Last week marked the third special election in which Republicans lost a House seat long held by their party. First, Dennis Hastert's seat in Illinois was wrested from the Republicans, an effort largely credited to the Obama organization outfitted to assist on the ground. The Louisiana 6th was next, followed by the Mississippi 1st, two districts so conservative they had been rarely considered in play. The Democratic Party's success is a frightening omen for the Republican leadership, a relative calm before a fast approaching political storm.
Democrats are poised to build on the gains they made in 2006, with a potential of picking up more than twenty seats in the House, pushing the Republicans even further into the wilderness of the minority. On the Senate side, there is equally good news. Democrats seem all but certain to pick up seats in Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, and New Hampshire, and are also well positioned to defeat Gordon Smith in Oregon. Republican Senators are also running weakly in Alaska, Texas, Maine, Minnesota, Kentucky, and North Carolina. If the special elections thus far are, as Republican Congressman Tom Davis suggested, "canaries in the coal mines," Democrats may very well see a gain sufficient to guarantee a 60 seat, filibuster-proof majority.
With such tremendous prospects for the Democratic party, and no sign that the Republicans have a plan to counter the inevitable, January of 2009 may well begin with a Democrat in office more powerful than any president in modern memory.
If Barack Obama is elected in such an environment, some historical precedents come to mind. The first is 1992, in which Bill Clinton ascended to the presidency at a time when Democrats controlled a 40 seat majority in the House and a six seat majority in the Senate. Given that these numbers are so similar to the ones Obama will inherit, there may be reason for pause. After all, Bill Clinton managed to bumble his first two years so badly that, in 1994, Republicans swept into power on the wave of the Gingrich revolution, leaving Clinton neutered, and a number of his campaign promises unrealized.
But 2008 is a far different scenario than 1992; beyond the numbers, the analogy fails to hold. The Democratic Party had been, for forty years, the entrenched majority in Congress. Though they maintained control after the 1992 election, they lost nine House seats. Frustration with Democrats, both in Congress and in the White House, had grown so much so that Bill Clinton was elected by running away from his party. Clinton's message of change was less about furthering the kind of progressive agenda that Congressional Democrats had envisioned, and more about co-opting Republican policies - from NAFTA to welfare reform. The Clintons' push for universal health care struck an adversarial tone with Members, shutting out many who had spent careers preparing to play a role. The circumstances in the country were different. The policy goals of the White House were different. And the tactical and strategic decisions were shoddy, arrogant, and misguided.
In 2008, Barack Obama will be riding a different kind of wave into the White House, one in which the country will be universally calling for unified, Democratic control in all branches of government. Rather than running away from Democratic philosophy, Obama has embraced it, pushing forth a progressive agenda that appeals to the Democratic base and Independents alike, without sacrifice. His rise to power evokes other historical precedents in which the analogy is far more accurate.
Like Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt, Barack Obama's election will follow what Stephen Skowronek described as "disjunctive" presidencies, those in which the presidents went so wayward, and economic conditions became so unacceptable, that the American people called for and accepted wholesale political revolution. Herbert Hoover's abysmal handling of the Great Depression paved the way for FDR's dramatic rise to power and realignment of the political spectrum. Jimmy Carter, presiding over double digit inflation, a botched hostage crisis, and a speaking voice that, in both style and content, warned of midnight in America, was an essential precondition for Reagan's revolution.
In the House of Representatives, Democrats gained 97 seats when FDR was elected. In the Senate, they gained twelve. It was with that governing majority and that dramatic mandate for change that FDR built his new kind of politics.
His was a lasting legacy for the Democratic Party and the country. If the 2008 Congressional elections continue with the trend they've begun, an Obama presidency might well leave a similar mark.
But that will not be enough. We have to bring ALL of our soldiers home from ALL OVER THIS BEAUTIFUL PLANET. Bring all the Navy Ships back to Port. Than make a statement by painting them like colorful flowers. This song is a drumbeat for Peace: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87ryX961UK0
Then we can use all the guns and bombs budget to build electric cars that we can plug into our solar powered roofs. Which would put generations to work on something that will bring about Peace. What Taoz said before the Lamb, "Where armies are quartered, thorns and thistles will spring forth." 9-11 was the fruits of America's ways. (The greedy capitalistic ways. Not the ways most of US Dream of.)
It'll solve his manifest legal problems too.
Presto!
(I'm just sayin'.)
Performance to expectation results in neutral feelings
Performance better than expectation results in satisfaction
Performance below expectation results in dissatisfaction
Hope is not a Strategy
You might want to dial down the comparisons to FDR.
You're more than a little carried away with the best-case possibilities and setting expectations at a very challenging level.
You might actually do better for Obama and the Democratic Party if you dial it way down.
I have no idea what Obama might do, but I am willing to take that chance, although I am not optimistic. Remember, Democrats have gone along with Bush almost as slavishly as the Republicans.
