Barack Obama Makes History

The end is paradoxically the start of a new beginning.

On November 4th voters closed the book on the 2008 campaign by making the kind of history that we see perhaps once or twice in a century. In electing Barack Obama as President of the United States, Americans placed an African-American in the office that was created and once held by slave owners.

The unprecedented event, confirmed in an uncontested vote, confounded decades of conventional wisdom and affirmed, in a most dramatic fashion, a central tenet of American exceptionalism; that anything is possible if you are willing to work for it.

The election of Obama capped one of the most consequential political campaigns of recent times, featuring an array of experience and backgrounds, and beyond the President-elect, a number of firsts: including the first serious female candidate for president, and for Republicans, the first female vice presidential nominee.

The final stretch featured Party nominees who could not be more different in philosophy, outlook and tone, pitting hopeful generational change against honorable and tested experience.

In the end an exceptionally disciplined, organized and well-funded Democratic campaign combined with voter discontent and economic turbulence, created a perfect storm that brought the Democrats to the White House while enhancing their existing majorities in Congress.

The Playing Field:

The Obama campaign raised a colossal $640 million for its primary and general election campaign. By contrast, Senator McCain raised $195 million during the primary season and opted to stay within the campaign finance system and accept $85 million in public monies for the general election campaign. In all the McCain campaign and associated efforts raised and spent $358 million, a little more than half of his opponent.1

The Obama fundraising structure was matched by a field operation and get out the vote effort that was worthy of the GOP’s own unique, grass roots micro-targeting effort from 2004. The results of this effort were seen in key states where turn-out operations were maximized. According to exit poll data, 26% of voters were contacted by the Obama campaign, compared to 18% by the McCain campaign and RNC.2

By the Numbers:

Pitted against this formidable array of funding and organizational prowess was a deleterious political environment as bad as any Republican has faced in more than 30 years.

For voters, the economy was by far the most important issue.

After the recent wave of economic uncertainty, 93% of voters stated that national economic conditions were not good or poor. 85% stated that they were personally worried about economic conditions, and 81% believed that the ongoing economic crisis would affect their own families. Overall, 75% of voters believed that the country was headed in the wrong direction. Voters with these concerns voted overwhelmingly for Obama.

In foreign policy, despite the recent dramatic success of the Surge, 63% of voters disapproved of the US involvement in Iraq, with 76% of those voters choosing Obama.

President Bush was also a drag on the McCain candidacy. 71% of voters disapproved of President Bush’s handling of the presidency with 67% of these voters going for Obama. More damaging to Senator McCain, voters were evenly split whether a McCain administration would continue Bush policies 48-48.

Of those who believed that McCain would follow in Bush’s footsteps, 90% voted for Obama. 17% of self-described Bush voters in 2004 voted for Obama.

The impact of these voter attitudes on the ’04 GOP coalition were telling, with the erosion painfully obvious. In almost every category, President-elect Obama made sometimes significant gains when President Bush and Senator McCain’s exit poll results from 2004 and 2008 are compared:

Obama’s gains are most tellingly reflected in the Electoral College. Obama expanded the winning Democratic coalition by taking ten states previously won by the Republicans in 2004.

In terms of historic alignment, Obama is the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to get more than 51% of the popular vote.

In terms of Electoral vote, Obama’s victory is consistent with Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992, where a southern candidate and strong third party run by Ross Perot broke the Republican coalition in the lower Mississippi valley. Obama’s victory is placed in context in the following table of recent elections:

Perhaps more troubling for Republicans is that in expanding the playing field to new states, Obama also deepened the Democratic hold on core states that have been battlegrounds in the past:

Congressional Coattails:

It is an irony of the 2008 election that bad behavior was rewarded in Congress.  According to exit polling, 73% of voters disapproved of the way Congress handles its job under Democratic management, yet rewarded the Party with enhanced majorities.

Obama’s net impact on the congressional elections is a mixed bag. Nationally, Obama ran 3 points behind the generic ballot for Congress before the election.

