by publius
Tonight’s win is hard to put into words. The historical significance speaks for itself. But for all its rich history, tonight is also about far more than Barack Obama.
Any way you slice it, the 2008 election should be seen as a massive repudiation of the George W. Bush administration. Karl Rove’s project failed miserably. Bush is instead bequeathing large Democratic majorities to the next president. And that’s no accident. It’s the inevitable byproduct of a political strategy based on polarization. That strategy may win in the short term (indeed, it did) – but it’s a long-term loser. That’s because this type of strategy inevitably rallies forces against it. It’s just a matter of physics – every action brings an equal and opposite reaction. In this sense, the 2008 election is simply the ripple effects of the 2002 election.
For this reason – and somewhat ironically – George W. Bush is arguably the father of the modern progressive revival. Tonight’s victories — and the infrastructure that made them possible — would simply be unthinkable in the absence of Bush. That’s not to say, of course, that the nation is better because Bush was president. It’s not. But the birth of the new progressive infrastructure is the silver lining of that long eight-year cloud.
Looking back, one of the most important Bush legacies is that he radicalized a new generation of progressives. Personally speaking, I started blogging because of a deep anger about Iraq and the exploitation of 9/11 that bubbled in me during 2003. This deep anger caused me to return to politics – to see its importance. In short, Bush woke me up from a long slumber. And I’ve been very engaged since.
But I’m just a small inconsequential fish in a big ocean. The bigger story is that this same anger – this same frustration – has led liberals to organize in more numerous and consequential ways. In the last few years, we’ve seen new think tanks. We’ve seen blogs flower. We’ve seen the rise of media sites like TPM and Huffington with real journalistic chops. We’ve seen unprecedented efforts to register and canvass voters.
In short, we’ve seen a new energy driving liberals back to politics. And tonight, it started bearing real fruit (though it did in 2006 too). That energy, however, is in many ways a reaction – an equal and opposite reaction – to the nasty polarization of 2002 to 2004. Again, I’m not trying to justify the Bush administration – far from it. My more humble point is that when your strategy is to make half the country hate you, that half is ultimately going to fight back, and it’s ultimately going to win. Tonight, it did.
But we’d all be better off if we could end those tactics altogether. And maybe I’ll come to regret saying this – but I believe Obama truly wants to end this kind of politics. I also think he’s capable of doing it. It’s hard for a generation raised on Seinfeld irony to admit these things – to let go of easy sarcastic defense mechanisms. But what the hell — I believe in him. And that’s a new thing for me.
So congrats to the Obama campaign – and congrats to all those who volunteered. What a great great night.
i never cared all that much about politics, until i started to see how f**king insane Bush and his crowd were.
my father is 75, and i’ve frequently pointed out to him that he has been around for some Great Presidents–FDR, Truman, Kennedy. being born during Nixon (ugh), i have never had the pleasure of having of who i consider a Great President.
i think i just saw the dawning of one for me tonight.
Congratulations to everyone who voted for Barack Obama – and commiserations to everyone who stood in line for more than an hour in order to cast their vote, whoever they voted for.
Now, what’s next?
Now perhaps Karl Rove will focus on his real ambition: someday managing Richard Nixon’s campaign for president of Hell. Indeed, for all we know, by then it will be a re-election campaign.
Drinking.
Then sleeping.
Then, sadly, working.
I think there is another component to what Rove did which backfired. He (Rove) tried to take the fulcrum of American politics out of the hands of the independent swing voters, by turning elections into a base centric GOTV contest. I don’t think the indy’s appreciated that one bit, and part of the story of this election is the revenge of the moderates on the party of polarization.
When I was canvassing today for the Democratic ticket one of the most enthusiastic and supportive voters I came into contact with was a guy who (judging from the licence plate holder on his car and the baseball cap on his head) was a veteran who’d served in the 101st Airborne. I tried to close my GOTV speech by thanking him for his service, but he was so intent on saying his thanks to the whole campaign and everyone working in it that it was hard to get a word in edgewise. I didn’t see any sign from his yard or house that he was a long time Democrat or even all that politically oriented – just an average guy who wanted his country taken back from the crazy people.
