One election factoid conservatives keep mentioning is the relative popularity of conservative self-identification versus liberal self-identification in the exit polls.
The National Election Pool exit poll of 17,836 randomly selected voters, conducted by Edison-Mitofsky, shows how shaky the jargon of political analysis can be. Twenty-two percent of those polled identified themselves as “liberal,” 34 percent as “conservative,” 44 percent as “moderate.” Such numbers are cited by proponents of the “center-right country” argument. But one in five of the self-styled conservatives voted for Barack Obama, and one in 10 liberals voted for John McCain. The moderates were overwhelmingly for Obama, by 60 percent to 39 percent. Those self-identifications obviously meant different things to different people.
The term ‘liberal’ has been under a constant assault for thirty years, which probably explains why barely one in five Americans are willing to associate themselves with the label. This was a smart and effective strategy for the Republicans, but it has a downside. People are suspicious of liberals, but they’re pretty much okay with ‘Democrats’. What they really hate is not liberals but ‘the Republican Party’. The Republicans undermined the liberal label but they also undermined the ‘Republican Party’ label. What used to be a disadvantage for the Democrats has morphed into an advantage. Many more ‘conservatives’ are willing to vote for the Democrats than ‘liberals’ are willing to vote for the Republicans. And the ‘moderates’ despise the GOP. Republican commentators are having difficulty computing the change:
Still, commentators continue to praise Obama for his moderation. His plans qualify as moderate only if the whole political map has tilted sharply to the left.
The political map has obviously shifted sharply to the left. Between 2005-2007, Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. Starting in 2009 and lasting indefinitely, the Democrats will control those bodies. As Paul Rosenberg notes this morning, the center-right tilt of American politics looks rather illusory if you confine your analysis to the post-World War Two era. Even in the brief periods of Republican dominance, their majorities were always shallow and their popular mandate weak.
The Democrats have taken advantage of Republican mistakes and misrule, but they have the chance to solidify their advantage for decades if they can pass universal health care. David Sirota reminds us that the opposition to HillaryCare was largely about staving off such a realignment.
Fifteen years ago, Republican strategist William Kristol warned that the Clinton administration’s universal health care proposals represented “a serious political threat to the Republican Party” because, if passed, they “will revive the reputation” of Democrats as “the generous protector of middle-class interests.”
James Pethokoukis revives William Kristol’s argument:
The GOP strategist had been joking about the upcoming presidential election and giving his humorous assessments of the candidates. Then he suddenly cut out the schtick and got scary serious. “Let me tell you something, if Democrats take the White House and pass a big-government healthcare plan, that’s it. Game over. Government will dominate the economy like it does in Europe. Conservatives will spend the rest of their lives trying to turn things around and they will fail.”
And the Democrats have the votes. The only question is whether there will be any money left in the universe by the time Obama takes his oath of office. If Barack Obama is going to win the same kind of smashing reelection enjoyed by Ronald Reagan, he’s going to need to break through cultural gaps in the Deep South, the Plains States, and Appalachia. There’s no better way of doing that than giving the currently uninsured a good health care plan. People will not forget such a gift, nor will they support a party that wants to take it all away.
National healthcare. The one best move to save American automakers. The one best move to stop personal bankruptcies.
Cheaper than saving banks from themselves too.
Cheaper than those wars going on over there.
Cheaper than ratholes like missile defense.
Jed L. hits the same points.
“National healthcare. The one best move to save American automakers. The one best move to stop personal bankruptcies…”
It’s the one best move which would same any US firm which has a history in the US and legacy costs. It would have done wonders for the US steel industry too, as well as many of the other old-line industries which decided to emigrate because their executives had lied about their P&L statements to cover up their lack of foresight in budgeting for the costs management had willingly incurred. They lied to their workers and committed fraud. Nobody has been punished for this either.
Those Southren Senators who keep touting the productivity of the auto workers in the South just haven’t yet had to face these costs. Let’s see what they say in another twenty or thirty years when they start having workers retire from those plants. Of course, Republican Senators don’t mind if the firms migrate after they’ve totally mined out the retirement eligibility and tax freebies a community can offer. They’re like locusts just bouncing around the planet stripping societies bare for personal profit.
And the Democrats have the votes. The only question is whether there will be any money left in the universe by the time Obama takes his oath of office.
