Reality, Tiptoeing...

Let's see - voter turnout was roughly what it was four years ago.  Part of the explanation is obvious - enthused Dems were offset by discouraged Reps - and part of the explanation is less obvious:

Several large states, including California and New York, had no statewide races and virtually no advertising or get-out-the-vote efforts by either presidential campaign.

Add to the turnout stats the fact that anti-gay marriage bills passed in three states, including California, and the evidence of a new and enduring progressive majority becomes pretty slim.  Two troubling wars and a disastrous economy vault the Dems to a full 52% in the Presidential election - this is a mountain conservatives can climb.

And I will assert, based on hints such as the Rahm Emanuel appointment, that Obama and Company are well aware of their tenuous hold on power.  The House incudes plenty of new swing seat Dems who replaced Republicans and could in turn be replaced by Republicans if Obama and Pelosi stagger too far to the left.

Comments

[ljm]

The irony is that the anti gay marriage bills passed on Obama's coatails. Without the overwhelming African American turnout they may not have had a chance.

[steve sturm]

According to this report, the percentages of voters describing themselves as Republicans stayed the same from 2004 to 2008, a seeming contradiction to the assertion that conservatives stayed home and were offset by hordes of new eager Democratic voters.

And to your "Two troubling wars and a disastrous economy", I'd add 'and one of the most poorly run GOP presidential campaigns'.

[centralcal]

In my county and all those surrounding counties, only one went for Obama, and my own was McCain by a hair.

As the election neared it was really surreal. Almost no yard signs or car stickers for either candidate, but signs everywhere for Proposition 8 (Yes on 8) and local candidates. I often got the feeling that in my part of California there wasn't even a Presidential election coming.

Ditto TV advertising. Only saw one (the Wright ad) in the few days immediately before Nov. 4th.

[E. Nigma]

In such a long campaign, it seems the tedium of two badly defined, un-interesting candidates surely disappointed the masses. The one actually interesting person in the whole mess, Sarah Palin, was thoroughly trashed by the all-might Media. There is a message there, I think.

It could have been worse; Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton. Snzzzzzzzzz........

[Nextcube]

I visited San Francisco the weekend before the election and saw the same thing that Centralcal saw - basically nothing but Prop 8 stuff (and then, 100% against). Fewer Obama signs than I saw back home in NY, and exactly 0 McCain signs/bumper stickers/etc.

[Appalled]

This strikes me as good news. The man is not too caught up in his own cult.

[Jim Ryan]

Two troubling wars and a disastrous economy vault the Dems to a full 52% in the Presidential election - this is a mountain conservatives can climb.

Great! But first conservatives will need a party that works.

[bad]

The Democrats Rahmbo will need to whip the hardest are those from conservative districts he brought into the House in 2006. Pro gun, pro Iraq War types....

[Lori]

Any word on how Obama enjoyed his national security/intelligence briefing the other day? I'm sure today's economic summit will lift his spirits too. He's probably walking around with that deer in the headlights look that he often has when his teleprompter is malfunctioning.

He has about 18 months to fix it all before the muddle starts looking for another solution. The left will still blame it all on Bush.

[bad]

Speaking of Rhambo, the Clinton White House, and Obama's much vaunted concern for Main Street over greedy Wall Street:

His top source of campaign funds this year was the subprime-rattled UBS (the Swiss bank’s PAC and employees gave, corporations cannot give campaign contributions), who benefited from the housing bailout which Emanuel supported and has already shown an interest in expanding.

Hedge funds and private equity firms are also close with Emanuel. Over his career, Emanuel’s best source of funds has been the private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners. Hedge funds, facing a new slew of regulations, handouts, and rules, dramatically increased their contributions this year, and Emanuel was also their favorite House member.

The $96,900 Emanuel pulled in from hedge funds places him above any Senator besides presidential candidates. In fact, Emanuel garnered from hedge funds more than the top 11 Republican lawmakers, combined.

Redistribute the wealth indeed...

Linked Under Name (LUN)

[Captain Hate]

The irony is that the anti gay marriage bills passed on Obama's coatails. Without the overwhelming African American turnout they may not have had a chance.

