I don’t agree with everything in this Tom Edsall piece on the election. For example, I don’t question the wisdom of Democrats’ appeals to women voters and I don’t think it’s fair to blame Obama or Romney’s supposed “insipid leadership style” for the way they’ve been hamstrung by the far right (Romney, politically, Obama, in terms of governance). But he makes a lot of good points and I recommend you read the whole thing.
In practice, the Ryan Medicare proposal did not become a dagger aimed at the heart of the Republican Party. The Pew Research Center has found that the expected Republican-Romney vulnerability on Medicare never materialized: in a Sept. 12-16 survey, Pew noted that voters, by a 51-38 margin — a 13-point difference — believed that Obama would deal with Medicare better than Romney. By October 24-28, however, Obama’s advantage had fallen to 48-43 — just 5 points.
[….]An equally significant development has been the strategic decision of the Romney campaign to set new standards in the use of untrue campaign claims.
[….]At a time when both parties have consigned themselves to a politics of equivocation and retreat, the far right is the only force in Washington with a kamikaze commitment to a defined agenda. The presidential election does not appear likely to produce an effective counterforce.
The death of truth and the rise of a far-right kamikaze (can’t improve on Edsall here) movement are probably the most significant short-term political developments of the current political era.
Unlike Edsall, I believe that demographic destiny is with the Democratic party, not only because of changes in the composition of the electorate but because of Democrats’ continued domination among younger voters. I don’t mean that to sound complacent — far from it, I believe that the fact there is real opportunity here means Democrats have to strike while the iron is hot, both in terms of immigration reform and in terms of trying (as much as possible) to stimulate the economy so that people can get jobs (remember, young people are more likely than anyone to be looking for jobs, since in many cases, they have yet to enter the work force) instead of falling in love with austerity.
But the next ten years are going to be tough sledding. I’ll be thrilled to have Obama at the helm for the first four years of it and I hope we get someone as good in 2016.
Valdivia
Yeats for the win. It also makes me think Yeats was thinking of an Aristotelian sort of hell. Is that like Burkean bells? Am I now sounding like BoBo?
blingee
Can always count on DougJ and his suttle concern trolling when he thinks the time is ripe.
“I don’t agree with everything…but he makes a lot of good points”
lol…too funny.
Eric U.
we really need a second party that has the best interests of the country at heart. The dems taking over would just mean a lot of idiots jump parties.
Violet
The Republicans illustrate The Unbearable Whiteness of Being.
Schlemizel
@blingee:
suttle ? so is dougj selling good to settlers out on the frontier? Thats the only sutler I am familiar with
Yutsano
@Valdivia: OMG she’s gone Villager!! :)
gypsy howell
Why is it a liability to target as one of your key constituencies the group that makes up more than 50% of the population?
Oh that’s right. The default “normal” gender in America is male.
Tod Kelly
From the Edsall piece:
“Instead, a Romney loss will encourage party leaders to blame his ideological inconsistency, his lack of charisma and his moderate past for the defeat, rather than to swiftly initiate a major re-evaluation of the party’s approach to ethnic or racial minorities.”
I worry that this is correct, especially because I think Edsall is missing another piece of the puzzle: Today’s GOP is inexorably tied to their media machine, which remains just as profitable (if not more so) when they lose elections and are the opposition. Clintons and Obamas drive right wingers tuning into shock radio and TV more than a couple of Bushes.
I don’t see FOX or talk radio deciding to go soft on Obama if he wins, I see them deciding that their viewers & listeners want MORE – and I see those that want to be elected in primaries cravenly going along for the ride.
I don’t think we’ve hit the part yet where we can stop saying “It can’t possibly get any worse.”
MikeJ
@Valdivia: Keats and Yeats are on your side, but you lose, because the lover Wilde is on mine.
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Tony J
Slightly OT
After weeks of banging the ‘Too Close To Call!’ drum as loud as anyone in New York or DC, over here the BBC has Breaking News! about the very recent discovery of something called “The Electoral College”. Apparently (no one’s too sure, but this is what the experts are saying) it could well be that Barack Obama has some kind of narrow lead in it.
It is to laugh. Tonight’s ‘Election 2012 Report’ is given over to interviews with voters from rural Ohio who, believe it or not, are almost entirely in the Romney camp. Wow, it’s almost like they’re setting up their Election Night coverage to contain some kind of “whocouldknowedit?” shocker to draw in eyeballs.
Yeah, the BBC is light-years better than the crap you have in the States, but that doesn’t mean it’s not pretty shitty when it wants to be.
The Ancient Randonneur
Good to see we are finally getting some love for the 2016 campaign! I was hoping we wouldn’t have to wait unitl Wednesday for it to start.
Valdivia
@Yutsano:
biggest grin. It’s probably all that lack of sleep ;)
@MikeJ:
touche!
trollhattan
@Tod Kelly:
You’d have to ignore a year of “anybody but Willard” to believe there will be a Republican idological course correction come Wednesday. So long as our plutocrats are benefitting from the Obama economy, they’ll have plenty of spare cash to shovel into the Republican Party maw.
Metrosexual Manichean Monster DougJ
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Ha ha ha ha.
The Moar You Know
I agree with every word. The Republicans are going to do their level best to turn the country into a smoking ruin by early 2013, damn the cost. The TeaTards will settle for nothing less. And if they can pull a debt default, they may well succeed.
