1932: Anachronism or Very Much Alive?

This begins what I hope will prove a continuous series analyzing the Race for the White House from the Barack Obama supporter perspective. This series assumes Senator Obama will claim the nomination until proven otherwise. Most often this series will focus on a mainstream media article, opinion essay, or blogpost.

The Fall Campaign, Part I:

Today's issue: How can Barack Obama square his "we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents and Republicans together to get things done," rhetoric with his noticeably liberal voting record in both Washington and Springfield.

Robin Toner of The Old Cranky Lady asks whether Mr. Obama's clear strategy to deliberately run a different campaign based on a belief that the political climate has fundamentally, and not temporarily, changed to benefit liberal Democrats.

Her query:

"Also, and more immediately, if Mr. Obama wins the Democratic nomination, how will his promise of a new and less polarized type of politics fare against the Republican attacks that since the 1980s have portrayed Democrats as far out of step with the country’s values?"

The answer: Not especially well if he sincerely believes "a lot of these old labels don’t apply anymore," in which case the Democratic Party is in more trouble than we currently recognize. Facts, as Mr. Reagan said, are stubborn things and to assume a forty-year era, where only one Democrat breached 50% of the popular vote and none topped 51%, has concluded merely because of the Bush administration and the Iraq war seems excessively hopeful to me.

Undoubtedly, Senator Obama's argument, that the country needs to change the map, sounds good on paper. But in reality? "Big changes" in American politics are very, very hard to come by and generally require extraordinary events to ensure. Not even Ronald Reagan's 1980 victory, albeit in a three-man contest, significantly raised the GOP's total from the previous election (a narrow Gerald Ford loss to Jimmy Carter); he did so in 1984, but only as an incumbent president. Consider also that Bill Clinton's 1992 victory, also a three-horse race, failed to generate much more enthusiasm than Mike Dukakis four years prior, at least in terms of the popular vote. He earned six more points in 1996, but again like Reagan, as an incumbent.

"Mr. Obama’s rise has been built in part on the idea that he represents a break from the established identities that have defined many of the nation’s divisions. To many, he embodies a promise to bridge black and white, old and young, rich and poor — and Democrats, Republicans and independents."

In other words, he is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, circa 1932. Yet, Governor Roosevelt needed massive bank failures and near-25% unemployment to catapult to the earth-shaking victory. Oh yes, he also managed it against... wait for it... a GOP incumbent. That usually does not hurt.

On the plus side, Mr. Obama is every bit as charismatic as the crafty old New Yorker. He even generates more excitement among the base. On the negative side, and we need to understand this well, he does not have Roosevelt's '32 environment. So long as he stayed vague on civil rights, the 1932 Democratic nominee could trek left economically without any fear of losing southern states. Democrats had a lock on the South back then that defies belief to modern observers: four years later, South Carolina broke better than 9/1 for FDR. He continued upon the progress that fellow Empire State governor Al Smith had made in the major cities, especially Chicago, and in turn flipped the electoral map for the next forty years.

In order for Candidate Obama to replicate this feat, and thus achieve the majority to accomplish "big things" (such as New New Deal), he must somehow persuade ten to fifteen (or more) of President Bush's states to switch allegiance. Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Colorado, West Virginia spring immediately to mind, but if he truly wants to unify the country he needs to take North Carolina, Georgia, Montana, Arizona, etc. I do not mean to denigrate a even a razor-thin 270-268 win for Senator Obama, he would do wonders for liberals just by being president--but that's not how he's framed his campaign. And it's not likely to be good enough to pass his health care, environment, education, and other domestic proposals.

"'The only votes that come up are votes that are purposely designed to divide people,' he said. 'It’s true that if I’m presented with a series of votes like that, I’m more likely to fall left of center than right of center. But as president, I would be setting the terms of debate.'"

I like a president with this type of confidence, because he is going to need it. It is true that most newly-elected presidents DO get to shape the debate (George H. W. Bush in 1989 an exception), but only in a limited way and for a limited time. Bill Clinton got his omnibus economic package, Messrs. Reagan and Bush 43 won passage of tax cut legislation. But the Clintons failed on health care not long after a six-point victory at the polls, and Mr. Bush failed on Social Security reform practically weeks after a three-point victory at the polls.

For Senator Obama to "set the terms of debate" for a longer period of time, a la FDR, he will need an FDR-like electoral college majority--something, let me remind you, enjoyed by ONE Democratic nominee in my father's lifetime. He will turn fifty-six years in three months.

"Mr. Obama seems to be promising less a split-the-difference centrism than an ability to harness the support of all those voters who yearn for something new, beyond the ideological stalemate. In his book The Audacity of Hope, he wrote, 'They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.'"

Yes, sir, they are, but in some respects they are no different from the millions of Americans that would like to take in a late-night talk show but do not gravitate toward either Letterman, Leno, or whoever is on ABC at the time. These people are inherently apolitical even if they attend Mr. Obama's speeches in record numbers. Franklin Roosevelt reached 1932 independents by promising decisive action to get them back to work and to restore their faith in their government. For all of the Democratic tales of American woe, things are not that bad, due in part to FDR-led reforms of the 1930s.

This is the fear:

"So far, Republicans give every indication of planning to portray Mr. Obama as just another big-government liberal."

George W. Bush, a big-government conservative, would lack the credibility based on several pieces of legislation he signed into law, to make this argument. Mad Mac, however, has a much "purer" record at least in terms of government spending. If he is not careful he is going to run into the same problem as John Kerry and not have an incumbent with considerable baggage to make his bid easier. Which brings me to my final point:

"'I’m interested in solving problems as opposed to imposing doctrine,' he said. 'I see a lot of convergence of interests among people who in traditional terms are considered to be divided politically.'"

Sigh. Couldn't this have been said by Messrs. Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, Carter '80, and so on and so forth? Ever since the collapse of the Democratic south, the two parties have been quarreling over a fifty-fifty country, worse during points of Democratic doomed nominations. Now, it was not always like this: from 1896-1944, only the 1916 election came down to the wire. The Republicans either blew out the Democratic candidate with independents (their only way to win until President Bush in 2000, 2004) or the Democratic candidate won indepedents and used their (until 1980) overwhelming partisan advantage to roll up landslides with the new FDR coalition.

I believe in the political genius of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I believe if they had the time to spend two hours or so with every American eligible to vote then the Democrats would clear 400 electoral votes without much of a challenge. This could then stay the map for most of my adult lifetime.

But they don't have that time. And they have to combat African-American church leaders that speak a little too frankly, minute-long video of their testimony about the Vietnam War, prejudice against strong women, prejudice against black or brown men, and a nation whose attention span has shrunk with technology. Republicans have better adjusted to this reality, what one book termed "the freak show" and have the record to prove it.

In other words, if you want to see an Obama landslide, particularly when matched up with a very problematic Republican, you will need near-1932 conditions. When they no longer had jobs, people in the GOP-dominated Midwest and Mid-Atlantic cast their votes for FDR in 1932, even if his economic talk, however moderate, unnerved them. Ergo, a new Democratic coalition. Barack Obama will need something very similar to reach the mandate required to achieve "big things."