One of the bigger fissures in the donk's big tent is between blacks and gays. I'm wondering how Barry will keep his obvious disdain for women under wraps for 4 years.

[MayBee]

The anti-prop 8 people based their campaign on the fact that gay marriage wouldn't affect schools and it wouldn't affect churches.

They are now protesting in front of the Westwood LDS (Mormon) Temple in large enough numbers to shut down Santa Monica Freeway. It seems to me they are indeed trying to make a church the enemy.

[bad]

They are now protesting in front of the Westwood LDS (Mormon) Temple...

I'm such an idiot. I totally didn't know there were enough Mormons in California to roll that vote through. That protest taught me new and relevant information.

[George G]

"if Obama and Pelosi lurch too far to the left"

Tom I love you dearly for so many insights shared about the problems confronting us. Understatement however is something you'd best leave to the likes of Peter UK. That along with irony is just something we've learned the old masters are still the supreme masters.

Still an old horse from the Antipodes can take them on their own turf occasionally. He's a Kiwi by birth and reached enlightenment via the unusual route of being raised in West Australia, editor of the Chicago Sun Times followed by editing the New York Post and finally the ultimate gong editor of Rupert's own The Australian.

Foe a classy ultra conservative (he's a polished version of Tim Blair) take on President elect Obama - don't miss

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24612595-23375,00.html

[Rick Ballard]

"It seems to me they are indeed trying to make a church the enemy."

How shocking.

[George G]

OK - I'm now educated in LUN - give it a try

[Barry Dauphin]

The team of economic "advisors" includes none other than the unremarkable Jennifer Granholm of auto industry "home" (used to be) Michigan. Wonder what "advice" he'll hear from her. (hint: first word is "give" and last word is "money" and the word "me" probably finds its way in there someplace).

[kim]

Thanks, GG.
========

[George G]

Well that didn't work either. I'm sure Frank will forgive a full quote of his op-ed titled

"A Triumph beyond the American Dream"

WITH sharp tongue in cheek, Laura Washington, a black columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, of which I was editor for a while, wrote: "When they put us in charge, you know things are pretty dire."

Certainly the path ahead for president-elect Barack Obama is cobblestoned with threat and difficulty.

But another way of looking at his election is as a remarkable expression by Americans of confidence in themselves and their country, which is cheering in itself.

It's arguable that only Americans would choose to travel down rocky new roads with an apprentice as their commander-in-chief. Most people, Europeans anyway, would have hunkered down with the familiar imperfections of Hillary Clinton.

Possibly the English, with recent form in the election of a flaky lord mayor of London, would have given a flaky but trail-hardened septuagenarian a go.

And only America, among Western countries, was likely to elect a black president. The enthusiasm in Europe for Obama as a symbol of racial emancipation -- other reasons for their enthusiasm are likely to prove illusory -- could be interpreted by somebody of unkind disposition as yet another example of Europeans' dependence on the US to run the hard yards for them.

But only America has prepared the ground from which a black could credibly aspire to the presidency. The black civil rights movement of the 1960s, led by Martin Luther King, and taken under their patronage by presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, could almost be considered the beginning of an American enlightenment.

Gradually, as a matter of conscience -- national conscience, a rarely observed species -- Americans righted the wrongs created by slavery and its long aftermath. First there was legislation, especially under Johnson, to restore rights many blacks had been illegally denied: the right to vote, to compete for jobs, to shop where they chose, to ride in the front of the bus.

In short, during the '60s and '70s, blacks were admitted to the system. The system then nurtured and developed, almost imperceptibly over the next two generations, a black elite of several hundred thousand purposeful and talented men and women, hitherto denied opportunity to use their gifts.

While most eyes were focused on black crime in America, black poverty, the dissolution of black families and ghetto riots, America's great universities, with their vast endowments and scholarship funds, were competing for talented black students.

Many were identified through their scores in the Preliminary SAT, the standard aptitude test that all American high schoolers sit in the equivalent of our Year 10.

From the universities the black elite, step by individual step, penetrated the holiest white sanctuaries: the big law firms, brokerage houses, golf clubs, literature, the theatre, the movies. Because we were deafened by all the bad news about blacks in America, the emergence of a superstar from the new black elite -- August Wilson, Colin Powell, Will Smith, Condoleezza Rice, Tiger Woods -- came each time as rather a shock, pleasant but a shock.

