Ron Radosh

November 5th, 2008 4:18 pm

Obama’s Victory and Path Forward

Yesterday’s election was historic. Barack Obama won with the overwhelming support of a majority of our countrymen, including the largest amount of white support for any candidate since 1976.

Who could not be moved by how far our nation has progressed in forty years? In graduate school many years ago, I organized and led picket lines around F.W. Woolworth’s in support of the civil rights movement’s national boycott, when that now no longer existing massive chain store would not let black Americans in with equal service in the segregated states. There was so much opposition to our peaceful march in Iowa City, Iowa that few white students showed up to join us; they were afraid of the shouting crowds who stood and watched booing and threatening violence.

Now, what was impossible has been attained. As the TV cameras showed Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey standing in the crowd at Grant Park with tears in their eyes, we saw what it meant not only for them, but for thousands of African-Americans of that generation.

To give Obama our best wishes for success does not mean that we won’t have differences with him or oppose some of his policies. That is to be expected. But I think conservatives in particular must be ready to reconsider their attacks on Obama as a stealth Marxist, who will seek to use a hidden agenda to bring America towards socialism. The names he is considering for Treasury Secretary, for example, include top notch people like Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and even Warren Buffett—men who are nowhere near anyone’s kind of socialist.

To the contrary, looking towards the future, Republicans should consider the direction advocated by people like David Frum, David Brooks, Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat, all of whom have called at different times for a new pragmatic conservatism that speaks to the pressing issues of economic inequality, government involvement when necessary to help the economy grow, and answering the pressing needs of disaffected working-class people. In Slate, Jim Manzi advocates programs that can raise competitiveness while lowering inequality, programs that will help those left out to participate and benefit from a market economy.

It also might mean, to quote the words of Alvaro Vargas Llosa in TNR.com, joining those conservatives who rebelled “against what they see as the populist, insular mentality of the dominant wing of the GOP.” Vargas Llosa makes a cogent case that any new program espoused by conservatives must understand that the votes they lost from working-class voters occurred not because these people favored European style socialism, but because they longed for an economic security that they saw rapidly vanishing.

Vargas Llosa ends by warning his readers that Obama had best not take his victory to mean that the voters want a vast FDR type expansion of big government, since that would undermine our nation’s ability to compete internationally. His hope is that Obama, whose success is self-made, and who does not espouse identity politics, will “not succumb to the siren song of his own party’s socialist wing.”

That last thought, of course, is what we do not as yet know. In the same pages of TNR.com, John B. Judis goes through the election returns showing how his and Ruy Teixeira’s prediction a few years back, about how an “emerging Democratic majority” was inevitable given new demographics, has been proven true. The returns are indeed, as he writes, “the culmination of a Democratic realignment that began in the 90’s, was held in abeyance by September 11, and had resumed in the 2006 election.”

But Judis also argues for what he calls a “hard” realignment, in which the Democrats will do precisely the opposite of what Vargas Llosa hopes for. He argues that an enduring Democratic majority will be permanent if it is based on massive spending for programs for rebuilding our physical infrastructure and on national health insurance. Judis argues that Democrats not take the advice of those like William Galston who advocate incremental and feasible measures the nation at large supports, and instead move boldly ahead on a left-wing agenda. Judis, I think, might take this advice:”If Obama governs to the center, it will be the dawn of a Democrat majority,” said Kieran Mahoney, a Republican consultant whose firm includes Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s senior adviser. “If he follows the Bush ‘base’ strategy, it will be a similarly short-lived ascendancy.”

The question, then, is what will be President Elect Obama’s priorities. The next few days, as he announces his Cabinet choices, should give us a clue.

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4 Comments

1. Judy K. Warner:

Whether Obama intends to pursue moderate or radical policies, it is not a good omen that he has chosen Rahm Emanuel for his chief of staff. Are moderate policies pursued thuggishly better than radical ones pursued thuggishly? And this is one character trait of Mr. O’s that seems consistent: while playing the cool, above-it-all guy, he surrounds himself with thugs, radicals and charlatans.

Nov 5, 2008 - 5:15 pm 2. Alonzo Hamby:

President-Elect and Champion Campaigner Obama

The Obama ground game was “awesome,” literally. I remain a registered Democrat. Today, I got two calls from the Obama campaign asking me if I was voting. AND, half an hour before the polls closed, an Obama worker actually knocked at my door, backed up by a vehicle with the engine running. The organization was amazing. Just to remind you, this is in Athens, Ohio! No one can deny that this man was a champion campaigner with a devoted, efficient backing.

Yet I am struck that so many different groups see different Obamas. For some, he is the social revolutionary who will a) restore smokestack America and its well-paying jobs; b) give us all low-cost, or no-cost, health insurance paid for by taxes on a few thousand billionaires; c) end free trade; d) extend free trade; e) soak Wall Street; f) encourage investment, etc., etc. His voting and rhetorical records might seem to be a good indication of his attentions, but commentators tell us not to take them seriously. Initial reactions display such widespread gratification at the election of America’s first African-American president that one might think that was the only important thing about this election. Question marks about the direction of his presidency loom large.

The Ayers, Wright, and Rashid Khalidi associations were largely opportunistic affinities on the part of an ambitious young man. I still think they were deplorable, but they would not have happened but for two circumstances: the evolution of the Chicago machine. Daley 1.0, as led by the original Richard J., was largely an organization of traditional white ethnics with the black population brought along in a trailing role by social benefits and patronage. Daley 2.0, under Ritchie’s leadership, has compensated for the decline of old-time ethnic solidarity by constructing a contemporary version of “popular front” politics that included neo-New Leftists, black militants, and even Palestinian anti-Zionist advocates. I saw Khalidi call in effect for the destruction of Israel at a conference I attended years ago. He dismayed me then and still does. I’m not Jewish, believe that Israel is not without sin, but still think the country is on balance an example of democratic progress in the Middle East.

