Election Post-Mortem
As of this writing, it is unclear whether Obama will carry the Tarheel State or whether Stuart Smalley will unseat Norm Coleman, but no matter how you slice it, the Democrats had a blowout. Obama won by a landslide. Kay Hagan probably didn’t deserve to win, but Elizabeth Dole clearly deserved to lose, and did. John Murtha was too thick to realize that “vote for me, you cousin-humping rednecks” was not a winning campaign slogan, but won handily nevertheless. Even Beverly Perdue, whose surname is French “lost,” didn’t (though in fairness, “la gouvernesse perdue” also means “the lost governor,” and she couldn’t be that if we hadn’t elected her). And while I thoroughly reject the notion that “America wins” just because we held an election, I do see a few silver linings here:
- Despite her husband’s loss, Cindy McCain will still be proud of her country.
- America is not now, and will never be, a socialist country. Yes, we did just elect a socialist. No, that doesn’t mean we’ll let him take this country in that direction, at least not very far. If Obama wants a second term, he’ll have to govern a lot differently than he has while representing a quasi-socialist state like Illinois and a straight-out socialist district like Chicago. There’s only so much one can accomplish in two years. [And yes, I meant "two," not "four," as there's even less President Obama will be able to accomplish in '11 and '12 if he overreaches in '09 like Clinton did in 1992.] Even Sweden was governed by socialists for decades before actually implementing a socialist agenda in any meaningful way.
- In the same vein, it appears we will not have a filibuster-proof Senate. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the filibuster, but I’m even less of a fan of refusing to play on a level playing field. Democrats weren’t shy about using it on us, so there’s no reason for us to be any shier about returning the favor.
- We haven’t heard the last of Sarah Palin. I think she has a very real chance of coming back on the top of the ticket in ’12 or ’16. By that time, the novelty of the first (second?) black President will have worn off, and so too will any doubts about her qualifications for the Presidency. So she wasn’t a quick enough study to ace the Katie Couric interview mere weeks after being plucked from Alaska. That won’t be an issue six months from now, let alone two years from now (and God help us if we’re even thinking about the ’12 election in ’10).
- We probably have heard the last of Hillary Clinton, unless President Obama is dumb enough to nominate her to the Supreme Court. And if he is that dumb, thank [God / your lucky stars / John McCain] that we never got rid of the judicial filibuster.
- We have almost certainly heard the last of John McCain. I must say my opinion of McCain has improved significantly since last spring, but I’d like to think we can do better in the future (though we’d be hard pressed to do as well, let alone better, on taxes, foreign policy, earmarks or guns).
- We almost certainly have heard the last of Chris Shays. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, it should. Ever heard of the infamous “McCain-Feingold” law? The bill actually bearing that name died in the Senate. The law you know as McCain-Feingold was actually Shays-Meehan. Now if we could just find some way to get rid of Mr. Feingold and Mr. Meehan.
- The lost governor has a pretty good record on guns, enough to gain the NRA endorsement over McCrory. Too bad she sucks on everything else.
Palin/Jindal in ’12 (assuming we still have elections then).
November 5th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Err, if Obama’s a “socialist,” what does that make Evo Morales? Or, for that matter, Brian Moore? If things like public education and a progressive income tax are “socialist,” then I’d have to disagree with your assessment that America is not now nor will ever be a socialist nation — if that’s your definition of socialism, then American has been a socialist country since at least the early 1930′s.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Err, if not being a dictatorial thug like Evo Morales makes a person not a socialist, then what does that make the Democratic Socialists of America, which spawned Obama’s own New Party, or every self-proclaimed “socialist” or “social democratic” party in Europe? By your reasoning, the fact that some loathsome creature like Pat Buchanan is deemed a “conservative” should somehow preclude Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal or Tim Pawlenty from also being considered a conservative. That just doesn’t follow.
The only clear distinction I see between Obama’s stated agenda and that of self-proclaimed socialists across Europe is that European socialists are much more comfortable with the word “socialism” than their American counterparts seem to be. That’s just a matter of semantics, not a ideological distinction.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:26 am
I’m going on the record right now: The Democratic Senate will go nuclear on judicial nominations by the end of 2010.
The New York Times editorial page will praise the aforementioned move.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:28 am
I am actually happy because this now means that the rest of the world can kiss our ass. We (well, not me personally) have elected the man they said they wanted. Now they can lay down their pitchforks and start loving us. No more need for college kids to put Canada flag stickers on their backpacks when they go to Paris or Barcelona.
Meanwhile, I’ll be waitin’ for Obama to spread the ole wealth over here in my direction, since I’m definitely in the income bracket that should theoretically benefit from wealth re-distribution (a poor graduate student by choice).
November 5th, 2008 at 8:52 am
[...] Xrlq looks on the bright side. [...]
