The Best Election Day Of Our Lives (So Far)
Like most people who weren't politically active (or alive) during the glory days of FDR through JFK, I don't have much experience with Democratic victories. Election days were invariably hopeful and ultimately depressing. The days after the election were miserable and gray.
But today contemplating Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, well, I can barely contain my sense of joy and, even more, relief.
Until now, the best November was Bill Clinton's election in 1992. He was my generation's JFK and I actually had friends who were going to be working in the West Wing.
I thought he would be a great President and in fact he was. He gets better every day. By the end of the Bush term, Clinton will exceed FDR, Lincoln and Washington in the estimates of Americans. Maybe even God.
He can thank W for that although Clinton was a damn good President even when being compared to his predecessors,not just his successor.
But, for me, this election was even better than 1992. The difference is that this election was not about personality or competing vague policy pronouncements but about the two Americas.
Not John Edwards two Americas. More like Barack Obama's. There was a referendum on Obama's vision of a tolerant America in which Reds and Blues have more in common than they suspect and a strident self-righteously religious and jingoistic America that thrives on hate and selfishness.
And the main issue was the Iraq war which symbolized everything wrong with the second America. Until Tuesday, I believed that most Americans were in that second camp.
But I should have known better. This summer we were in Montana. We had driven over from Idaho, checked into a hotel, went into town and the first thing we saw was an anti-war demonstration, the centerpiece of which were
the combat boots of soldiers killed in Iraq.
A small sample of those boots, I should say. Maybe 200 pairs. I walked over to the women seemingly in charge, gray-haired women in their 60's, who looked like they had left their farm duties to memorialize these young dead American kids.
I asked how they were doing. They told me that there was no hostility. People just walked over, looked, sometimes cried, and mostly gave no indication of how they felt. No one was hostile and they had been out there for days.
In two weeks of traveling in Montana and Wyoming, I kept meeting people who hated the war. Even cowboys. In a small town in Wyoming at the Friday night rodeo, the announcer asked the crowd to stand up and applaud a local boy just back from Iraq.
And then to applaud the roommate of a local boy who had just finished West Point. I mean, these were patriotic folks.
So I asked a few sitting near me if they thought the war was a good thing for America. Virtually in unison, the response was "we don't support the war. We support the boys." This was in a small town near Riverton, Wyoming. Probably about as Red as it gets.
So now Conrad Burns is defeated in Montana. Barbara Cubin, the Wyoming Congresswoman, is in a recount. Both states have Democratic governors.
In other words, the intolerant bigots do not own this country. Not even the so-called Red States. Howard Dean's 50 state strategy was vindicated big time. But that is another discussion.
For today I just want to celebrate the rebirth of the knowledge that a majority of Americans do not buy into the loathsome divisiveness and hate that is what the Rovian strategy was built on.
Before Tuesday, I honestly worried that Karl Rove understood more about America than I do, or my friends do. Now I know that in fact he doesn't.
No permanent majority will be built on race-baiting, gay-bashing, jingoism, or fear, fear, fear. The America of Lincoln and FDR has defeated (and decisively) the bizarro America of Gingrich, Rove, and the Christian Right.
As the old song goes, on Nov. 7, "I had the time of my life." If we play our cards right, '08 will be great too. But there is no way it can be better because it was this election that showed us that it's still our country. A Democratic President will just be wonderful icing on the cake.
Tony Kushner's Angels in America ends with a passage that sums it up for me. The character is referring to AIDS (the scene takes place in the 1980's) but he could be talking about the Iraq war or any of the other scourges inflicted on us all by the Right over these last decades. The character is addressing the audience (America) and facing away from the stage characters.
"This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and we will struggle on with the living.
"We are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. "The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come....The Great Work Begins."
Dude, I know you are still basking in the glow of Tuesday, but I would caution against trying to read too much into one election so early.