-- Mao Tse-Tung
The Republicans pre-ordained their own self-destruction by marching in lockstep to the beat of the Shrub for the past 7 years (with a few notable exceptions). Clinton's derogatory remarks against Obama in contrast, wherein she claimed that only she & McCain had "passed the threshhold to be Commander-in-Chief" while Obama only "had a speech he gave in 2002," serve to rescue the GOP from this self-induced nihilism. Meanwhile a certain contingent of die-hard Clinton devotees vow to vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee, while claiming to be pro-choice on reproductive rights, vindictive against NARAL for their Obama endorsement and ignoring McCain's anti-woman voting record in general.
Indeed we need universal single-payer health care, beyond Clinton & Obama's proposals, as advocated by the Green Party platform, but at least Obama openly admits that we can't recreate the wheel, though he doesn't reject the concept out of hand. Nor is he the "most liberal" Senator when compared to Bernie Sanders (VT) who's a supreme credit to the institution.
Nevertheless, it would take a strong showing in the Senate races to enable a Democratic president to sit down with the remaining Republicans and come up with real solutions to the problems on American minds: Iraq, healthcare, and economic security. The ideal would be that the Democrats would be so strong that there would be little need to compromise.
Captain Ramius in " The Hunt For Red October "
Really, though. I think, this has less to do with a ( potential ) Democratic Win, than it does a Republican defeat. The GOP had everything going for it for a time ---> controlling both houses, the White House, and probably even the judiciary [ but i'd have to check on that last one ]. And what did they do?
They decided they could ignore the people. They ran roughshod over our freedoms, economy, and security. They did little but harm this country and now, the piper's come a-calling and there's the devil to pay.
This li'l honky, Independent guy will be gladly casting a vote for Obama in November.
Now lets see if we can get Obama to dump his weak health care proposals and endorse single-payer health care. The first two years before the 2010 midterms may be a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enact progressive change and health care is still Obama's weakest domestic policy area. (This is not an endorsement of Clinton's ripoff of Edwards' plan -- both plans are less than the single-payer, universal health care system, this nation needs and deserves.)
If the Democrats are ever so lucky to have the Presidency and a Congressional Majority again, let's hope they use that power more effectively and nimbly than the 1992-94 disaster when everyone's egos got in the way. There may not be a second chance in our lifetime.
Every day more and more people are losing access to health care because conservative blind faith in the free market just doesn't work.
Employer-based insurance is no longer a reliable foundation for health care and is making us uncompetitive.
Conservativism has failed America in this and every other policy area.
The Key words are FEES AND PROFITS!!!!!!!
If you add up all the things that increase the cost of Medical Care then you have nearly 50% of the Health Care spending going to businesses that do nothing but profit and slow down health care delivery.
LET'S PAY THE HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL FOR THEIR SKILLS NOT PAPER PUSHERS WHO PROVIDE NO HEALTH CARE.
THE GOVERNMENT CARE MANAGE THE HOSPITAL FOR BILLIONS LESS THAN SO CALLED PROFESSIONAL WITH 3 OR 4 MAKING $390,000 SALARYS TO MAKE SURE THE ROOMS ARE CLEAN, FLOORS ARE CLEAN, FOOD IS HEALTHY AND THE NURSES ALL HAVE TRAINING.
Health Care Adminstration is not providing actual health care. Of course Americans would then need to bring a freind with them IF THEY NEED SOMEONE TO HOLD THEIR HAND constantly. So much is spent just to baby many people. GROW UP these Doctors and Nurses are busy don't whin about bedside manners.
And your party with Rove at the helm set out to create a permanent Republican majority by stealing elections and firing attorneys who didn't tow the party line. Now it's scandals 24/7 and your party of thugs is going belly up.
Don't feel too bad. The democrats learned from the best criminals in the business. That would be the GOP.
Now they are attacking his economic plan! I wonder how many can see it’s almost exactly like Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The programs of that day were fought against tooth and nail by the GOP using all the same tactics being paraded by the modern “Compassionate Conservatives”.
Those programs worked! When I was a child my father told me that so many were out of work that he and many others feared an armed rebellion! Wouldn’t that have been fun! The New Deal cooled that. Sure, a lot of fiat money was printed to finance the New Deal but so many of the previously unemployed became tax payers that by the time of Pearl Harbor we were on our way. Sadly, the massive defense spending that even the troglodyte Republicans couldn’t vote against pulled us out of the deep Depression only to become like a drug addiction that we still haven’t been able to kick. Hey, the GOP even invents enemies to attack to feed the addiction and line their buddy’s pockets!
Give a President Obama a Congress that will cooperate and perhaps we can rebuild that New Deal the crooks have worked so long to destroy! Pulling everyone into the work will make this the country I've loved all over again.
Complaints to the high court would be useless, obviously, with men like Scalia and Thomas ignoring the Constitution again as they did in 2000 by reaching into sovereign states to take totally unauthorized power. They, at least Scalia, countenance TORTURE for Pete's sake!
Such men have already shown that they are moral ciphers.
Lord help us.