November 18th, 2008 By MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
Duke political scientist David Rohde had an interesting piece at The New Republic yesterday on why the Democrats are much better off today because of Kerry’s loss to Bush in ‘04.
Basically, Rohde’s argument goes, “had Bush lost in 2004, the Democrats simply wouldn’t be anywhere near as powerful as they are now.” Kerry and Edwards would have faced “a hostile GOP Congress” unwilling to support their legislative agenda and, at best, they would have been “narrowly reelected” this year. And while it is true that “a second Bush term is a very steep price to pay for today’s success,” there is no denying just how successful the Democrats have become. “[T]he Bush administration survived, and the public grew increasingly disenchanted with its performance and the Republican brand.” The Democrats won back Congress in ‘06, adding to their majorities this year. And, of course, there was “Obama’s crushing White House victory.” In addition, the Democrats have a “new, mammoth fundraising advantage” over the Republicans:
It will take time to discover whether the developments in 2006 and 2008 constitute an enduring pro-Democratic shift in the electorate, rather than just a transitory negative reaction to Bush and the GOP. But the benefits the Democrats have realized from 2006 and 2008 — the ample mandate and the majorities the Democrats now possess — have put the party on the path toward substantial progress in its policy goals. And if John Kerry and John Edwards had found their way into office four years ago, they would have found a much more difficult, possibly impossible, road ahead of them.
November 17th, 2008 By MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
According to the NYT, “President-elect Barack Obama’s advisers have begun reviewing former President Bill Clinton’s finances and activities to see whether they would preclude the appointment of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as secretary of state.”
I still think Obama is serious about this (and should be) — and that he and Hillary could form an effective “Team of Allies.” It isn’t just for show.
And yet…
Questions abound — and TNR’s Michael Crowley asked some of them last Friday, including:
– “How would Joe Biden feel? Presumably he’d feel competitive with a very strong personality at State.” That’s one I hadn’t been thinking much about, but I do wonder about a possible Obama-Biden-Hillary triumvirate (and with Gates as SecDef, perhaps). It’s not that Biden and Hillary don’t like each other, it’s that both are strong and determined figures. Read the rest of this entry »
November 13th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
A new spate of press reports raise the possibility that President Elect Barack Obama is seriously considering his former rival for the Democratic nomination New York Senator Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State.
The reports are the latest collection of guessing game news stories — but they do deserve more credence than the usual speculative reportage since they are now coming from several different news organizations, and Clinton’s statement about her future plans leave her enough wiggle room to take the position.
Look at the reports and, in the shell game that is known as interpreting reporting and sourcing, it seems as if this is a combination trial balloon and signal that Obama may be seeking to make some decisions that are out of the conventional wisdom thinking box which had several other more predictable names being bandied about. For instance, The Washington Post says this:
There’s increasing chatter in political circles that the Obama camp is not overly happy with the usual suspects for secretary of state these days and that the field might be expanding somewhat beyond Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and maybe former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.
There’s talk, indeed, that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) may now be under consideration for the post. Her office referred any questions to the Obama transition; Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment.
The pick of the former presidential contender and Senate Armed Services Committee member would go a long way toward healing any remaining divisions within the Democratic Party after the divisive primaries. Also, Clinton has long been known for her work on international women’s issues and human rights. The former first lady could also enhance Obama’s efforts to restore U.S. standing amongst allies worldwide.
There would be another plus side of the pick for Obama that isn’t mentioned by the Post. Once Obama won the nomination, many key Republicans — even some conservative talk show hosts — professed admiration for Clinton, for her being more of a centrist than Obama, and sympathy for the way she had been treated by the Obama camp. Kerry, Richardson and, to a lesser extent, Nunn would be easier to denounce than Clinton who has also been praised by both members of the defeated Republican Presidential ticket, Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin.
There’s also a BEEN THERE/DONE THAT aura around the names of Kerry, Richardson and Nunn. None would be seen as exciting or bold choices. Picking Clinton would also send a signal that Obama intended to follow a more centrist foreign policy, which might not please some progressive Democrats.
Is the Post just blowing a lot of smoke? It doesn’t appear that way since the number of reports that Clinton is under consideration — plus a curious development in Chicago — are making this story more than pure speculation. Read ABC News:
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, Jake Tapper and Z. Byron Wolf report: Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was President-elect Barack Obama’s leading rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, is being considered for the job of secretary of state in the Obama administration, sources with knowledge of the transition process tell ABC News.