Never underestimate the power of the dark side. During the 60s, some liberals thought they had a permanent majority. In 1964, LBJ's massive victory (a lot bigger than the one on Tuesday, btw)seemingly signaled the end of the GOP and the conservative project. But it didn't.
Lost in the election returns was the fact that in California, Prop 14 passed, which repealed the state Open Housing Act that passed the previous year and had been supported by civil rights groups. And guess who was a driving force to pass Prop 14 in 1964? A gent by the name of...Ronald Reagan.
I see seeds of this in Tuesday's elections. Why did most of the anti-gay marriage proposals pass (some by wide margins)? Why do people (common folks, not the affluent elites) still have skepticism toward illegal immigrants? The potential for future wedge issues are still there; it's just that the time was not right in 2006. But that doesn't mean that a future Karl Rove might not be able to exploit the wedges. Always be on the lookout for that.
Also, look at what happened between 1964 and 1972. Dems went from capturing 61% of the popular vote in the Presidential race to less than 40%. In just 8 years. So, nothing is permanent in politics.
When times get really bad, the party in power gets punished. If Iraq wasn't an issue, do you honestly think that the Dems would have won on the strength of their ideas alone? I truly don't. I have to be honest about this - Tuesday happened primarily because of the botched war, and if the GOP was a tad smarter (an oxymoron)they would have taken it off the table.
Finally, if the economy crashes in the next few years, under a Dem congress and a Dem president, who do you think people will blame? People can get very nasty when times are hard, and don't think that the GOP can't capitalize on that sometime in the future. And if you still don't believe me, do this little exercise: Think about what happened in the 60s with the riots in the cities and in the 70s with busing. People aren't as happy and willing to sing kumbaya as you think.
November 11, 2006 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
It was a very satisfying victory but I'd have to echo what Free Thinker said by saying don't read too much into the dems victory. This election was more a repudiation of the the corruption and ineptitude of the current crop of GOP politicos and Bush rather than an embrace of the D's.
That being said the D's have been given an opportunity to be embraced by the electorate. Will they move forward with raising the minimum wage, address the ever increasing burden of health care costs, protect and strengthen Social Security, be fiscally responsible and cut the deficit and try to enact sensible measures to keep America safe. Or will they start feeding from the lobbyist's money trough that helped bring down the repugs? If it is the latter the D's run won't be a long one. Make the most of the opportunity...
But the election results were still sweet as hell!!!! :-)
November 11, 2006 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, I'm not singing kumbaya. I want Dems to investigate the hell out of this administration so that nothing like the last 6 years can ever happen again.
I think '06 was a watershed. If we reveal the crimes that got us into this war and offer good governance that improves peoples lives, even a little,the crazy right won't be coming back.
Optimism is in order.
November 11, 2006 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Howard Dean's 50 state strategy was vindicated big time. M.J.Rosenberg
Let's not go overboard, now. We don't need more Blue Dog Democrats than we already have.
November 11, 2006 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
This election was more a repudiation of the the corruption and ineptitude of the current crop of GOP politicos and Bush rather than an embrace of the D's.
Exactly right.
A young writer once asked an aging Ernest Hemingway if he had any advise for being a successful author. Hemingway's white brow furled and he growled, "write."
Advise for the Democrats is equally short and simple. Lead.
November 11, 2006 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
"FDR's election in 1932 was more a repudiation of the the corruption and ineptitude of the then current crop of GOP politicos and Hoover rather than an embrace of the D's."
Virtually every watershed election in our history has been a vote AGAINST and not FOR.
This election was typical.
November 11, 2006 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I feel you. I really do. But I guess I'm the guy that always says "wait a minute, let's think about this." One thing I have learned is never say never, and never assume anything is permanent in politics.
I'm pretty sure the same talk about vigorous investigations into the incumbent party after midterm was just as intense in the past just as it is now. In fact, let's look at history:
1946- Dems, under Truman, lose Congress. GOP promises more oversight and investigations of the 'corrupt' Truman administration. Yet, Truman wins in 1948.
