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THE SMART NEWS SOURCE | Feb 11 2012 00:35 | LAST UPDATED Feb 11 2012 00:35 |
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Let's be clear about this: Barack Obama has achieved an immense and historic victory. But if he had not won the 2008 presidential election and had not won it in some style, it would have been the most shocking political event in modern American political history. This election was the Democrats' to lose. As John McCain said in his immensely gracious concession speech in Phoenix, the road for the Republican candidate was a hard one from the outset. For Obama to have lost the election when the incumbent party had presided over an economic collapse of epochal immensity and over two unsuccessful and unpopular wars, with three-quarters of Americans believing their country was heading in the wrong direction and against an opponent who had been nominated by a divided party and who then himself selected a manifestly unqualified and divisive running-mate would have constituted the biggest electoral missed opportunity in generations. It might have persuaded an entire generation that there was absolutely no validity whatever in electoral politics. Millions might have concluded that the only way to get the Republicans out of the White House was by some form of armed insurrection. All of this needs to be set alongside the very great realities of his achievement. Obama put it succinctly in his own victory speech in Chicago: "It's been a long time coming." And it certainly has. Obama has done what no Democrat has done since Lyndon Johnson nearly half a century ago. He has captured the White House by winning both the majority of the popular vote and by winning an overwhelming victory in the electoral college. Other Democrats have captured the White House since Johnson in 1964. None, though, has won both a majority personal endorsement and simultaneously a broad mandate from the states. Jimmy Carter won the popular vote impressively, but he never changed the red and blue political map. Bill Clinton won two easy electoral college and popular vote victories in the end, but he was massively aided by Ross Perot's two spoiling runs, which made both Clinton's victories look more solid than they actually were. As Clinton was to discover, Republicans always regarded his wins as illegitimate and contingent. Obama's win is quite different. He has given the Democratic Party both the political legitimacy of an unchallengeable victory and the moral authority, too. Carter won in 1976 in a spasm of national revulsion against Watergate. Clinton won his victories through a combination of tactical guile and positioning that was both sensible in its own right and defensible against the Republicans' massive sense of continuing empowerment throughout the 1990s. Obama, on the other hand, has won his presidency by crafting a majoritarian programme on the economy, health, energy and the war and, at the same time, by audaciously making that message sing in places that have barely voted Democrat in any presidential election since LBJ's victory - places like the mountain and desert states of the west and in parts of the south. Yet, it has to be noted that, if Obama had not won well, that too would have been a shattering blow to the Democratic cause at such a time. In many state-wide contests Obama ran behind other Democrats. One of the most conspicuous of these was in Virginia, where former governor Mark Warner captured the Senate seat formerly held by his Republican namesake, John Warner.  CONTINUES BELOW As the nail-biting nip-and-tuck Obama-McCain battle in Virginia dragged on through the night, Warner was simultaneously coasting to victory on a 60-40 wave of support right through the evening. There was a similar pattern in North Carolina, where the selfsame voters who comprehensively brought Republican veteran Liddy Dole's senate career to an end, in what was once the seat occupied by Jesse Helms, split right down the middle over the Obama-McCain race. So, while Obama has a mandate that has been denied to every Democratic president since the days of Martin Luther King he also has a level of support that he must be careful not to test to destruction. Forty-eight percent of Americans did not feel the hand of history on their shoulders on Tuesday, in spite of everything. Yet the election of 2008 feels, in many ways, like the resumption of a progressive project that was mislaid in the convulsions of the 1960s. But Obama surely knows better than anyone that, if he is to turn this victory into an enduring reshaping of American politics, the really important election is the one in 2012, for which the work starts now. The key issues Exit polls confirmed on Tuesday night that the elections turned on the country's battered economy, a battleground that heavily favoured Barack Obama, writes Julian Borger. The extreme unpopularity of George Bush was also a dominant feature in the exit polls, but Obama had only mixed success in equating John McCain with the lame-duck president. The economy The economy was the number one issue for 62% of voters. A year ago, Iraq was the big issue, but on Tuesday only one in 10 voters thought it their most pressing concern. Terrorism was even lower down the list. That appeared to be good news for Obama. The financial collapse was the turning point in the race, and put the Democratic candidate firmly in the driving seat. The polls suggested Obama leading McCain by 56% to 42% among voters who said the top issue was the economy. Half the voters questioned said they were concerned that the crisis would have a direct impact on their families. Substantial majorities said they thought both candidates would raise taxes. That suggests that a key distinction McCain attempted to make did not register with most voters. Pennsylvania's results suggested that Obama was successful in his bid to hold onto the white working-class voters won by Hillary Clinton in the primaries. They backed Obama over McCain by a majority of four to one. The Bush effect More than seven in 10 of the voters said they thought President Bush was doing a poor job, but the polls suggested that Obama had had only mixed success in tying McCain to the incumbent. Just about half the voters said McCain would continue Bush's policies. Change vs experience One in 10 voters said they were voting for the first time, and those new voters were overwhelmingly young and/or black, demographics that are good for the Democratic candidate. Among young voters, Obama was leading 69% to 28%. Among new voters, Obama was up 72% to 27%. Another encouraging sign for Obama was that a third of the voters said the quality they were looking for in their candidate was the capacity to bring change - Obama's buzzword. Just a fifth said experience was the decisive element for them, which was the rationale behind McCain's whole campaign. Race Nine out of 10 voters said the race of the candidates was not important to which way they voted, but that direct question rarely elicits an entirely honest response. About the same percentage said age was not important to their vote, a reference to the 72-year-old Republican candidate. Of those who did say that race was important to them, a majority of 55% backed Obama. -- © Guardian News & Media 2008 He got our asses in gear I was at a bar downtown [in Richmond, Virginia] with about 15 people from my office. It was a big bar, and every time they called another state blue [for Obama] the entire place would erupt in cheers. When they called Virginia and then called the [national] election it was crazy. Richmond City went blue, which isn't surprising, but so did Henrico and Hanover counties, which are the counties that surround us, and that is amazing. Everyone was running around hugging and high-fiving strangers. People were literally dancing in the streets. After his [Obama's] incredible speech (McCain did a good job, too) we looked out the window of the bar, and there was a surge of people marching down the street. We ran outside (without paying our tab ... we went back later) and joined them. It was basically all young people and we ended up marching down to the old Capitol building and stood on the steps and cheered and chanted for Obama and sang the Star Spangled Banner. I was standing on the steps of the Capitol of the Confederacy cheering for our first African-American president. Virginia hasn't gone blue in 44 years and it went blue for him. I'm so emotional and also in shock. I've gotten so used to just hating our president [that] this is a little disconcerting - but incredible that we made this happen. Obama is a community organiser, and I thought his speech last night really gave credit to other organisers. He won because he inspired us to get our asses in gear and organise him to the White House! -- Caroline Rodriguez, Richmond, Virginia TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE
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