(I am very sure that Obama has a plan to deal with that contingency, but a lot of innocent people will be hurt no matter what)
General Stuck
It is not a given that more minority voters in the future make for more dem wins. What these changes do, along with watering down white vote power, is give the GOP a choice. Either serve the needs of minorities, or die at the ballot box. And delegate themselves to a permanent minority party.
Of course for them that is easier said than done with white supremacy power now propping its feet on the republican coffee table.
The Moar You Know
The Beeb’s coverage of our election has been inexcusably awful. I expect better from them, and usually get it, but this…there are no words for the hack-level work they’ve done this cycle.
Keith G
One of the most interesting political stories of my lifetime (and many of yours, I’ll wager) is how the political parties rebuild and realign as we proceed toward the first quarter mark of this century. We like to think that the structures we are familiar with stay static, but history shows otherwise.
It seems about twice a century, or every two generations, our parties go through some significant change in structure and composition. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago (in historic terms) that Republicans were more progressive than Democrats on all but a few issues. I know how I would like the domestic politics of the next decade play out and, still, I am certain it will not be as easy or linear as I hope it to be.
Tony J
@MikeJ:
Olivia Wilde? You lucky, lucky boy.
trollhattan
@Tony J:
A month or so ago I was listening to news on World Service when they were discussing American politics and the impact of Citizens United. A Yankee douche extolled the decision, stating that it improved national politics and that Americans felt it was important to have “skin in the game” to prove they’re serious.
Before I threw my radio out the window I waited to find out who this Republican hack might be, but as it turned out he was a BBC expert on American politics.
Still haven’t recovered.
MikeJ
@The Moar You Know:
Not on American politics you don’t. They’ve always been a font of conventional wisdom.
Tony J
The Moar You Know/Trollhattan,
Probably Mark Mardell, the BBC’s ‘American Political Correspondant’. I’m pretty much convinced that he bases all of his ‘reportage’ on whatever his Villager contacts are telling him and spends most of his time running up the expense account on cakes and fine wine. He’s lazy, boring, and consistently wrong.
Seriously, I’ve given up even checking what the BBC says about the Election. Conventional Wisdom, 24/7, as bad as anything you get on NBC, ABC, CNN, whatever.
blingee
@Schlemizel: Yes, that is so much more pathetic than being a spelling nazi about it.
cmorenc
@DougJ :
This in a nutshell could be the dem’s HUGE problem as 2016 approaches and Obama prepares to write his memoirs after some campaigning for whomever the nominee turns out to be. Frankly, for the democrats evolving demographic advantage to be converted to meaningful power and leverage, the minorities who collectively are on their way to becoming the emerging majority must also be sufficiently motivated to turn out and vote, and so does the younger portion of the electorate. That didn’t happen in 2010. Who will emerge with the drawing power to bring them out in 2014 and 2016?
A few more elections where the demographics remain more like 2010 and the GOP will be able to successfully erect enough barriers to voting by emerging democratic-leaning demographics that they’ll be able to build a wall that will hold for perhaps two decades. In the meantime, through hard-right court appointees and legislative attacks on the foundations of the New Deal and the tax system, they’ll generally make progressivism structurally forbidding to implement. What good will a demographic tidal wave do if the GOP is able to stall for enough time to build a mountainous seawall that will take many decades to erode away again?
Schlemizel
@blingee:
Glad to see your sense of humor is still intact after the bruising campaign season!
trollhattan
@Tony J:
By God, sir, I think that’s the culprit. Bring his cake-enswaddled arse to me and I shall kick it, mightily and forthwith. Also, too, what a tool.
Would prefer Zombie Alistair Cooke. Since somebody evidently is wandering around using his “donated” tissue, perhaps they can become the BBC Special Correspondent on lunatic Yanks.
Judge Crater
It’s not clear that Obama will be able to stop the unraveling of the middle class and prevent the Citizens United-empowered plutocracy from achieving unrivaled power. But, a Romney presidency will certainly mean that economic equality in America will be crushed for decades to come.
The “conservative” forces truly want to restore a 19th century ethic – Dickensian norms for the poor, unalloyed power for the rich.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Today’s Movement Conservatism is a revolutionary power (in the sense that they attack the legitimacy of the fundamental institutions of the state and have a Leninist worse-is-better ethos) pitted against possibly the most formidable small-c conservative governmental structure ever devised, the US Constitution and the division of power between the 3 branches of our Federal govt. So far the latter has held up reasonably well considering the ferocity of the attack against it. If Dems can keep hanging on to the WH and the Senate for another couple of cycles, get a few more libs onto SCOTUS, and at least keep the House competitive from election to election, we will win in the end.
Comrade Mary
@Tony J: I’ll see your BBC and raise you a CBC. Seriously, I almost always have to turn off the hourly news whenever they turn to the US election.
Napoleon
Honestly Doug, at this point save any demographic points for when, say, a month from now more from now we know what happened tomorrow.
fasteddie
It is demonstrably true that while all Republicans are not racists, all racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic a$$holes are Republicans. If you run with Republicans, you give tacit approval for all of that. Until that changes, I will not cast another vote for ANY Republican. An I am a straight, white, married Suburban 48 year old man with 3 kids and a 4 bedroom mortgage.