November 5th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I’m still sobbing bitterly. I paused clinging to my guns and Bible just for a few seconds to type this comment.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Actually, tquirsch, you may be (probably for the first time in your life, if your the Hive party-line follower you appear to be) correct. In the 1930s perennial Socialist Party candidate Upton Sinclair stopped running for president because, he said, with the New Deal, FDR and his Brain Trust had clearly "co-opted" the Socialist Party’s programme. (He didn’t use "co-opted" but I’m translating into Sixties parlance because you strike me as a Sixties kind of guy.) At least "socialistic" if not "socialist." Also, would you not call the European Social Democrat parties socialist? If so, how would you say Obama is different from a European Social Democrat? He certainly seems intent on turning the USA into the Sweden of the Western Hemisphere.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
“Now if we could just find some way to get rid of Mr. Feingold and Mr. Meehan.”
Good luck getting rid of Feingold. You may not like his politics, but the man is a straight arrow, which is damn rare in the Senate, and having voted for him in the past, I can tell you that his honesty is appreciated in WI, by the left and the right alike.
Madrocketscientist´s last blog post..Thoughts on the Election
November 5th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
We haven’t heard the last of Sarah Palin.
God, I hope your right..I’ve got a check ready and waiting to write to Palin 2012. Nothing would sink the Republicans faster than running a candidate that 60% of the electorate thinks isn’t qualified to be President.
Joe Biden (and most other VP candidates before him) had to trouble facing the media on the day that they were announced as VP.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Donate away, Manish. That now-mandatory infomercial isn’t going to pay for itself.
Predicting what the electoral landscape will look like in ’12 is a fool’s errand, but one thing is clear: people who doubt Palin’s qualifications in ’08 mean every bit as much in ’12 as those who doubted Obama’s in ’04 (or ’06, or ’07, depending on when they first heard of the guy).
November 5th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I’m hoping that Bobby Jindal make enough progress on Louisana for him to come out on national stage. I’m definately for Jindal 2012.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I’m hoping that Bobby Jindal make enough progress on Louisana for him to come out on national stage. I’m definately for Jindal 2012.
Now I’m obviously not a fan of Jindal’s politics, but I thought he would have made a better pick for McCain as VP. He was a Rhodes Scholar and was an under-Secretary as well as Governor. (Of course he has a biology degree from an Ivy League school, but apparently thinks that evolution is a myth, but then I don’t really think Obama is against gay marriage either). He probably knows which countries are in NAFTA, could name the news sources he reads, and that Africa is a continent to boot. Of course, he can’t see Russia from his state.
But seriously, I’ve never understood the Palin infatuation..there are many other rising stars within Republican circles who at least have enough curiosity with the world around them to not have to cram basic facts into their brain.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Fair enough, but if Palin is serious about national politics – and I think she is – then cramming won’t be an issue in future races. If we can have a President who, less than a year before assuming office, thought Iran was a tiny and inconsequential country, and that his own country had 58 states (with Kentucky not bordering his own), then I think we can deal with a candidate in ’12 who didn’t know everything she should have known in ’08.
Then again, if Obama bombs out, voters may conclude that we don’t need another great orator, but a boring, wonky old fart who really knows his shit well. In that case, even a better schooled Palin in ’12 may not be the best pick after all. I’ve heard it said that every Presidential election is an overreaction to the worst aspects of the previous administration. There may be something to that.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Fair enough, but if Palin is serious about national politics – and I think she is – then cramming won’t be an issue in future races.
But why have someone who needs to cram? Obviously no candidate knows everything about everything, but most know at least something about most things and I don’t see that from Palin..I mean seriously, she didn’t know the countries in NAFTA?!?
I’m curious..why do you support Palin/Jindal? Why not Jindal/Palin or for that matter Jindal/Anyone? Maybe its the Indian-American bias in me showing, but how is Palin a better candidate than Jindal in your mind?
November 6th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Well, for starters, I don’t see Obama calling for us to nationalize any industries. Maybe I’m operating from an "old school" definition of "socialism," but nationalizing industries is a pretty damn important criteria for calling someone a "socialist." Alaska’s oil policy is closer to Morales than anything Obama proposes, fer cripe’s sakes (to channel my Wisconsin roots).
And, for the record, being a dictatorial thug doesn’t make one a socialist, it just makes one an asshole. Thuggishness has nothing to do with socialism. Nationalizing industry, on the other hand, does.