Tonight he got what he wanted.
I was thinkig that this election was a great repudiation.
On the other hand, maybe its a redemption.
…but I believe Obama truly wants to end this kind of politics. I also think he’s capable of doing it.
Ok, to put this in perspective we could start with Hamilton vs Burr to Andy Jackson & the entire ante-bellum period, that little nastiness called the Civil War, Garfield, the anarchists, the KKK 20s, Father Coughlin, the McCarthy era, of course the 60s, Dole saying in 93 that Clinton wasn’t his President…and I’ve left so much out.
But Obama is going to create the first and only American era of niceness politics, politics without polarization or acrimony, and Limbaugh and Hannity will jump aboard. Kumbaya, everybody. Have I got you right?
I apparently have really underestimated the President Elect. This will be astonishing.
Apparently Prop 8 has passed in California. Who do I hug about that?
Congratulations. Now, let’s hope that Obama is everything you hope, not everything I fear.
The strategy was to make half the country hate them, but the purpose was to rip off 90% of the country. You can succeed by making half the country hate you for much longer than that, but not if you’re also making things worse for a large number of your supporters, because those people will either end up hating you too or at least not support you any more.
Congratulations, everyone. With some reservations about his policy positions, I cast my vote for Obama on grounds of temperment and a desire to repudiate the Rovian GOP by giving it the electoral butt-kicking it had so richly earned, and I’m happy about the result. Can’t say I’m disappointed that the Dems didn’t pull off a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate though – I’m glad there will be at least a little bit of a check on the Democrats’ wilder ideas.
He (Rove) tried to take the fulcrum of American politics out of the hands of the independent swing voters, by turning elections into a base centric GOTV contest. I don’t think the indy’s appreciated that one bit, and part of the story of this election is the revenge of the moderates on the party of polarization.
I think this is exactly right. Personally I’ve been sick of the mobilize-the-base strategy employed by the Republicans for awhile, but I think it took the distortionary effects of 9/11-inspired paranoia wearing off for many of my fellow centrist swing voters to fully realize how extreme the modern GOP has become. Once they did, however, the daftness of Rove’s strategy was exposed. You can’t win nationwide elections with a platform and candidate that appeals solely to southern evangelicals unless there are VERY unusual circumstances on election day, and such circumstances will not predominate in most years. Why Rove was ever considered a genius is something I’ll never grasp.
“Now, what’s next?”
Break’s over.
Yes! Musgrave unseated by Markey.
Goodbye to the nation’s #1 Congressional homophobe!
Brett: Now, let’s hope that Obama is everything you hope, not everything I fear.
Impossible: for everything I hope is everything you fear. Let’s hope you can learn to be less fearful.
“Bush is instead bequeathing large Democratic majorities to the next president. And that’s no accident. It’s the inevitable byproduct of a political strategy based on polarization.”
I respectfully disagree: It’s the inevitable byproduct of a political strategy based on polarization, pursued by a President who is at odds with his own party. The Rovian strategy, essentially, was to get out as much of the base as possible, rather than bringing people over from the other side. This requires a candidate who actually makes the base enthusiastic. It can’t work with candidates who conspicuously disagree with their own party on major issues. A “maverick” can’t execute it.
You don’t win a get out the vote strategy, when your opponent is far more in tune with his party’s base than you are with yours. The strategy works backwards if that’s the case.
The Republican party has a serious problem, which started to become apparent after the ’94 election, and which is glaringly obvious at this point: It’s candidates don’t agree with the platform they run on, they don’t agree with the party base, on some pretty important issues. There’s something institutional about the party that filters out anybody who’d actually WANT to implement the things the party supposedly stands for.
Instead, you get guys who can’t bear to call themselves “conservative” unless they can hyphenate it in a way which validates liberal attacks on conservatism. You get candidates who brag about how often they work with Democrats to defeat their own party’s supposed goals. And then they expect people who LIKE those goals to vote for them?
