country could be ripped apart. President Obama passionately inverted the message, winning a somewhat cathartic campaign premised on the idea that politicians can build, and not just destroy. Whether he’s delivered on the promise is another question: he’s made us believe in something. And his opponents have done the same, for better or worse.

The result is a more active electorate. Turnout in presidential elections has steadily increased since 1996, as voters realize that voting does, in fact, make a difference. Some of the attendant consequences are negative, reflecting poor voter education, and a toxic environment of disinformation. And there’s real concern for a backslide in next year’s midterm elections. But believing in something is better than believing in nothing. An interested electorate is the first step to an informed electorate.

State of the Federal Bench: MSNBC Finally Wises Up

One of the topics we’ve covered most consistently and thoroughly, especially during the election, is the state of the federal bench. Because conservatives somehow managed to successfully appropriate the pejorative term “activist judge” and apply it only progressive jurists, the majority of the American public likely missed the fact that the past few Supreme Court terms have in fact been some of the most “activist” in recent history – just in the opposite direction. Under the stewardship of the hyper-conservative Justice Alito and the disingenuous Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court has rolled back a remarkable number of bedrock precedents, even to the point of completely reinventing Second Amendment jurisprudence. Don’t trust me? Fine. Trust Justice Breyer (commenting Parents Involved, 127 S. Ct. 2738 (2007)):

“Rarely in the history of the law have so few undone so much so quickly.”

And good news everyone! They’re just getting started! Barring catastrophe or poor health, both of Bush’s picks are likely to be with us for some time. And somehow MSNBC just caught on.

Are judges Bush’s most lasting imprint?
President scored historic wins with high court and appeals court nominees
Long after Bush is gone from Washington (in fact, long after President-elect Barack Obama is gone), Bush-appointed judges will still be handing down rulings which will shape American society.

In a shining exemplar of timely journalism, MSNBC is only four to eight years late to discovering that the law matters, and that we should take this into account in choosing our Presidents. MY. GOD. Someone call Edward R. Murrow, and tell him he’s been replaced! Get the Peabody team on the line!

Look. I realize that the law isn’t always the sexiest of political matters. Theoretically, it isn’t even supposed to be political. But let’s be realistic: when it comes to filling the federal appellate bench, conservative politicians appoint judges whose constitutional philosophy generates conservative results, and liberal politicians appoint judges whose constitutuinal philosophy generates liberal results. This isn’t calculus, and it means that every election matters. Even when you think the candidates are basically the same person – like so many though of Bush & Al Gore in 2000 – this issue at least lurks in the background, and should define your vote.

Thankfully, America made the right call this time around. But if you’re reading this today, don’t forget it in four or eight years.

Election 2008, Five Weeks Later: Rev. Wright & Joe the Plumber

Although both issues are moot, yesterday there were two big stories on two of Election 2008′s biggest non-candidate “characters,” Joe the Plumber & the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. First, ABC played the ad that the McCain camp prepared, but never aired, indicting Barack Obama for his connection with Jeremiah Wright:

I’m unsure of the damage this could have done. The punchline (“…when no-one else is watching”) is powerful, and the dichotomy would have appealed to those already in the tank for McCain. How far it would have gone beyond that, though, I don’t know: apart from its obvious nastiness, which would have repulsed more than a few voters, there’s a degree to which Reverend Wright has been misquoted. Of course, in post-Rove’s Law America, that may not have mattered. But for the full context…

For God’s sake, in the now-famous quote, the man was speaking in the prospective! Read in context, the quote would be, “[Should America oppress African-Americans again, as it did in the 1800s, n]ot God bless America, God damn America!” As I was told by my volunteer host on the night of November 3rd, to those who knew Reverend Wright (as she did), the notion that he was somehow unpatriotic was shocking. A little angry, yes: but given the circumstances through which he’d lived (she went on), this much was understandable. America never heard the full truth on Reverend Wright, and maybe she never will.

——

Moving on, Glenn Beck (a truly reprehensible human being) interviewed Joe the Plumber, who had some harsh words for John McCain, though not as harsh as the Huffington Post would have you believe, and glowing praise for Sarah Palin:

And I asked him pretty direct questions [on the bailout] and some of the answers you guys are going to receive, you know, they appalled me, absolutely. You know, I was angry. In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him [. . . . .]

Sarah Palin’s absolutely the real deal. You know, I only got to spend a short amount of time with her but, you know, it was been asked if I felt any presence when I was with John McCain or Barack Obama. You know, with Sarah Palin, I don’t want to say I felt a presence but she definitely had energy

No surprise there. Joe’s parroting Mark Levin & Rush Limbaugh, which is exactly what I expected him to do. The notion that Joe was ever some “regular guy” representing “average America,” a key insight into the mind of the swing voter, continues to boggle my mind. He may be middle-class white male America, but that’s all, and that – at least alone – is not America any more. I won’t miss Joe. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll have to miss his icon, Sarah the Hockey-Mom.