1974- Watergate sweeps in a reform minded Congress. Numerous investigations are launched on a number of issues (illegal wiretapping, CIA misdeeds, etc). The administration is embarrassed. Yet, 6 years later we get Ronald Reagan.
1986- Dems recapture the Senate. They take 9 Senate seats and increase their lead in the House. Hearing s are launched against the Reagan administration, particularly Iran-Contra. Pundits declare the Reagan Revolution dead. Yet in 1988, Bush I easily beats Dukakis.
The point of this? Investigations may be emotionally satisfying and good theater, but I would not think that they would discredit the opposition.
Dems would be better served to use this as an opportunity to improve and build the Dem brand among independents. You don't do this by assuming these voters are natural liberals, and you don't turn them off by grandstanding investigations. I know - I am one of those independents that voted Democrat in hopes of seeing a turn away from this partisan nonsense.
November 11, 2006 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lets start that discussion about the "50-state strategy" now.
I sense there is a lot of confusion about what Dean and the "50-state strategy" is and is not.
Not every "red-state" win is due to Dean; indeed, some (like those of us in NV who lost 2 close congressional races and an epic governor's race) could argue that we would have won more seats in even-registration (like NV-3) or republican districts (NV-2) if our candidates had had more direct support from the national party (as Emanuel wanted) and less was put into long-term organizing (which was the Dean choice). In NV, rural organizing proved to be a total flop; we did very well in isolated races, but they were entirely in the urban areas of Reno (where we picked up an Assembly seat) and greater LV (where we picked up a state Senate). We won some statewide races but even those did not show any appreciable gain in rural support.
In other words, the DNC-paid for rural organizing effort brought us absolutely no short-term results.
Meanwhile, in our safe Dem areas (CD1), where we also have safe Assembly and state Senate seats, turnout was abysmal (85K Dems voted in CD1, where our candidate was reelected by 30 points) vs 98K Dems (in a narrow losing effort) in CD3. As a result of this lack of attention to our own base, we lost a very winnable Governor's race narrowly (
I think Dean would do better to focus on shoring up our base-vote turnout first, since we can be assured in 08 of higher base-Dem turnout in blue areas (which we did not concentrate on in 04 or this cycle), we are in a much, much better position to consolidate our gains and build a majority not only in the Congress but among the electorate.
So I am not at all sure that the DNC-funded rural organizers can be credited for these wins. I prefer Dean's focus on grass-roots organizing and small-donor fundraising to Emanuel's consultant- and big-donor-driven approach, but on the issue of whether we should have focused on long-term organizing or short-term campaigning, I am not convinced that these results speak to the former.
November 11, 2006 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
This was an overwhelmingly positive and promising aspect of the election for me. Republicans reduced the election to funding allocations: determining how much it would take in negative ads to buy each race and drawing that amount from a seemingly bottomless pool of resources. I was very afraid of the long-term implications if this turned out to be a winning strategy.
November 11, 2006 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . we lost a very winnable Governor's race narrowly . . . .
The facts you report are enough to make one cry.
How do you explain it. Is it that our voters aren't really loyal? don't understand the importance of an elected official's party affiliation? that the state party ran a poor GOTV campaign?
Whatever the answer is/are, the result is tragic.
November 11, 2006 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Why did most of the anti-gay marriage proposals pass (some by wide margins)?
There's nothing new about anti-SSM proposals passing. What is new this year is that some of them passed by less than the expected margin, and one of them failed (albeit mostly because of excessively vague wording that-- credibly-- threatened straight people living together too).
November 11, 2006 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Investigations will not discredit the GOP, no, but they will discredit certain policies and behaviors (like torture, and the whole "unitary executive" thing). In short, we must discredit Bush and Bushism now, and worry about fighting future battles when they come clear to us.