The elite formed a community, not exactly structured but with shape and stability, in which Obama, desperate to belong somewhere and to something, found refuge after his white mother had bestowed on him a Kenyan father, an Indonesian stepfather and then left him to be raised by her parents in Hawaii.

Obama's rocket-like move from the University of Hawaii, through a minor Californian university to Harvard Law School and eminence, never before achieved by a black student, as editor of the school's Law Review, is a classic progression for a member of the new elite.

His triumph this week was so inconceivable that it was beyond the dreams King described in his great speech, delivered before an audience of half a million in Washington when Obama was two.

It is idle to speculate at this stage about what kind of president Obama will turn out to be. Amid the Niagara of words I have read and listened to, analysing Obama's character, politics and motivations, the voice I heard clearest, curiously, was that of the flaky Lord Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who outraged Tory chums by supporting Obama.

In an article in Britain's The Daily Telegraph, Johnson listed the qualities that would win Obama election: "He is highly intelligent. He has an air of courtesy and sincerity. He showed terrific steel in fighting off the Clintons and defeating John McCain inall three debates, with a grave and measured performance."

Quite a bit to go on with. Office, and his countrymen's reverence for it, will lift Obama.

On policy clarity, Americans tend to grantnew presidents leeway until they selecttheir cabinet and delivery their inauguration speech.

Europeans and other outsiders impatient for president Obama to reshape America to their design will suffer four, possibly eight, years of frustration. He doesn't belong to them and won't.

[George S]

You're kidding, right? According to an enlightened electorate, Republicans dressing up and playing Democrat is a much more egregious political sin than openly advocating for defeat in Iraq; calling our troops terrorists; promising to raise taxes and confiscate retirement assets; colluding with domestic terrorists; preaching anti-americanism from the pulpit; and promising to effectively cancel capitalism as we know it by spreading our wealth to those less inclined to work.

Sorry, but any one of those should have repelled a sane electorate in landslide proportions. The only way Republicans get back in is That 70's Show of eight straight years of inflation, unemployment and negative economic growth. Hooray!

[kim]

For GG's, hit opinion, then scroll down just a bit to Frank Devine on dreams of the King. Nice article.
==================================

[kim]

Or read above, even more conveniently. Thanks again, George; it's nice to know civilization persists somewhere. Now if you'd only get your heads out of your asses about global warming.
====================================

[bad]

Speaking of reality, the guest speaker in our Bible study class on Sunday is a newly returned Iraq war veteran. He is the son of one of our classmates. He is one of two young men in Iraq from our Bible study families. Sunday will be an awesome celebration and learning opportunity.

[Lea]

As the election neared it was really surreal. Almost no yard signs or car stickers for either candidate, but signs everywhere for Proposition 8 (Yes on 8) and local candidates

I saw more signs for the local mayors race and the alderman races then for president (I'm in Arkansas). My street didn't have one sign for president.

The people I was with (democrats) were more upset about this stupid amendment to deny "co-habiting" couples and single people the right to taken in foster children. I'm actually mad about that too.

[kim]

I'd be interested in the take of the local money mavens here on Nouriel Roubini's article at Forbes.com on the coming hard landing of the Chinese economy. Available through RCP, too.
======================================

[bad]

Drudge says Bloomberg wants a plastic bag tax. How much is that gonna cost Maureen Dowd?

[PeterUK]

"Any word on how Obama enjoyed his national security/intelligence briefing the other day? I'm sure today's economic summit will lift his spirits too. He's probably walking around with that deer in the headlights look that he often has when his teleprompter is malfunctioning."

Word is,Obama is demanding a recount.

[Rick Ballard]

"But first conservatives will need a party that works."

Conservatives will never hold a majority. They might move the plurality number from 36-38% to 42% in certain circumstances but any dream of an actual majority will remain a dream. That doesn't mean that a center right coalition is impossible at all - just that a narrow focus on conservatives won't get the job done.