Hopefully a few years in the wilderness will fix this, but I’m not optimistic. Heck, I’ve got my doubts that even an effective Republican party will be able to make a comeback, after a few years of Democrats writing new campaign laws.
But it wasn’t polarization that did the Republicans in, it was polarization and not appealing to their own base.
I respectfully disagree: It’s the inevitable byproduct of a political strategy based on polarization, pursued by a President who is at odds with his own party.
utter B.S..
as of late September, his approval among Republicans was in the mid 60s.
you clowns worshiped him, idolized him, missed no opportunity to sing his praises, for eight godamned years – until it started to look like he was going to affect your party’s chances in last night’s election.
Not appealing to their own base? McCain still got 46 percent of the vote (according to the current Yahoo figures), which is a lot higher than Bush’s approval numbers. What do the Republicans have to do to get down to 40 percent? McCain won some states by massive margins.
Which, incidentally, is one reason among many why I’m not particularly excited by the results. I’m glad that McCain lost, and that’s about the extent of my emotions. We had a perfect storm of events over the past several years that should have had McCain’s support way down and yet he still didn’t lose as badly as some past Democrats have done.
As for Obama and niceness and all that, what Bob McManus said. Are people all going to hold the same opinions on torture and war now that the election is over?
Yes, Cleek, but Republicans are nothing if not disloyal in defeat.
People, people:
Listen!
Just shut up and listen!
Ok, you can quit shutting up now, since you’re Americans. But, really, give it a day?
Republicans are reluctant to attack a President of their own party, while he’s being attacked by the other party. But, no, I don’t think Bush was particularly popular among Republicans, if they were going to be honest about it.
The bottom line, though, is that you don’t try to win on getting out your base, when you’ve based your political career on giving them the finger.
But, no, I don’t think Bush was particularly popular among Republicans, if they were going to be honest about it
See, Cleek: Republicans in victory are dishonest and in defeat disloyal. Great stuff, Brett. Now can we work on your fear issues?
“But, no, I don’t think Bush was particularly popular among Republicans, if they were going to be honest about it.”
Oh, for god’s sakes. Speak for yourself all you like, Brett, but Bush’s popularity was 86% with all Americans in 2001, let alone Republicans.
Talk about nice memories and revisionism. I’m not proud of it, but just STFU with your weird lies about history.
Given my own small volunteer efforts and the swarms of people I saw doing likewise, I feel rather disappointed by what seem to be mediocre turnout figures – about 120M, uncertain to break the number from 2004. I don’t know what we can do to change this, if 2008’s huge numbers of doors knocked and volunteer phonebankers couldn’t – a National Popular Vote to motivate those folks staying home because their states are forgone conclusions? More mail-in or early voting? I haven’t actually seen the numbers, so I don’t know how turnout in swing states or in mail-in or early-voting states compared to the rest of the country. Unfortunately, this may suggest that Brett’s theory about the enduring viability of base-driven strategies is correct: after all, McCain ran a strongly negative campaign, which in theory should have depressed his opponent’s turnout without increasing his own, and a combination of events and McCain’s record, combined with the lack of any positive message, may have depressed his base. On the other side, a great candidate with legions of volunteers ,vaults of money, and the tide of events on his side scarcely bettered Kerry’s national vote total, albeit while struggling against the inertia of history. McCain ran an incompetent campaign with little appeal outside his base, and did better than he ought – suggesting that a base with more verve might have won it for him.
Shorter Brett:
We have nothing to fear but hope itself.
Congratulations everyone!
Congratulations, America!
-from Australia
Warren Terra: I don’t know what we can do to change this
1. Reform US elections, so that votes can’t just be thrown out by election officials who don’t like the party on that ballot.
2. Reform US elections, so that electronic voting machines that can just subtract votes from the “wrong” party are made illegal to use.
3. Reform US elections, so that you do not have the situation of polling stations with queues 4 hours long.
Obama’s margin of victory was high enough to overcome all these factors, and that’s great – but going “oh, I don’t know how to fix this” when electoral reform is the obvious answer is as defeatist as assuming that the US can’t possibly have a better health care system.
