November 21, 2008
The Significance of Obama’s Win
Barack Obama won a convincing victory two weeks ago, and made history as the first African-American to be elected President of the United States. How did he do it, and what does this mean for the future?
Obama put together a broad coalition of Blacks, Hispanics, youth, women, educated professionals, Jews, and liberals. The only people who voted heavily against him were white males without a college education. Overall, he beat McCain by 52% to 46% in the popular vote, and thumped him in the electoral college. Not only did he win every blue state won by either Kerry in 2004 or Gore in 2000, but he made deep inroads into traditional Republican states. He broke the monopoly on the South by winning Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, and he also broke new ground in the West by picking up Colorado and Nevada. These breakthroughs mean that the base on which Republicans have built winning Presidential campaigns is now broken. They must now fight to win many critical states that used to be in the solid red column.
Obama won huge majorities among minorities, taking over 90% of the African-American vote, and two-thirds of Hispanics. He also did well with Asians, and the American Muslim Taskforce survey found that 90% of Muslim voters went for Obama (only 2% went for McCain, presumably the rest went with third party candidates). Ominously for conservatives, Obama won 65% of young voters. These trends are fatal for Republicans, because they reflect the gradual demographic changes that are washing over America. If the Republicans cede all non-Whites and the young to the Democrats, they will find it very hard to compete.
Already, the Republicans are in danger of becoming a regional Southern party. There are no Republican Congressmen left in New England, and the Congress now has 250 Democrats in the House and 57 in the Senate, giving full control of both chambers to the Dems. In the popular vote, McCain won by ten points in the South, but lost by 10-15 points in the West, Midwest, and Northeast. The Republicans must find a way to appeal to the rest of the country.
Republicans still don’t understand why they did so badly. The discussion so far has been mostly complaining that McCain was too nice to Obama, and that the Republicans have been insufficiently conservative. But Bush was loved by the conservatives, and Congress from 2000-2006 was controlled by the right-wing of the Republican Party. Although McCain did not use Revered Wright to attack Obama, he otherwise threw the kitchen sink at him, including calling him a friend of terrorists, and a socialist to boot.
The economy is what did in the Republicans of course. But they just don’t understand that. Among conservatives there is confusion as to why Bush never got any credit for the economic expansion under his watch. They don’t realize that GDP growth in the abstract is simply not the point. What Americans want is growth in jobs and income. This is where Bush failed completely. In the eight years of Bush, job growth has been extremely tepid, with almost no net job creation in the first three years, and tepid growth till late 2007, when job losses began again to dominate. Now unemployment is at 6.5% and climbing to the worst levels in 25 years. Income growth did even worse. In every expansion in the past, median income in real terms always rose. But not in the Bush expansion from 2002 to 2007. Median income is still below its Clinton peak. For the average American, there never was a Bush recovery. So, who did benefit? Corporations, who are 90% owned by the wealthiest Americans. Corporate profits tripled, from 500 billion to 1.5 trillion dollars in 2007, reaching a four-decade high as share of the economy. It was this basic economic fact that did in Bush and the Republican brand. And now that the economy has cratered, corporate profits are collapsing and the stock market is trading 30% below where it was when Bush took office, so even the rich ended up losing money under the Republicans.
Obama has his work cut out for him. Obama’s main agenda items, primarily shifting energy to non-fossil fuels, dealing with healthcare, and restoring soundness to economic policy, are exactly the right things to do.
Obama also represents a great opportunity for America to recapture its moral authority in the world. Closing Guantanamo, ending legalized torture, stopping domestic spying, and getting out of Iraq will be a great start. If he can also bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, and deal with Afghanistan better, he will be a great foreign policy President.
For the Muslim world, and Al-Qaeda types, the fact that Bush is handing over the White House to a man named Hussein who is the son of a Muslim (and of whom 20% of Republican voters thought is a Muslim) must create intense cognitive dissonance.
Obama can cement his place in history if he runs the country well over the next four years. If he does a solid job, the natural cycle of the economy will allow him to run for reelection in 2012 during a strong economic recovery, and will make it highly likely he will be reelected in a landslide.
Comments can reach me at Nali@socal.rr.com.
