November's Transformative Election

Although there may be another rash of mad-dog, right-wing attacks on a Democratic administration, members of the far-right establishment might be wise to rethink their usual rabid response. It has gone unnoticed by some vitriolic voices on the right, but the mood of the country has shifted. Whether it tilts center-right or center-left (one of those inane conversations many pundits seem to enjoy having) much of the electorate appears ready to have their problems addressed in a mature, competent manner.

No matter how partisan malcontents slice and dice it, the November election was a transformative event. And it wasn't just that a person of color will occupy the White House; something else was going on as well. Government was no longer "the problem" not the solution as Ronald Reagan claimed, nor did most people think it should be downsized to a point where, as Grover Norquist so charmingly suggested, it could be "drowned in the bathtub". Republican notions of deregulation and "market forces" had lost some of their allure, and people were putting their trust in a leader who might just turn ‘good government' into a problem-solving mechanism.

And voters dismissed for the most part the divisive, negative personal attacks that had worked so well in the past. Obama's resistance to replying in kind was seen as strength rather than weakness despite cries from many in the Democratic Party for him to engage in the politics of smack-down. What voters seemed to recognize, quite apart from specific issues, was a person who knew who he was and refused to deviate from that self-awareness, something John McCain, unfortunately for him, failed to understand as he drifted further and further from the person people thought they knew.

Trying to make the best of a bad thing from the Conservative point of view, William Kristol laid out a bunch of statistics in his NY Times column to prove there had been no ideological shift in the electorate since the political labels voters attached to themselves varied only slightly this election cycle. He noted the similarities between Clinton's margin of victory over father Bush in 1992 and Obama's over McCain in 2008.

In 1992 third-party candidate Ross Perot enabled Clinton to win with only 43% of the vote, close to a six-million popular vote margin and a large electoral vote tally. This year Obama also won a huge electoral victory, turning several red states blue, racking up an impressive eight-million popular-vote margin or 53% of the total votes cast. For Kristol, the election results were bad, but not devastating. Why? - - Because Obama didn't win the popular vote by double digits, as had been feared - - a strange take on what most observers saw not only as a rejection of Bush but a harbinger of political realignment. In any case, Kristol warns conservatives not to underestimate Obama who just might not veer far enough left to serve as a convenient Republican target.

Many on the right, however, have already taken aim and begun to fire. Limbaugh, Hannity, and other hard right activists have worked themselves into a lather over the president-elect and are trying to diminish his stature before he is even inaugurated - - Limbaugh asserting absurdly that the depressed economy is "Obama's recession." Presumably they are fine-tuning the kind of battering-ram attacks that so intruded on the Clinton presidency.

Kate Obershain of the Clare Boothe Luce Institute for example, suggested at a recent conference that there should be an investigation of foreign contributions to the Obama campaign, and a clamor raised in support of Sarah Palin who, according to Kate and her contingent, was so badly used by the ‘liberal' media. Palin may have been badly used, but it was by McCain advisors who chose an ill-prepared, un-vetted candidate in a cynical attempt to shore up support among the ultra-conservative wing of the party.

It never seems to stop, the attempts by religious activists and others on the right to incorporate their belief systems into our national life. Despite the defeat of the so-called "personhood amendment" in Colorado sponsor Keith Mason vows to keep putting the proposition on every ballot wherever possible. And some Bishops in the Catholic Church say they will challenge Obama over his support for abortion rights.

But we may be at a moment when narrow interests and agendas have begun to lose traction. It seems people have finally tired of partisan attack dogs and ideological wars and are longing for answers to real-life dilemmas, not mindless diatribes from political hacks and religious zealots.