There is no particular reason the US has to have such a crappy electoral system: other democracies manage to run free and fair elections where everyone entitled to do so can register, everyone registered can vote, and every vote cast is counted. There is a narrow window of opportunity now for the Obama administration to set about reform: and that ought to be one of their first priorities, since without it, there is no guarantee that, even if Obama wins in 2012, he gets back into the White House.
Brett, I think the reason Republicans are so reluctant to do what their base really wants is because if they tried it would quickly turn out that their base is a lot smaller than you think and their actions would outrage most Americans a extreme. Trust me, Democrats have the same problem.
Karl Rove’s project failed miserably.
Amen.
And, it failed because it was a sucky project. It was a sucky project going back to Richard Nixon, Lee Atwater, et al.
It deserved to fail.
But we’d all be better off if we could end those tactics altogether.
Amen again.
IMO a little “trust but verify” is in order, but I’m all for an end to the f*%king culture wars.
Only 76 days to go, here’s hoping Bush doesn’t totally trash the ship of state on the way out.
Got my fingers crossed.
Thanks –
I think the reason Republicans are so reluctant to do what their base really wants is because if they tried it would quickly turn out that their base is a lot smaller than you think
I am not interested in piling on Brett, just wanted to say that I think this analysis is correct.
Thanks –
One of the things I’ve told my conservative friends in recent weeks as they’ve projected the kind of disaster a liberal administration would be, is that they should realize – if the Dems truly are as bad as they think, it will yield one of the great Republican mandates and majorities ever. A true, Carter-like disaster (which these people actually expect) would probably yield 20 years of conservative rule, and it will be based not on the specter of liberal failure but on its actuality.
Bush’s influence on the outcome can’t be overstated, I think. In fact, I’d suggest supplanting the Bradley Effect with the Bush Effect, since the latter overpowered the former.
“The strategy was to make half the country hate them, but the purpose was to rip off 90% of the country.”
You beat me to it, bryan. A realist would know that such a strategy will ultimately fail, if you define failure as being voted out. But if the GOP can defend most of their gains while they are out of power then it’s a net gain for them. It’s a “two steps forward, one step back” strategy.
A permanent majority is impossible. Both parties wear out their welcome eventually. Perhaps Rove deliberately made the tradeoff of less time in power in exchange for a more radical agenda. The risk of his strategy is a progressive backlash so strong it will sweep away all his gains and then some. We’ll see if that happens in 2010.
I thought I was the reason you started blogging. 🙂
I laughed reading your post. Yesterday, I was working the polls with the brother-in-law of the Democratic candidate for Congress. He asked if I had long been active in the party. My answer was, “No.” I told him that I had been apolitical prior to Reagan, but that his administration had made me political. It took Bush to make me into an activist. I knew exactly what you were talking about when you said that you had been awakened.
The bigger story is that this same anger – this same frustration – has led liberals to organize in more numerous and consequential ways.
And drove libertarians, conservative intellectuals, and independents away from the GOP altogether.
It’s rather hard to get a plurality when you start pissing people off in your own party and driving them toward the opposition.
“Tonight’s victories — and the infrastructure that made them possible — would simply be unthinkable in the absence of Bush.”
Does this mean that in 2000 Nader was correct? He said and I paraphrase that maybe things have to get so bad before they can get better. He was defending his candidacy and accusations that he stole the election for Bush.
I wish America wasn’t this way. The world and humanity too.
Political machines have lasted a long time in individual American cities. Setting up a political machine at the national level is considerably harder, but Bush and company came closer than I would have liked. For example, when staffing the CPA in Iraq, the Bush Administration’s first priority was to hire Republicans, rather than to hire the most capable people. I think that Bush sincerely wanted to achieve victory in Iraq, but providing political patronage was more important to him. I didn’t see a great deal of pushback against this choice of priorities.