To quote hilzoy:
November 6th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Also, I recognize that the plural of anecdote is not data, but I have a friend (a partisan Republican, no less) who actually grew up in South America, and he frequently complains that all the talk about Obama being a socialist, on AM talk radio and elsewhere, is “ridiculous.” This is a guy who knows first hand what actual socialism looks like, and according to him, nothing that the farthest left in the Democratic party has to offer comes even close.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:55 am
If we can have a President who, less than a year before assuming office, thought Iran was a tiny and inconsequential country, and that his own country had 58 states
And then you wonder why I call you “disingenuous.” :)
November 6th, 2008 at 3:55 am
link
November 7th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Manish:
She’s not. I’d be every bit as happy with Jindal/Palin as with Palin/Jindal. The reason I listed her first is because she has a lot more national pull today. whether she will four years from now is anybody’s guess, but if it makes you feel better, given what I currently know about both candidates, I may well vote for Jindal over Palin if they turn out to be the two leading candidates in the ’12 Republican primary.
As for the the last quote about “strong” leaders talking to their enemies, I’m not sure what you’re hoping to prove. Kennedy’s meeting with Khrushchev was a disaster, and may well have led to teh Cuban missile crisis and the Berlin Wall. Reagan made it through his entire first term without meeting with a single Soviet leader. Even after Brezhnev, Chernenko and Andropov dropped off, he still wasn’t in a mad rush to meet with Gorby, and only did so when it was clearly in the U.S.’s interests for him to do so. Say it with me: preconditions.
TGirsch:
By that definition, most self-described “socialists” in Western Europe aren’t socialists, either. Of course, if you tax industries to death and regulate them to the hilt, at some point the distinction between private and “social” ownership becomes largely a matter of semantics. Even if legal state ownership of all industry were a necessary component of “real” socialism, I don’t recall Obama saying anything against the concept, either. He hasn’t weighed in on that question one way or the other. So even if we assume your definition of socialism is right, the most we can say is that Obama is either not a socialist, or he is a socialist who has the Alinsky method down pat.
Not sure why you think South America has a lock on what actual socialism looks like, but my time in Europe gave me plenty of exposure to both the democratic and the undemocratic varieties. When I call Obama a socialist, I’m not pegging him with the brand of socialism that existed on the other side of the Iron Curtain. I’m pegging him with the kind that existed in Western Europe then, and across Europe today. There’s a reason why Obama is more popular in Europe than he is in the U.S.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
So the bottom line, then, is that we are operating from vastly different definitions of what “socialism” means. And I suppose that if taxing industries at a rate lower than what Reagan did constitutes “taxing them to death,” maybe Obama genuinely is to be feared…
Finally, I can’t recall if you specifically are guilty of this, but plenty on the right have been calling Obama a “Marxist,” which is very much “the brand of socialism that existed on the other side of the Iron Curtian.”
November 7th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Oh, and I can’t help but notice that you’ve moved the goal posts quite nicely on your mischaracterization of Obama’s statement about the threat posed by Iran.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Perhaps so, as I’m defining the term in line with what most self-proclaimed socialists advocate, while you’re defining it strictly in terms of what a minority of them do. Give me a reason why I should care whether the federal government legally owns all industry or whether it merely taxes and regulates it to the point of making nominal private ownership irrelevant, and I’ll rethink my position. But thus far you haven’t even tried to do that, much less succeeded. And if you think for a minute that Obama will tax industry at a lower rate than Reagan did, I can get you a great deal on a bridge near Brooklyn for less than your forthcoming tax cut.
You’ve done an equally piss-poor job of documenting my “mischaracterization” of Obama’s flip statements about Iran. What exactly have I “mischaracterized,” and how? The reference to a tiny country was his, not mine.
November 9th, 2008 at 5:13 am
I think you’re wrong about Clinton. We haven’t nearly heard the last of her (and I don’t just say that because she has four years left as my senator). Obama ran for and won Carter’s second term. Kennedy nearly beat Carter, and Clinton has the advantage of not having killed anybody (that we know of). To assuage black anger after she knocks off their saint (and by that time only blacks will still think of him that way), she will have to pick a black running mate. The most obvious candidate for that spot would be David Patterson, but picking someone from your own state means that state’s electors can’t vote for both candidates, which is especially bad if your state is as big as NY. This can be solved if, once she has won the primary, she resigns her senate seat and moves back home, either to Illinois or Arkansas. Alternatively, she’ll go with some genuinely moderate black Democrat, such as Harold Ford, rather than the fake moderate that Obama is.
The Republican ticket will be Palin/Jindal, not necessarily in that order. The big snag in Jindal running for president is that his term as governor ends in 2011 rather than 2010 as Palin’s does, and the convention is that a candidate for office promises to serve a whole term and not run for higher office. Nobody actually believes candidates when they make this promise, and nobody holds them to it afterwards, but the convention is that one must say it, and that will be difficult for Jindal, since by the time he’s up for reelection his presidential campaign will have to already be in full swing. That’s why I think Palin/Jindal is slightly more likely.
Anyway, those are my predictions for the two tickets in 2012; white men need not apply.
November 16th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
the killers of the two indian students at LSU have gone scot free. this in a state where an indian origin american (read forced conversion desi) is a governor. if this isnt racism, what is?