I would suggest that a focus on economic issues and the tyranny of the courts could provide the core of a durable coalition. The stupidity of McCain-Feingold has been exposed in full, as has the reliance upon the Nine Nincompoops to do the "right thing" when allowing such a bill to go beyond the President's desk. The Kelo decision provides another fine example of the Nincompoops in action as does the behavior of the California Supreme Court in trying to dictate a decision which could never pass the legislature.

Wrt economic issues, I would think that a focus on the fact that the carbon credit scheme is the most regressive form of taxation possible would offer abundant opportunity to move the Muddle a bit. We're fortunate that nature continues to give the lie to the promoters of the AGW fraud and it looks like we'll remain fortunate in that respect during Obama's brief and vainglorious tenure.

We're also fortunate that Obama will undoubtedly take a shot at suppression of free speech right off the bat. That's an issue that stirs centrist as well as conservatives.

There is no reason to raise a particularly loud voice calling for the Republican party to become more conservative. I understand that we're talking about a core group of quasi-liberal elitists but even they realize that their feed bag just got torn off. I would prefer that McCain had won but the clarity of his loss provides an opportunity. We just need to get him completely off stage before he can do any more damage. The party will shift right without much noise having to be made - some of the elitists can actually count and explain the situation to the others.

If Arizona has a recall provision, I would donate to a campaign for McCain's recall. It might fail but it would keep him occupied and out of the media. It would be a very good way of making sure that any claim he makes to be the 'voice of the party' is met with the ridicule it deserves.

[bad]

intelligence briefing

Hey if it takes intellegent briefs to wise him up, I'm all for them. The process might be faster with a suppository though...

[Ranger]

Well, it looks like the effort to turn the federal government into a swirling mass of corruption on the model of Chicago is well under way.

Valerie Jarrett has been named as one of the co-chairs of the transition team.

Valerie Jarrett's Record

A snippet:

Jarrett worked briefly as a lawyer for Mayor Harold Washington, and stayed on after his death to become Mayor Richard Daley's Deputy Chief of Staff. In other words, she was a key cog in the Daley machine.

She is also a businesswoman, CEO of the Habitat company, which manages housing in Chicago, not always successfully....

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama's constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.

...

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama's presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.

. . .

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting.

With Rahm (Freddie Mac Profiteer) Emanuel and Valerie (Federally Subsidised Slum Lord) Jarrett in charge, I have a feeling Obama's economic recovery plan is going to make his friends rich and the country suffer for it, just like his "affordable housing" plan did in Chicago.

[bad]

Yeah Ranger, ain't that grand? The most ethical white house EVAH!! What do you suppose the vote count for Obama was out of those same slums?

[Sue]

Any bets on when the MSM reports this about Obama's inner circle?

[Ranger]

What the Republicans need to do is turn the entire affordable housing scam into the Democrats "Haliburton."

Republicans need to drive home the point that the entire "Affordable Housing" program is just a way to take money from working people who pay for their own housing, and put it in the pockets of well connected rich Democrats, while leaving the people it is suppose to help out in the cold.

[narciso]

You know you can probably chalk up a quarter of the Prop. 8, to the deeply
anti-gay, socially conservative black & hispanic churches, the Palin effigy in West Hollywood; and the all too precious
advertising against Prop. 8. Of course, Lederman at OLC (the one who didn't
understand Eisentrager or Quirin) will probably will recommend it be invalidated by EO, but its the thought that counts. Everyone forgets Prop 187 was popular before it was backstopped by the courts.

So after 600 million dollars, the media totally in the tank, voting fraud that would
make Frank Hague and Boss Tweed blush,a 1873 bank panic the electorate growth was within the margin of error. Carp what does it actually move the electorate; That fifth of conservatives that voted for Obama/Barr
et al; boy they feel all 'warm & fuzzy now'

[clarice]

Narciso I suspect that those who we'd call conservatives who couldn't bring themselves to vote for McCain, stayed home and this 20% may be at best social, not economic or political conservatives. In 2006 it seemed obvious to me that many social conservatives were really populists who could be re-captured by the Dems with promises of chickens in their pots or some such.

[glasater]

I think the news story of taking the first graders to a gay wedding had a resonance with the voters. That was just plain stoopid!!

As for Dr. Doom AKA Nouriel Roubini--I think his timeline is becoming more accurate. He predicted the current financial collapse two years early.