November 11, 2006 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with you completely on this. While I would find it viscerally satisfying to see the GOP in stocks, the important thing to remember is that it isn't going to solve any of the problems we face now. Impeaching Bush, sending the umpteenth corrupt Republican Congressman to jail, etc. wouldn't cause me to shed any tears - but none of that is going to get our soldiers out of Iraq, fix our healthcare system, bring us sensible energy or immigration policies, or improve the economic well-being of our middle class. Only good policy is going to move us toward those goals. The Democrats need to focus on getting things done. That's the only thing that's going to make them re-electable in 2 years.
November 11, 2006 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
"In a small town in Wyoming at the Friday night rodeo, the announcer asked the crowd to stand up and applaud a local boy just back from Iraq."
Just a question MJ, did that town happen to be Lusk, Wyoming? If so, I was there on the same day...
November 11, 2006 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, on the other side of the state: Dubois, Wyoming although I was in Lusk last year.
November 11, 2006 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
In this thread, Gettysburg afforded us some very pertinent, if not all too obvious advice:
And one of the most obvious responsibilities to properly lead? Congressional oversight....
The following is from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Rules: The General Principles of Congressional Oversight :
~OGD~
ps: Please note the two very important words underlined above, and the lack thereof related to the past 12 years of the ramrod-style of leadership under the Republican umbrella .... "rules" and "principles" ...
November 11, 2006 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lead...
A simple proposition isn't it? I have been following politics closely since the mid 70's and as much as I support the D's they can be their own worst enemies at times. To use a cliche, which is probably gonna irritate Ellen if she is watching this thread, the D's lose sight of the forest for the trees far too often.
November 12, 2006 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
No single explanation though everyone in the state has a theory. Some argue our candidate was "too liberal" and so didn't win enough independent voters (unlike the rest of the country, independents split about 50-50 here); others that our state party wasn't fully unified after a divisive primary. Either way, those explanations amount to a single one -- we were outspent nearly 2 to 1.
But that doesn't explain the low Democratic turnout in base areas, which is due I think to an overemphasis on trying to win over independent rural and suburban voters.
The problem is that in the rural and suburban areas, independents are much more conservative (hence the 50-50 split); even when presented with a conservative candidate, such as our Senate candidate Jack Carter, rural voters went for the republicans nearly 5 to 1.
Hence my conclusion that our strategy needs to rely on a more democratic electorate, which means getting our least likely (and poorest and, not insignificantly, brownest) voters to turnout out -- which is not where the Dean/Saunders strategy (of trying to win over rural whites) wants to go vote-hunting.
November 12, 2006 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
While this is a rare moment for Dems to celebrate, our jubilation ought to be tempered by the fact that so many of the new legislators are "moderates," which means they are not likely to stray from the mainstream on important socio-economic issues. In fact, many of these new guys don't adhere to Democratic values at all. The New York Times labels them "populists," and there is more than a kernel of truth to this characterization. I hope I'm wrong, and fortunately, many of the new committee chairmen will be old-fashioned Dems (Charlie Rangel, Ted Kennedy, and others) but I'm not sure I like the idea of a new generation of Democratic leaders that stand for a kinder and gentler version of GOP "values." I hope I'm proven wrong.
November 12, 2006 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Guy,
They are moderates but only Harold Ford would have gone the Joe Lieberman route and he lost.
It's up to us to change the definition of moderate so that it excludes Bible thumpers and specifically includes those who raise the minimum wage, push for nat'l health insurance, and favor tax policies that do not rob the middle class to benefit the rich.
FDR was a moderate. LBJ was a moderate. The Bushies are radicals.
I do however draw the line when it comes to Dems like Harold Ford who specifically state that their goal is to promote "our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ" in an effort to trick religious types into voting for him.
I'm all for pandering to win. But only up to a point. Most of the winning Dems did not cross it. (Harold Ford did and he lost).
November 12, 2006 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink