This election has been a lot of things. And, if we know anything about the parasitic relationship between pundits and the media, then one thing is assured: we will have no shortage of evaluations that are a bit too simple, and just a bit too easy.
This is the election phenomenon. There can only be one reason for anything, or at least one big reason for anything, or perhaps the reason that things happen, as if it can be isolated from reality, put in a jar and placed on a shelf for future observation.
The last presidential election was that way. The people were split pretty well in half, just as they had been in 2000. The Iraq Conflict, Bush's approval, and the economy were all tanking, but hadn't reached catastrophic yet. Rove's slime machine was in force and the Democratic Party was in chaos. Exit polls showed "traditional values", Iraq, and economy as important issues, with only a few points separating them. And yet, we remember '04 as the "values voter" year. The height of the political power of the Right-Wing Evangelical Block Vote.
So what will 2008 be? Probably the 'change' election and the 'economy' election. Not to mention the 'historic' election.
But like 2004, there's a whole lot to it. And to see it, one thing has to be acknowledged: President-elect Barack Obama slaughtered McCain. He absolutely destroyed him.
Here are the Electoral Vote tallies for the last few decades:
2004: 286-252
2000: 271-267
1996: 379-159
1992: 370-168
Since the 1960s and the birth of the "Southern Strategy", the only Democrats to win have been Southerners (Carter and Clinton). Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I all won big.
The truth though, is that Bush II actually represents the end. The end of the life of this strategy. His two "elections" represent two of the three closest in modern history.
Obama's campaign seems to represent the next cycle as much as McCain's tried to exemplify the old one. This is why I consider this entire election to be a broad and complext rejection of the 'Neos'. It isn't just a rejection of the Republican Party (which it clearly was), but a rejection of the characteristic ideology of both parties: neoconservatism and neoliberalism. In defeating Sen. John McCain, Obama not only will end the reign of neoconservatism in Washington, but has made the very ideology appear grusome and inhumane: a direct reflection of the Southern Strategy's use of race and culture (xenophobia). The Obama campaign seemed to simply pulled the cloak off this dispicable approach to politics, driving the vampires into hiding.
But in as much as Obama's election repudiates neoconservatism and its unholy marriage between market fundamentalism and war/human lives as a comodity with which the market could be fed, it also is a repudiation of neoliberalism. Both ideologies required hawkishness toward and blind devotion to both market solutions and military interventions. Obama's victory over Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primaries is a visible and symbolic victory over the neoliberal ideology that predominated the Democratic Party in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.
Both of these ideologies, that ushered in an era of innefective government, served to strip the country of its community and ability to collaborate--the very heart of Obama's appeal.
So, as we all put the champaigne down and begin to stare at the harsh realities around us, perhaps we should avoid those simple and easy descriptions, remembering how significant the time is, how different it is from 2004, 2000, even 1992, or 1980. Obama's dramatic defeat of the two predominating ideologies will take a while to process. It will take a new president to guide us to what this means. Is it traditional liberalism in the mode of LBJ and FDR, or is it something new? Something that we might not even recognize?
This is the election phenomenon. There can only be one reason for anything, or at least one big reason for anything, or perhaps the reason that things happen, as if it can be isolated from reality, put in a jar and placed on a shelf for future observation.
The last presidential election was that way. The people were split pretty well in half, just as they had been in 2000. The Iraq Conflict, Bush's approval, and the economy were all tanking, but hadn't reached catastrophic yet. Rove's slime machine was in force and the Democratic Party was in chaos. Exit polls showed "traditional values", Iraq, and economy as important issues, with only a few points separating them. And yet, we remember '04 as the "values voter" year. The height of the political power of the Right-Wing Evangelical Block Vote.
So what will 2008 be? Probably the 'change' election and the 'economy' election. Not to mention the 'historic' election.
But like 2004, there's a whole lot to it. And to see it, one thing has to be acknowledged: President-elect Barack Obama slaughtered McCain. He absolutely destroyed him.
Here are the Electoral Vote tallies for the last few decades:
2004: 286-252
2000: 271-267
1996: 379-159
1992: 370-168
Since the 1960s and the birth of the "Southern Strategy", the only Democrats to win have been Southerners (Carter and Clinton). Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I all won big.
The truth though, is that Bush II actually represents the end. The end of the life of this strategy. His two "elections" represent two of the three closest in modern history.
Obama's campaign seems to represent the next cycle as much as McCain's tried to exemplify the old one. This is why I consider this entire election to be a broad and complext rejection of the 'Neos'. It isn't just a rejection of the Republican Party (which it clearly was), but a rejection of the characteristic ideology of both parties: neoconservatism and neoliberalism. In defeating Sen. John McCain, Obama not only will end the reign of neoconservatism in Washington, but has made the very ideology appear grusome and inhumane: a direct reflection of the Southern Strategy's use of race and culture (xenophobia). The Obama campaign seemed to simply pulled the cloak off this dispicable approach to politics, driving the vampires into hiding.
But in as much as Obama's election repudiates neoconservatism and its unholy marriage between market fundamentalism and war/human lives as a comodity with which the market could be fed, it also is a repudiation of neoliberalism. Both ideologies required hawkishness toward and blind devotion to both market solutions and military interventions. Obama's victory over Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primaries is a visible and symbolic victory over the neoliberal ideology that predominated the Democratic Party in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.
Both of these ideologies, that ushered in an era of innefective government, served to strip the country of its community and ability to collaborate--the very heart of Obama's appeal.
So, as we all put the champaigne down and begin to stare at the harsh realities around us, perhaps we should avoid those simple and easy descriptions, remembering how significant the time is, how different it is from 2004, 2000, even 1992, or 1980. Obama's dramatic defeat of the two predominating ideologies will take a while to process. It will take a new president to guide us to what this means. Is it traditional liberalism in the mode of LBJ and FDR, or is it something new? Something that we might not even recognize?
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