First of all, congratulations to Senator Obama and his 63 million + supporters. This race made history in ways that none before it has.
As a candidate and as a campaign, Obama displayed strengths that no national Democrat has in my lifetime. The Obama revolution – and so it may rightly be called – may be rivaled only by the Reagan revolution.
The “whys” of this election will be hyper-analyzed by pundits of much greater note than yours truly. I suspect they will fall into some major categories:
- After 8 years of an increasingly unpopular, wartime president and in a worsening economy, the generic Democratic candidate had a strong edge on the generic Republican candidate. McCain / Palin, as a ticket, brought together the potential for both independent and base appeal on multiple fronts – in combination, I’m not sure how the GOP could have done better.
- Obama was far better than a generic Democratic candidate. He is possessed of an intellect, imagination and personal magnetism that appears to far exceed that of the Democrat’s last two-term President (who was no slouch at least in the two latter categories). He raised money at unheard of rates and spent it equally freely, overwhelming cable TV, the internet, and every other reasonable venue with his face, logo, and tag lines (and the network coverage didn’t hurt him, either). Heck, this guy even advertised on video games. He kept his base and appealed to independents – tricky for a candidate of either party. Obama’s dynamism and his well-funded air war provided the cover on which to base his secret weapon: an unparalleled ground game. Like Mark Warner’s VA 2001 victory, Obama’s win was dependent on an ID / GOTV campaign that combined political technology with paid operatives and volunteers on the ground. The GOP did not come close to matching the Obama team in the air war or the ground war.
Result: President Obama, and a strong Democratic majority in the House and Senate.
But what is the Obama mandate?
It is not a policy mandate, for he tried very hard to avoid articulating any detailed policy proposals to the general public. In public, Sen. Obama spoke of lofty goals and broad objectives while presenting compelling personal narratives – his own and that of others.
His theme was
Hope
Change We Can Believe In
and a call to group achievement –
Yes, We Can!
It was a powerful message and, obviously, a winning one.
But, while it catapulted him to the White House, Obama’s message will serve as a two-edged sword for his administration – something his more seasoned advisers have long recognized. Obama himself has demonstrated a thoughtful understanding of his image – his carefully crafted public role, stating in his autobiography:
I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.
Senator Obama’s governing problem is this: when people heard of hope, they heard their own hopes; their image of change imported their own ideas of what change should be; to the mantra of “Yes, we can!” they brought their own vision of the goal to be accomplished.
We can hardly be blamed for this individualistic interpretation of Obama’s words. He encouraged us to see his story through our own narratives and rarely did he cast a specific vision of his own for us.
This is why the Obama revolution, for all its superficial similarities, differs greatly from the Reagan revolution.
Obama’s mandate is one of personal magnetism.
Reagan had that, certainly, but he also had clearly articulated ideas, a vision for America, policy objectives and goals for the future. America knew what it was getting when it chose Reagan’s leadership.
Not so with President Obama. He is successful only to the extent that people personally like, trust and believe in him.
This will present a problem for him when he begins to govern based on his own ideas – or the Democratic Congress forces him to take a position on theirs (Employee Free Choice Act, Freedom of Choice Act, Fairness Doctrine, Bans on Offshore Drilling, Kyoto Protocol, Income Tax Increases, etc). The public is fickle.
When we all figure out that Obama is actually not a blank screen and all our hope of change cannot allow us each to achieve our personal vision of the future through him, there will be a price to pay for the new administration. And, should he fail to govern to the left, his activist base (ActBlue, MoveOn.org, etc.) will turn on him as quickly as they embraced him.
Clearly, this lack of definition to Obama’s policies presents an excellent opportunity for emerging Republican leaders to make their case to the American people. I hope Sarah Palin will be among those presenting such a conservative vision, along with our emerging Congressional leaders.