I don’t think that the demise of the Bush/Rove project was inevitable. I say that not merely as a warning to be vigilent about similar attempts in future years. I also say it to give full credit to the many patriotic Americans who played a role, whether large or small, in bringing about that outcome.
“And drove libertarians, conservative intellectuals, and independents away from the GOP altogether.”
Got that much right: I voted for Barr.
He said and I paraphrase that maybe things have to get so bad before they can get better
In the absense of Bush, we could perhaps have had incremental change in a positive direction, leading ultimately (over a different path) to the same or similar place; but without people getting as politically engaged or as desparate.
This quote from Krugman is so right on the money that I had to share it:
“What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.
And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”
Publius rightly points to George W. Bush as the reluctant father of the New Progressivism. But he’s also, in the same way, the father of the ‘left blogosphere.’
Very few of us began blogging or commenting in the pre-Bush era. All of the writing and tones of the current LB have been shaped in opposition to Bush — and then to McCain and Palin, as well as the various lumps of more noxious slime that floated up in the Republican sewer.
Which has meant that almost everything we’ve written has been in opposition, has been justifiably negative, has been ‘getting back on our hind legs and howling at the intruders breaking into the house’ of our Constitution, our honor, our belief in the possibility of good, positive government.
And we were right to do so. We had to attempt to turn the light on the danger our Constitution was in, and our reputations were, at the corruption of the Bush Administration, corruption even attacking the soldiers fighting in the Bush War.
Oh, sure, sometimes our anger led to excess, rhetorical overstatements that hurt us, and were unnecessary given how bad things actually were. (No, it wasn’t fascism, or anything near it — the only hint of fascism we really saw was the reactions at Palin rallies, and that was a long way away from the real thing. Now, the Republicans were not the new ‘KKK’ or the American Taliban. No, the MSM did not prove — except for Faux Noise — to be bought, paid for and ‘in the tank’ for McCain — despite all the donuts and barbeque. Even the worries about the Diebold machines seem to have been of no consequence.)
But there was just enough truth in these worries that our exaggerations were justified. And so was the excess of paranoia that leaked from Republicans to our opponents — whoever we supported — in the primaries. Yes, i regret things I said and predicted about Hillary, and many of us wish our words weren’t permanent as we were sure Obama was dooming us to defeat.
The only thing that was unjustified was our pessimism, and even that is understandable. Some of us watched the crash-and-burn of the Kerry campaign, came to blogging when we were lonely voices trying to wake up an America where George Bush was still popular, where people thought of Karl Rove as an ‘Evil Genius’ rather than a failure. It looked like we were fighting a necessary but almost hopeless battle — and for some of us, the extra kick of the ‘hopeless martyr dying nobly’ was necessary.
But something unexpected happened.
WE WON.
Oh, we’ll be disappointed in Obama, unless we realize what being a ‘liberal pragmatist’ means. (To quote FDR, “Try something. If that doesn’t work, try something else.”) We’ll disagree with him — as I do on his failure to support marriage equality, and his acceptance of the death penalty.
But George Bush is gone, and while we’ll be watching closely to see how totally Obama unravels the Bush Administrations dying tendrils, we know he will do it, that we have no reason to keep our fears and our negativity and our anger.
But they have been so much of our reason for being. We’d turn on the browser in the morning, knowing there would be a new Bush, or Cheney, or Gonzales, our, eventually, McCain and Palin story to get our blood racing. It cut back on our need for caffeine, and in a warped way, it was almost entertaining, if we could distance ourselves enough to take it as a ‘clown show.’
But can we now turn it around? Can we be — generally, cautiously — positive? Can we keep up our interest without the extra jolt the anger and the adrenaline gave us?
Can we even realize — and for some of us, it will be difficult — that we have won, that we can deal with opponents, not enemies, that we can disagree without seeing the other person as a dangerous thug, that it matters that we are arguing about the best way to go forward rather than fighting the backward pull of the last eight years.
To paraphrase a famous Republican, “What are you guys gonna do now that you don’t have George W. Bush to kick around any more?”
Got an answer?