Georgians: Vote for Martin. Everyone Else: CHILL, and Don’t Read Too Much Into the Results

Today, Jim Martin goes head-to-head with sitting GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss, to reclaim the honor of Georgia’s congressional delegation from the man who ran one of the Senate’s nastiest campaigns – ever. As the good people at Daily Kos point out, even FOX NEWS is willing to criticize him on a gaffe that, in any other state, would be a campaign-ender:

For a Republican politician, after all, the greatest insult that Fox News can hand you is to not cover up for your little accidents.

But let’s be honest. I don’t expect Jim Martin to win tomorrow. If you’re a Georgian, though, for the love of God, his only hope is high turnout, so stop reading this post and hop in your goddamn car!

If Martin does eventually lose, though, we can expect the Republican spin to be immediate, withering, and traditionally dishonest. Here’s preview: “Obama’s first defeat.” “A referendum on the President-Elect.” “Proof of Palin’s campaign prowess.” “Voters Put the Brakes on the Democratic Juggernaut.” Please: don’t believe it.

For one, let’s remember what Georgia is. It’s a deep-South state that’s long been regarded as one of the bulwarks of Republican power. I grew up in Atlanta, and even in “the big city,” the state’s conservative bona fides were quite obvious: from rampant gay-bashing to thousands of reminders about “Fellowship of Christian Athletes” meetings, let’s just say, it ain’t Virginia. ((Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Atlanta. Its political climate, though, leaves much to be desired.)) Keeping that in mind, quite apart from a “defeat” or a brake on growing Democratic power, the mere fact that there’s a runoff in this state is testament to what could – we hope – be a nascent Democratic realignment. If Martin loses, that loss won’t be able to hide the fact that Martin got closer than any Democrat since Max Cleland’s last re-election, in 1992.

Second, if Chambliss wins, the media will try to hand Sarah Palin the Civic Crown, and credit her with singlehandedly averting Republican disaster in Georgia (she’s already the focus of mainstream media coverage of the Georgia runoff). This, too, would be an error. Polls have shown Martin down in this election for a long time. Giving Palin the credit for a Chambliss victory would rather be like giving Pompey a Triumph for “defeating” Spartacus’ rebels, when all he did was “mop up” after Crassus’ important victories. No matter who wins tomorrow, Palin will still be a loser. SO – if Martin loses – CHILL.

The possibility that the media or Republican strategists, desperate for good news, could read too much into a Martin defeat is, I expect, what prompted Obama to stay out of this election in the first place. The last thing the new administration needs is a perception that somehow Obama loses if Martin loses, despite the uneven playing field and warped game of expectations.

Of course, let’s hope it doesn’t come to pushing back against agenda-driven “Why Martin Lost” narratives. Chambliss – I’ve got my eye on you.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia…

Smile and nod.

Bad news. In the hard-fought Senate runoff between Jim Martin and incumbet Saxby Chambliss (Fail-GA), Sarah Palin has thrown her hat into the ring. America’s (least?-) favorite hockey mom will campaign for Saxby Chambliss.

The Georgia Senate race remains tight – which is itself a small miracle – but speaking plainly, I don’t have high hopes for Jim Martin, as much as I want to see Saxby receive a severe thrashing. Let’s be honest: Chambliss won the election on November 4th, falling just .2% below the 50% he needed, per Georgia law, to avoid a runoff. While Martin continues to out-raise Chambliss in dollars, Martin faces a state that (even with record African-American turnout and a long ride on Obama’s coattails) was ready to elect his opponent a month ago. It’s hard to recover from that, and while signs indicate that he is in the process of building a bigger base, election day may come too soon.

Interestingly, the post-election consensus on President-Elect Barack Obama could help the Democratic challenger. Martin has worked hard to tie himself to Barack Obama. Initially that may have seemed like a risk. After all, Georgia is a very conservative state, part of the “Deep South” that Reagan successfully “realigned” to the Republican column. Against that backdrop, praising a Democrat in Georgia starts to look risky.

But, Obama is no ordinary Democrat. In the first weeks after the election, Obama has already taken a decided turn to the right, establishing his bipartisan bona fides right off the bat by refusing to inflict victor’s justice on Joe Lieberman, and potentially retaining high-level Republicans. For sure, Obama’s rightward turn could yet go too far, potentially vindicating the jeers of the right-wing blogosphere (both traditional and closeted). But until that point, his initial bipartisan overtures do nothing more than paint a stark contrast with Bush’s Cheney’s immediate post-election move (break up the Republican “Mod Squad”) and reassure moderate voters who broke for McCain on 11/4.

For Martin’s runoff campaign, the “trickle-down” from Obama’s moderate turn is nothing but good news. And, should Martin be elected, it could brand Martin as the first of a new generation of Democratic politicians. Moderate, bipartisan, and progressive. If Martin’s message is taking hold, I can’t help but think that Palin’s won’t.