[Rick Ballard]

"That fifth of conservatives that voted for Obama/Barr et al; boy they feel all 'warm & fuzzy now'"

Consider it proof that progs don't have a 100% monopoly on stupid. I'm still sifting turnout a bit. I don't see Barr's Libertarian idiots having done much damage. McCain's mouth on ethanol (justified but politically foolish symbolism) cost him across the Midwest - as did his wading into the banking crisis, justifiably seen as a bailout of the rich bastards on Wall Street by those lacking the ability to discern the difficulty of restarting an economy frozen by lack of credit.

I suppose I should do a state by state exit poll comparison between '04 and '08 but I'm pretty sure the swing will show up in women voters, then the non-appearance of Christian conservatives at an event to which they were never invited. That's my first pass glance analysis - it might change.

Don't dismiss the ethanol issue or the bailout wrt the Midwest. The folks there read McCain perfectly.

[SunnyDay]

I don't have time to search, but if anyone can put this in perspective, Thelma Darke called in to the morning drive show on WNIS this AM - I was barely waking up when I heard her say that only 57% turn out for conservatives in her district (VA02) she has conceded.

Looks to me like the conservative followed through on their threats. I was one of those threatening, but I got talked out of it.

Losing Thelma's steady conservative stand is a big blow to this area, IMO.

[SunnyDay]

darke-Drake

[ljmwilliamson@yahoo.com]

"I'm such an idiot. I totally didn't know there were enough Mormons in California to roll that vote through. That protest taught me new and relevant information."

I suppose the gay marriage movement needs an enemy but the fact is: there are quite a few Mormons in Cali but if they had been a real factor, McCain would have taken the state by 5%, as well.

BHO has a real problem with this issue. I suspect he is pro gay marriage and we will become much more aware of that attitude (shift) in his 2nd term.

[SunnyDay]

..........

[kim]

Thanks, g, for the note on Dr. Doom.
=======================

[glasater]

Kim--I've so taken to heart your words on climate.

Harvest was about two weeks late here in this mellow climate and Fall frosts a month early.
Thinking on the horrible cold in China January '08--I fear for our midwest this winter season.

[narciso]

Probably so, but I'm speaking of the likes of McCain relative Robert S. who was
impressed by Sarah, but then asked people to vote for Barr. Although after the
Schueneman/Wallace/Salter scrum; I feel a little dissapointed that they kind of took my vote for granted. Many of us voted for Sarah, precisely because we thought she could hold McCain's feet to the fire, because of her record in Alaska. Some of the older folks in Little Havana are clearly
bitter at our current fate. Others really need to have their 401Ks to really dissolve
and maybe they may see the light. The fact that Obama is considering Larry Summers reassures me somewhat. Subprime honchoes like Emmanuel, Pritzker, et al, not so much. The funniest sight has to be SUV and Hummer drivers with Obama/Biden stickers; cognitive dissonance on full display.

[Angie Smith]

With the selection of Emanuel, I feel Obama's plan for recovery will make us all suffer in the long run, but not for his wealthy friends! He and his liberal, left-wing illuminatis didn't do very well with his affordable housing and look how those people suffered.

[CalyMille]

He didn't hire the one that works at the foundation who used to be CEO of Fannie.fredd

http://www.nahro.org/legislative/2008/leg_agenda_08.pdf

Obama didn't sue US housig and bankers to lend>

[CalyMille]

Calvert

http://www.calvertfoundation.org/downloads/community_investment_service_center/NPCA%20Kit.pdf

[Cale]

More diplomats? They don't want to carry guns and we need them.

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/071106_csissmartpowerreport.pdf

[Frau Jedöns]

Hello all. Add this to the info: "Businesswoman Valerie Jarrett, a fixture of Chicago’s political and civic scene, who has known Obama since she hired then-fiancee Michelle Robinson to work on the staff of Mayor Richard M. Daley in 1991. She was then Daley’s deputy chief of staff. ... Her great uncle is Vernon Jordan." (news.muckety.com)

[bio mom]

Read Powerline today. Vote fraud seems to be occuring in the Coleman/Franken vote already. Shades of the Washington State governor's race in 04.