Lost in the 21st Century

Some thoughts from the Editorial Page of the New York Times:

The question is: Will either side draw the right lessons from this midterm election?

Mr. Obama, and his party, have to do a far better job of explaining their vision and their policies. Mr. Obama needs to break his habits of neglecting his base voters and of sitting on the sidelines and allowing others to shape the debate. He needs to do a much better job of stiffening the spines of his own party’s leaders.

He has made it far too easy for his opponents to spin and distort what Americans should see as genuine progress in very tough times: a historic health care reform, a stimulus that headed off an even deeper recession, financial reform to avoid another meltdown.

Mr. Obama has a lot of difficult work ahead of him. The politics in Washington will likely get even nastier. Before he can hope to build the minimal bipartisan consensus needed to move ahead, Mr. Obama will have to rally more Americans to the logic of his policies.

The question for the Republicans now is whether they are going to bask in triumphalism or get down to the real work of governing. It is one thing to pander and obstruct when you are out of power. With a divided government, it won’t take long for voters to demand that they explain their plans.

John Boehner, the likely speaker of the House, has not provided a clue of how his party will begin to cut the deficit, which Republicans say is their top priority. One of the few specific promises he has made would dig an even deeper hole: extending all of the Bush-era tax cuts.

And exit polls suggested that even these more conservative voters get what the Republican Party leadership still doesn’t: that there is no way to tackle the deficit and slash taxes at the same time. Only 19 percent said cutting taxes was the top priority for the next Congress.

Anticipating a big win on Tuesday, leading Republicans haven’t been talking about substance, only more obstructionism. Mr. Boehner said the other day that the president was welcome to support Republican programs. But as for Mr. Obama’s agenda, he said, “We’re going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”

More:   Election 2010 – NYTimes.com.

Some perspective….

Obama may well also be suffering the punishment of an impossible and impatient age, in which the loudest and most outrageous (and, yes, let’s say it, the most idiotic) voices loom disproportionately large. Christine O’Donnell’s concession speech in Delaware last night merited more airtime than the victory speeches of any number of ordinary Democrats, who won the old-fashioned way: by earning it.

The president’s presumptive chief adversary, Speaker-in-Waiting John Boehner of Ohio, has shown admirable signs of treading humbly. He may have the marbles, for now, but he is wary of overreach, and he is no Newt. He knows that leading is infinitely hardly than blocking, and he has signaled, insofar as it would be possible for any modern Republican, that he would like to get things done.

Just what Boehner and Obama might get done is another question. On foreign policy, they share some clear goals. There is abundant room for compromise on tax policy. Obama’s bipartisan debt-and-deficit commission—due to report December 1—might yet provide some political cover for politically tough decisions. Whether Boehner can bring the foamers-at-the-mouth in his own caucus to actually make laws remains to be seen.

One other note: We seem to be in a period of political volatility unequaled since the tumultuous years following World War II, when control of Congress changed hands violently between 1946 and 1952, in the face of terrifying challenges abroad, economic dislocations at home, and shameless fear-mongering by a guy from Wisconsin named McCarthy.

In 1952, the nation elected a previously nonpartisan but newly affiliated Republican named Dwight D. Eisenhower—the Supreme Allied Commander of the European campaign in World War II—who would today be reliably denounced as a Quisling by the purists in the party he so proudly led. Two years later, the voters took control of the house away from the G.O.P, which would remain in the wilderness until the Gingrich revolt of 1994. In 1960, John Kennedy displaced Eisenhower, and just eight years after that—seemingly against all odds—Richard Nixon replaced his old frenemy, J.F.K.

In between those events came the disastrous 1964 campaign of Barry Goldwater against Lyndon B. Johnson, and predictions of the “death” of the Republican Party. To-and-fro, back-and-forth has been the norm, and not the exception, in American politics over the long haul. What may have changed—in this, as in all other aspects of our common life—is the shortness of the cycles of difference.

But to those who would predict a new defining age in our national life, the lesson of history is more sobering and subdued: Meet the new politics. Same as the old politics. Sort of. I think.

More:   There We Go Again | Politics | Vanity Fair.

The morning after….and the hangover begins….

One result of the 2010 campaign is clear before any ballots are counted: Democracy is in danger.

That sounds hyperbolic. But whatever remains of the quaint notion—call it a myth—that in a democracy citizens are more or less equal is in the process of being shredded, due to the rise this year of super PACs and secretive political nonprofits. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s notorious Citizens United decision and other rulings, a small number of well-heeled individuals (or corporations or unions) can now amass a tremendous amount of political influence by throwing an unlimited amount of money into efforts to elect their preferred candidates. And certain political nonprofits, such as Crossroads GPS—the outfit set up this year by GOP strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie (which with an affiliated group is spending about $50 million)—can pour tens of millions of dollars into the elections without revealing the source of their campaign cash.

The secret and unlimited flow of dollars into congressional campaigns this year is largely unprecedented—at least since campaign finance reform was implemented following Watergate in the 1970s. Almost half a trillion dollars have been spent so far by outside groups—with about one-quarter of that coming from dark-money groups that don’t disclose donors. And it’s not just a Republican phenomenon. Unions and Democratic-leaning advocacy outfits are playing the game. Still, the advantage goes to the GOP. Of the outside groups not connected to either political party, those supporting Republicans and opposing Democrats have so far spent $119.2 million, and those supporting Democrats and opposing Republicans have dumped $73.8 million into races. This split is dramatic, but there’s another factor to consider: Much of the pro-Democratic money comes from large membership groups (including the SEIU and the National Education Association), yet much of the pro-Republican money originates from a small number of millionaires (or billionaires). Consequently, fat cats have gained even more disproportionate influence.

More:   And 2010’s Biggest Winner Is… | Mother Jones.