New Labour and the New Democrats: Lessons for President-Elect Obama, from Tony Blair

Keep smiling. You earned it.

The year 1992 gave America its redemption from the Reagan years but, across the Pond, progressive politics was in a much, much worse state. Despite significant electoral gains, Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party failed to retake a majority in the House of Commons, and 10 Downing passed to John Major, a pale shadow of Lady Thatcher possessed of most of her ideas, but little of her intellect and charm. The message was clear: even Lady Thatcher’s coattails could beat the Labour Party – a narrow, far-left, quasi-socialist party – any day of the week.

And yet, in the space of four years, Labour transitioned from the perennial, sidelined minority party to the undisputed master of Parliament. Labour has held power for more than a decade now, endured an unpopular war and, now, and still retains some home for the future in the form of the one man seemingly capable of navigating the global financial crisis (ahem: Gordon Brown). An unlikely hero, yes, but a hero nonetheless. How did they do it?

Easy. Compromise and a charismatic leader. In a process begun by Kinnock but brought to its fantastic conclusion by Tony Blair, Labour sought the middle on the issues that made it an unpopular fringe group, abandoning nationalization of industry as a central party plank (yes: they were that far left), and tacking right on a whole host of economic issues. ((For an internet source – i.e., a good book on Google Books – check out The Rise of New Labour.  I offer this only as further reading; most of what I’m drawing on is personal knowledge, the sources of which I’ve long since forgotten.)) By usurping the best of Thatcher’s ideas without compromising most of his leftist bent, Blair succeeded at winning over the elusive middle, and built for himself a party that, despite serious troubles, seems poised to retain power even in the upcoming general election.

The lesson to draw from Tony Blair – go slightly right, young liberal, and grow up with the country – should sound familiar. It’s how we just won an election or, more appropriately, how the Republicans lost an election. John McCain’s campaign style, and especially (you knew it was coming) his selection of Sarah Palin, clearly demonstrated that the Republican Party, for one reason or another, is incapable of seeking the center. The Religious Right ties their hands on social issues (Sarah Palin), and the business lobby ties their hands on economic issues (McCain sudden love affair with the Bush tax cuts). Culture war elections are the exception, not the rule, and this year, when the trend reasserted itself with a vengeance, McCain was unable to compensate appropriately. Fortunately for us, and fortunately for America, the Democrats seized on the opportunity and outflanked the GOP.

While the Republican Party spent the past eight years (and the previous pivotal eight months) catering to and contracting a narrow base, the Democratic Party under Dean spent its time expanding its base, winning Senate and House seats with moderate, inoffensive Democrats, taking a middle-left approach to culture war issues, and shedding the unfortunate stigma that John Kerry’s party exemplified. Labour’s vulnerability was its economic policies, which actually resembled socialism; the Democrats vulnerabilities were cultural. In large part, Howard Dean patched over those defects. After inheriting a moderate Democratic Party repackaged to dodge culture war bullets, all Barack Obama had to do was deliver on an even-tempered message, and appear relatable. Mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, the process of “ideological triage” was not without significant casualties. In a very real way, gay rights may be to Barack Obama what nationalization was to Tony Blair: the farther-left issue that the middle-left party simply cannot touch. But even this is no big loss. Not because gay rights are unimportant, though: frequent readers will know that my feelings are quite the opposite. Rather, gay rights can best be resolved by the non-political branch (the judiciary), and the Democratic Party will be in line to pull the right levers there with minimal attention. Making gay rights an election issue actually hurts the cause at this point, at least in the long run. So if the Democrats have left behind important issues, we haven’t left them far behind.

Especially as the American consensus continues to shift left on important issues like abortion, stem cells, privacy, and even gay rights, the Democratic Party can continue to live the Blair dream of bridging the center and the left so long as it conducts itself in a bipartisan manner (keeping Lieberman was a good start). Plausibly occupying the center is the key. That the Republicans seem so willing to shoot themselves in the foot by going farther right (go Palin go!) will just make it that much easier for centrist Democrats to outflank Republicans towards the high middle ground.

Of course, it’s easy to over-state the Blair comparison. Blair eventually faced his political reckoning in the form of the Iraq War, in which he nearly destroyed both his party and his country. Blair’s mistake should stand as a constant reminder that the center isn’t good for its own sake, and some party planks just aren’t worth abandoning. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and the electorate will eventually figure it out.

A special plea to British readers, and CompPol junkies:
Please, tell me if I’m wrong. It’s the only way I’ll learn.

Sixty Within Reach (But Not Likely)

Holy filibuster-proof majority, Batman! Mark Begich beat out Ted Stevens, putting an end to the GOP’s longest-sitting Senator, and stymying any nascent scheming Governor Palin had at getting herself a Senate seat this year. That puts the Democratic Senators at fifty-eight. And, Franken goes into a recount against Coleman for Minnesota’s seat, and for Jim Martin in the Georgia runoff, the cavalry has arrived. Sixty is within reach… albeit, still unlikely.