I want to talk a little bit about political honeymoons, or mandates for change, or political momentum, or whatever it is you call it when a new president comes into power and has a window of opportunity to get legislation enacted that they campaigned on. Historically, it is true that Congress and the press show some deference to a new president and they acknowledge that there is some mandate for at least some of their campaign promises. History also shows that the honeymoon can be quite brief. George W. Bush was a strange case because of the unusual and disputed circumstances of his election. Nevertheless, Congress gave him his No Child Left Behind education legislation (co-sponsored by Teddy Kennedy). Bill Clinton’s big idea was universal health care and Paul Krugman talks about what happened to his mandate.
Meanwhile, though Mr. Clinton may not have run as postpartisan a campaign as legend has it, he did avoid some conflict by being strategically vague about policy. In particular, he promised health care reform, but left the business of producing an actual plan until after the election.
This turned out to be a disaster. Much has been written about the process by which the Clinton health care plan was put together: it was too secretive, too top-down, too politically tone-deaf. Above all, however, it was too slow. Mr. Clinton didn’t deliver legislation to Congress until Nov. 20, 1993 — by which time the momentum from his electoral victory had evaporated, and opponents had had plenty of time to organize against him.
The lesson that Krugman is trying to impress on us is that a candidate must not only campaign on the legislation they want to enact, but they have to be ready to ram that legislation through Congress on Day One before the bloom is off the rose, so to speak. It’s not bad advice from a recent historical perspective, but it takes no account of current circumstances. With today’s news that Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) and Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-MO) are going to retire from Congress, there are now twenty-seven (.pdf) open Republican congressional seats. There are 23 Republican senate seats up for grabs. The Democrats have enormous cash on hand advantages, they are polling better on the issues, party identification is shifting to the Dems, demographic changes favor the Dems, primary and caucus turnout has been enormous and has dwarfed Republican turnout.
There is nothing about these signposts to suggest that we are headed for another red/blue 50/50 election. It looks rather strongly like this election is going to be a blowout like Reagan’s victory in 1984 or Nixon’s in 1972 or Johnson’s in 1964 or Roosevelt’s in 1932. An Obama nomination has that potential, while a Clinton nomination does not (most likely). But this this essay is about political mandates, so let us consider for a moment that 2008 really is a realigning election. Let’s say that Obama faces Romney or McCain and the election map looks something like this:
Yeah, I know, add Utah in there, and maybe one or two other western states, but you get the idea. And let’s say that the Democrats have crushing victories in the Senate races, wiping out Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, Ted Stevens in Alaska, Jim Inhofe in Oklahoma, Liddy Dole in North Carolina, and John Cornyn in Texas (in addition to the blue state Republicans). And let’s say that the Dems pick up another 30-50 House seats. Where will we be?
President Obama would take office with not only the mandate of a landslide victory, but a filibuster proof margin in the Senate and a congressional majority so large that even Blue Dog Democrats could not block legislation that the administration wanted. In addition, the Republicans would be leaderless. There would be no Newt Gingrich to articulate an alternative political program. And even the governors mansions would be overwhelmingly in the hands of Democrats.
The only limitations on Obama would be the scope of his imagination and the temperament of the federal courts (which will remain conservative for quite some time).
I know that this is not a guaranteed outcome. In fact, with a Clinton nomination, I am fairly certain that we won’t come anywhere close to reaching this fantasy. Yet, this is not an outcome that is far-fetched with an Obama nomination. Just based on the turnout we’ve seen in the first contests, and the youth vote (and their strong Democratic preference), I see very few safe Republican seats anywhere in the country. South Carolina is certainly not safe for the Republican nominee if Obama is the Democratic nominee.
In such a scenario, with conservatism utterly discredited and the GOP rudderless, do you think President Obama would have to worry about a narrow window for enacting his agenda? I don’t. In fact, I think he would have to develop a completely new agenda for a new political age. It could be as different from the politics of Clinton/Gore/Kerry as FDR’s policies were from Harding/Coolidge/Hoover’s.
That’s the potential upside. And I am going to go with potential.