In the House, Nancy Pelosi adds a net of 19 seats as of this writing, for a new majority of 255 seats.  The six seats picked up in Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico and Nevada can probably be attributed to Obama organizational strength in those states. 

Of the six seats that the Democrats have currently gained in the Senate, Democratic winners Warner in Virginia, Udall in New Mexico and Hagen in North Carolina ran ahead of Obama, in the case of Warner and Udall, significantly so. Others were probably helped by Obama’s momentum.

Congress in History:

As Republicans have seen significant erosion of their strength at the presidential level in this cycle, the GOP has seen its once formidable majority in Congress literally melt away. Though maintaining the majority it won in 1994, from 1994-2000 the GOP lost 15 seats in the House and two in the Senate.  During the first Bush administration, these trends were reversed with the GOP picking up 11 seats in the House and six in the Senate in 2002 and 2004.

However, in the last two election cycles, Republicans have lost a total of 49 House seats (and counting) and 12 Senate seats (and counting). It is the worst back-to-back performance by the GOP in recent memory and a loss that wipes out the gains made by the Republicans in 1994 and leaves the GOP essentially back where they started in 1992.

A clear popular vote and Electoral College majority and enhanced congressional majorities would indicate a mandate, but it is here where voters have sent mixed messages that are worthy of note and for the Obama high command, a note of caution.

While 51% of voters said that government should do more (versus 43% who said it should do less), 56% of voters were opposed to the $700 billion economic rescue package passed by Congress in October, an example that there is no free license for large, fresh spending.

Further, Democrats, who have historically been allergic to off-shore drilling for environmental reasons, will need to contend with the 67% of Americans who favor this approach as an avenue to energy independence. This view is complemented by the defeat of four of the five major state ballot initiatives on energy and the environment; a useful warning sign for an emerging Administration that has emphasized alternate fuels a method to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions.

Moreover, despite this election results’ seeming lurch to the left, the US remains a center-right nation. Exit polls confirm this, with nearly 80% moderate-conservative.

President-elect Obama seemed to understand this himself as he campaigned on those parts of his platform most likely to sway center-right voters with talk of tax “cuts” for 95% of Americans, small business creation and an environmental program which accented not a carbon tax, but new “green” jobs creation. Obama even had the chutzpah to campaign against John McCain’s health care proposal as a tax hike.

The single most important quality voters sought in a president this year was someone who could bring change.

Of those that listed this as the most important criterion, 89% backed Obama.

But what exactly that “change” is remains unclear. In capturing the aspirations of millions, Obama was necessarily opaque in his promises. This provides ideological running room, at least for a period of time, but also enhanced possibilities for disappointment from across the spectrum.

Verdict:

Two years ago, I concluded a journal entry on the midterm elections with the following:

In sum, in setting out a governing strategy for the next two years, the voters have placed the Democrats on a leash and the Republicans on probation. They will come back in ’08 and let us know which Party did a better job in its new role. It may be galling to partisans, but its proof in an uncertain time that our democracy works.

The verdict from that day is now in with a decisive rejection of the Republican Party in favor of united Democratic governance with all its contradictions and margins of error. In uniting the government under Democrats, the American people seek the ephemeral hope and change that Obama has consistently promised, something larger than ourselves, something that the nation can unite behind.

It is thus disconcerting that a candidate so conscious of symbolism chose as his first Administration appointment that of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff.  Emanuel, a former Clinton administration political director and current House member, is a fierce partisan brawler who has effectively made the House more partisan by intentionally targeting moderate Republicans in Democratic states. Emanuel is now in a pivotal leadership role in the incoming Administration.

Some Democratic pundits have reached for Reagan in seeking a transformative figure with which to compare Obama. By that standard, it is interesting that the very conservative Reagan chose moderate Washington insider James Baker III as his Chief of Staff, a sign of pragmatism amid the Reagan Revolution.

For Obama, the choice of Emanuel is many things, but it is certainly not post-partisan. It is an unpromising sign of how Obama reconciles rhetoric and reality or more intuitively, how Obama himself perceives post-partisanship.