I think that is precisely what the financial implosion is all about. What a remarkable coincidence that a financial crisis of biblical proportions, that no one could have foreseen, cough Roubini, Krugman, Soros, et al cough, suddenly appeared just about the time Obama started polling ahead of McCain.
Bernanke and Paulson have been pumping the blimp quietly and desperately for two years at least, trying to keep it aloft past the election, because they knew that was the only chance the Republicans had of holding any real power in Congress, let alone keeping the Whitehouse. Almost the minute it became apparent that Obama could beat McCain, all of a sudden we need to pour all the money Treasury can print into the biggest financial houses on Wall Street, no strings attached.
Coincidence? I think not. Come January the mantra from the Republicans and their corporatist media megaphones will be that we can’t [insert your favorite liberal reform here] because there isn’t any money left.
I say we follow the advice of the Dark Lord, Darth Cheney himself: “Deficits don’t matter.” It’s a good phrase to slap into the face of any Republican who tries to talk about the lack of funds available. Make them feel the burn.
The reason deficits don’t matter is that the US dollar is the international reserve currency. The US is the only country for which deficits don’t matter, for this reason. So long as foreigners are willing to sell the US goods taking dollars in return which they can do nothing with other than buy US treasury bonds, the US can continue to run trade and budget deficits indefinitely.
This is why one of the most important immediate tasks of Obama is to restore the world’s confidence in the US, so that foreigners will continue to be willing to hold dollars.
The US Dollar is the world’s reserve currency for now.
When enough countries decide that in order to save themselves that they need to abandon the dollar, the game ends.
Which makes this the one time in generations when Dems could sell a return to Eisenhower-era tax brackets. “They’re telling us we don’t have the money in this country to let me fulfill my promise of universal health care. The Bush administration dumped billions of our money into the brokers, the banks, and the rest of the America’s failing businesses. It is time for those who benefited from those hundreds of billions to start paying us back through a return to our traditional tax policy.”
How important it is for America’s future is a sure sign that it won’t get done. At least not by Pelosi and Reid or their Democratic cronies. They just don’t have the guts to take on an entrenched interest like the insurance companies. Looking a Obama’s cabinet, I doubt he has the guts either.
The first step would be children. Your under 16, your medical care is ‘free’ (of course nothing is ‘free’). It is simply inexcusable that in a country as rich as ours there are children that do not get check ups because their family cannot afford it. And health check ups pay for them selves in the long term with a healthy population, cost less in health care in the future.
Free health care for children is the ‘foot in the door’.
All we need is politicians that explain to the American public that without universal health care we will be a third world country in 20-30 years. But they don’t have the guts.
nalbar
The term ‘liberal’ has been under a constant assault for thirty years, which probably explains why barely one in five Americans are willing to associate themselves with the label.
Obviously, this is why young liberals don’t call themselves liberals, but progressives. Maybe pollsters should start asking if voters identify themselves as “liberal or progressive”?
I’m a progressive and I think those damned liberals are just a little too far to the right. I think also that major changes are coming as the country gets down to dealing with those toxic derivatives which overhang banks and the stock market like an obese albatross.
Taxes on the wealthy are a foregone conclusion no matter how loudly the vested interests squeal. These specially protected plutocrats have many champions in the Congress whom they have so assiduously bought off over the years with ample campaign contributions. No matter. As the commercial property and credit card crises mature along with the sub prime difficulties in residential housing, our millionaire legislators will feel the heat of public wrath and, for once, they will be scared and apprehensive.
If Obama has the guts, and I think he does, the ground will be ready for the planting of a progressive crop beginning with a national health bill, a green revolution and a new energy policy. Maybe, an end to the American Empire and the sale of most of those 735 military bases that we have abroad as well as a down sizing of all of our military forces. Oh yes, please terminate that ridiculous missile defense from the days of Ronnie Raygun.
The country will be so in love with this beneficial program that people will regard the Republican legacy as just a bad dream, something that, you know, just goes bump in the night.
Viva Obama!
The term liberalism is under assault, you say? What about “socialism” or “liberal-socialism,” the kind of stuff FDR gave us? Or how about single-payer medical care, i.e., government sponsored or socialized medicine like Medicare for everyone? Give us a break. Or how about “social democracy,” a European phrase we never hear talked about in the US, but has made countries like Sweden (since the 1930s) a model for governments to follow which are interested in serving all of its people.
How did we ever let the part of the rich get control of the language of politics in this way?