From my point of view, the transformation of the Daley organization into a 60s Popular Front, with room for Weathermen bombers, old Black Panthers, and Israel-haters are revelatory of the moral confusion of post-Vietnam American liberalism.

Who IS the real BHO? I’m damned if I know, but I feel that I can only take him and his record at face value. No one can deny, however, that he ran a helluva of a campaign and is as charismatic a figure as we’ve seen in American politics for a long time. Let’s hope for the best.

Nov 5, 2008 - 7:40 pm 3. cfbleachers:

The Ayers, Wright, and Rashid Khalidi associations were largely opportunistic affinities on the part of an ambitious young man.

Perhaps, Alonzo. It would be a great turn of events for the country if this turns out to be so. I tend to see the linear path to Ayers, Wright and Khalidi from childhood, through college, through community organizing as one that lead naturally to the doorstep of the aforementioned cretins.

I have heard various baleful sounds coming from extremely intelligent people, saying that Rubin this and Dennis Ross that and ergo there is a chance that we may see a move toward the center.

Things that make you go …hmmm.

All these folks who earned their current reputations in a rather center-left administration, performed their tasks in line with a center-left idealism. Let there be no doubt, there is an enormous undertow in this sea change we are witnessing and are about to witness in the days, months and perhaps years to come. And that undertow pulls stongly leftward and …my prediction.. takes all bodies who remain hard in that direction. I do not “hope” that it is different, but I pray that it is.

The reason I don’t hope for things in which the overwhelming evidence is to the contrary, is…life has taught me it’s a useless endeavor and it constrains reasoning necessary for the deliberation on cures for the situation.

The reason I pray that it is different, is that in the face of overwhelming odds stacked against me, I have nothing but faith upon which to rely if my cures fail.

And herein lies an interesting point, more suited for a different post or in response to a different article. The “middle” of this country is now the majority. The amalgam you outline above, Alonzo…is the pendulum swinging too far to the left.

As a centrist, I believe that the pendulum (to perhaps the disappointment of some of my friends here) also can swing too far to the right. These wild fluctuations leave the country vulnerable to the screeching, eye-bulging, spittle flecked rantings of …fanatics, frankly. Virtually all of the calm, reasoned, rational thought…does not come from extremists or fanatics. They simply are blinded by their rage against the “other” guy…their mirror, across the fence…waiting to shoot with hair trigger reflex.

It is time, perhaps well past time…for a new party. The two party system is broken. It is “represented” in the media as the “voice” of each side…but “each side” is no longer the voice of the majority.

The statistics suggest that 22% of people self-identify as Republicans. 34% self-identify as Democrats…and very small portion of those…represent as “leftist”.

The vast majority of people are in the middle. If Democrats wish to be led by the melange of malevolence outlined by you above…they will not grab a following, but will simply swing the pendulum in a hard arc to the right, where a “mandate” will be declared to do something or other, that was never the intention. The intention was…”throw the bums out, bring in the other bums”.

If the Republicans were smart and savvy (no evidence of such), they would seek the high water mark that the middle has set and avoid the undertow. Name a great statesman from American history…anyone who is revered and admired for his stance on leadership and politics…and chances are overwhelming that a review of him would find him firmly entrenched in the very same stance as the “middle” today. Strong on fiscal restraint, strong on national defense, open to social issues.

There is no party representing that voice accurately today. The middle simply throws the last bums out. The first party to grasp this…wins. Better yet, anyone with the organizational skills to actually, realistically, charismatically (and gets the necessary financial backing…Senator Obama has left a trail of bread crumbs on the how to) lead a new party that represents this “middle”…demolishes the other two in a landslide.

This is the time, this is the place, this is the moment in history where it is possible. It would be easiest, if the Republicans morphed into this Middle Party…because they already have a party apparatus in place. They have been marginalized, however, by a malignant media and a malicious hard left in academia, hollywood and blogosphere. If the Republican party continues to flounder aimlessly, I will continue to hear the faint death rattle in their voice. They don’t know how to respond to having their voice framed by the fanatics and the constant drip torture by the marginalizing media. They wander like nomads in the desert on issues of the day, trying to find traction in quicksand.

It is time to part ways with the bulge and spittle corps…and fight against (and begin to frame) the bulge and spittle “mirrors” on the other side of the fence. Beat them at the game they invented. Learn from mistakes made and the opposition successes.

Find the voters where they are…instead of trying to drag them where they clearly are not following. Or prepare to be marginalized and framed out of existence and relevance.

Nov 6, 2008 - 3:05 am 4. Anton:

Speaking of the swing of things from right to left, from the days when a black man could not get service at Woolworth’s to the day when a white man (or woman) cannot get decent service at a restaurant in any large urban area, or walk with a quite mind through an “ethnicly diverse” neighborhood.
It seems to me that us “white folks” got off the racism bandwagon quite a while ago while the race-hate-mongers have stayed firmly in the cart.
We have had a black Supreme Court Justice and two Secretary of States (or don’t they count for anything coming from the Right) I don’t remember any celebrations over those appointments, or maybe I didn’t pay any attention because color doesn’t matter to me so much as competency.
Yup, he’s going to be the President, now let’s see what he can DO rather than what he can BE.

Nov 6, 2008 - 1:12 pm