Discussions about Clinton, D-N.Y., being asked to accept the post are “very serious,” an Obama source says.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has been considered a leading contender for the post. But last week, ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos reported on “Good Morning America” that Clinton also was in the running to be Obama’s secretary of state pick.
Stephanopoulos still has excellent sources in the Clinton camp (the Clintons, after all, are his former bosses).And the news reports about Clinton’s name being under consideration don’t stop there. NBC News:
November 10th, 2008 By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist
To be an American (unlike being English or French) is precisely to image a destiny rather than to inherit one; since we have always been, insofar as we are Americans at all, inhabitants of myth rather than history. — LESLIE FIEDLER
The tears of joy have dried. The stage in Grant Park has been taken down. The celebrations are history. As the dust settles from Election Day 2008 the biggest message is that the 1960s are now officially over. The Baby Boomers have passed the torch. We are finally moving on.
And not a day too soon.
Born in 1947, I am a card-carrying Boomer and very much a product of the 1960s and the dirty little war and enormous social upheaval that decade brought. I am also aware that having been given the wheel a few elections ago, we have blown it bigtime.
To riff on a familiar campaign phrase, are we better off today than we were in 1968? Of course not.
The gap between rich and poor has become a yawning gulf. Main Street is in crisis and now Wall Street, as well. Nearly one in six Americans have no health insurance and access to decent care is becoming more difficult. There has been an erosion of civil liberties at home and rampant saber rattling abroad. The 9/11 attacks could have been a teaching moment, but instead unleashed deep-seated hatreds.
And the failure of old-style liberalism has been as complete as new-style neoconservatism.
The day after the election, I received an e-mail from my father: “Congratulations to you and your generation. The torch has been passed.”
Obviously he didn’t mean in terms in governance. Although a torch has been passed in that sense, my generation wasn’t the recipient; I’m 26, and Obama is closer to a Baby Boomer than a Millennial (or Generation Y, or whatever we’re supposed to be called). But for all the election of the first African-American symbolized, it also represented perhaps the first collective defining action of an entire generation of young voters who brought about this change, and the political implications should scare the Republican Party into some serious post-election soul searching.
It wasn’t turnout that did it. Voters under 30 increased from 17% to 18% of the total turnout between 2004 and 2008 (about 22% of Americans are under 30)—an improvement, but not a watershed increase. The graph below by Andrew Gelman (H/T to Sullivan) tells the story.
Obama won two-thirds of young voters. But notice the swing. In 2000, young voters supported Republicans at roughly the same rate as the rest of the population, even more so than the oldest voters. In 2004, the shift had begun, and Kerry outperformed Bush, but his 54% of the youth vote wasn’t enough to actually swing the election. Obama improved on that dramatically, and it wasn’t just a matter of the inherent liberalism of youth; if so, Obama’s margins wouldn’t dwarf Gore’s and Kerry’s to that extent.
Just for the sake of levity, I’d like to post links to some of the 50-odd stories WORLDMEETS.US has posted about the U.S. election from around the world in the past 72 hours:
“The American is not always a cretin, it must be said. Having covered Bush’s reelection campaign four years ago, I saw how that debilitating cocktail of ‘gay marriage-abortion-family-religion-terrorism,’ mixed into the cauldron labeled ‘moral values broth,’ moved entire states into W’s column.
“The ‘true’ American, according to conservative mythology, is White, with family, patriotic, extremely religious, hates socialism, communism, foreigners and paying taxes. He is so naive that he believes he can save America by attacking Iraq and, at any rate, he has invested himself in a mission: to export his model to other people (without asking their opinion). This American, if he ever existed, no longer exists. This is the terrible discovery that McCain and the Republicans have just made. And it’s super-good news for America and the rest of the world. ”
“The White American - whom McCain calls Joe the Plumber or Palin calls Joe Sixpack - is no longer blinded by lies. He has seen the war in Iraq and is suffering through a crisis, while Republicans spouting about abortion, taxes or an American victory in Iraq no longer move him. The latest poll shows that half of White men are going to vote Democrat. For the first time in thirty years!
They want someone who speaks concretely, calmly, moderately: in the center. They refuse to scorn the intellectual, the notorious “elite” that the McCain camp denounces - Obama graduated from Harvard. They refuse to be afraid (of bin Laden, of the enemies of America, etc.) The White American male has closed himself off from old-fashioned ideology and has entered the rational era.”