(I’m not pessimistic, just trying to get a discussion going.)
Well some of them are dangerous thugs, but I agree thst the goasl here is good government, the passsage of significasnt lgisltin, not revenge.
Prups: But George Bush is gone, and while we’ll be watching closely to see how totally Obama unravels the Bush Administrations dying tendrils, we know he will do it
Do we? Only recently, Hilzoy was arguing that Obama ought to keep a Bush appointee on as Defense Secretary. Not that long ago, an Obama adviser was asserting that Obama’s administration would have far more important things to do that instigate investigation and prosecution of those criminals that will be running the country till January 20th. And unless Obama makes election reform a priority, he will have exactly 4 years to get everything he wants to get done, done, before the next crew of fascists comes in again. Especially if neither he nor Congress intend to make any attempt to have senior Bush administration members impeached.
I don’t know that Obama will do it. I don’t even know if he’ll try to do it and fail. I don’t even know if he wants to do it, given that he’s rather apt to make noises about reconciliation and forgiveness.
All that’s really certain is: from January 20th 2009, the US has a President who is conservative, but not a fascist, and who has demonstrated a clear ability to get what he wants to get done accomplished.
Whether unravelling the Bush administration’s tendrils is even on the list of the things Obama wants to get done is something we just don’t know.
In addition to mobilizing “progressives” or liberals, I think that Bush and his administration’s aggressive approach has pushed away a substantial number of former Republicans.
I’m one of those. I voted for Bush in 2000 because (believe it or not) I thought that Cheney was someone who could be trusted. But the Bush administration’s response to 9/11 disappointed me, and the arguments that anyone who disagreed with the Iraq War was an appeaser or a traitor completely turned me off. There’s only so many times you can be told that your view makes you unAmerican before you simply don’t want to have anything to do with the people who tell you that.
I’m glad that Obama won, even though I disagree with too many Democratic positions to identify myself as a Democrat. But I’ll never be a Republican again, at least as long as the party is run by people like Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, et al.
Got that much right: I voted for Barr.
I think this speaks to the issue of how large the conservative “base” is.
I don’t wish to speak for you, brett, but my impression is that Barr, and before him a guy like Ron Paul, are pretty representative of what you would recognize as conservative. As opposed to, frex, George W Bush.
I don’t dismiss guys like Paul and Barr, and actually think they have a lot to offer our political conversation. They present a coherent, arguable point of view.
They are principled conservatives. Not the only ones, and not the only type. But they represent (I think) the kind of principled conservative you refer to when you talk about the “base” who are disappointed with Bush’s policies.
And, their constituency is a relatively small percentage of the population.
I don’t know that Obama will do it. I don’t even know if he’ll try to do it and fail. I don’t even know if he wants to do it, given that he’s rather apt to make noises about reconciliation and forgiveness.
I hope that Obama rolls back the most serious errors of the Bush administration at the policy level. I do NOT expect him to take the lead in pursuing criminal investigations and/or other malfeasance in office. In fact, I WOULD NOT want him to do so.
Put someone good in at DOJ and leave the criminal efforts to them. Leave investigations of other forms of malfeasance to whatever agencies of government are responsible for enforcement there.
Obama should not interfere, in either direction. He has other things to do, and his hands will be full.
thanks –
“Listen!
Just shut up and listen!
Ok, you can quit shutting up now, since you’re Americans. But, really, give it a day?”
Sorry, Gary, but speeches like that mean nothing to me. I can be moved by speeches, but not that one. I agreed with bits and pieces of it, but I don’t see elections as sacred occasions or as moments of joy or anything of that sort–our country as a whole chose, by a fairly narrow margin, not to give four more years to a political party that has plunged this country halfway to ruin. A sigh of relief seems appropriate.
our country as a whole chose, by a fairly narrow margin
Actually, given that we know US elections can be rigged by up to 5-6% by Republicans making use of the no-paper-trail voting machines and other useful techniques, it may well have been a much larger margin – just whittled down.
In 2012, will Obama still be able to win by an unriggable margin?