As almost everyone not in a coma, or living a Luddite lifestyle are likely aware, the American presidential election occurred last night. This was one of the most contentious and least substantive elections in modern American history, and I feel like adding my bit of pontification.
First, I should describe that I'm a "Somewhat Reluctant Democrat", and I know that phrase requires explanation. Somewhat Reluctant is a recognition that I've voted Democrat in every election except the primary election my parents took me to in 1996 (social pressure made me vote with them in the Republican Primary, but hell, I was only just 18...). My personal political views are most closely represented by the Green Party, but I try to be "pragmatic" about my vote because I cynically believe that only the two major parties have any shot of winning any post outside of New England. All of this is written to prepare you to be critical. While I have every intention of trying to be objective, I have to acknowledge my perspective in order to give myself a shot to do that, and an understanding of where criticisms should arise.
Ok, so on to the presidential election! On the face of the results, it would seem that the night was a clear win for the Democrats, and president Obama in particular. While credit must be given to the President's election team for knowing when and where to strike, I'm not sure that I would concede a general mandate from these election results. On the demographic front, the Democrats are even more clearly the party of the minorities (from racial/ethnic, such as African-American and Hispanic, biopsychosocial, such as the LGBTQ community, and the educated). The good news for the Democrats is that these groups are generally growing, but the bad news is that the "White Vote" was clearly not for the president, nor was the vote of Industrialists. Some of the reason for this seems to be a re-hash of the
Keynes v. Hayek debate, but that's probably an over-simplification. Much of the white vote was evangelical, and in spite of whatever religion you believe the President to be, it is clear that his social values DO NOT match this group. As for the Industrialists, the reason also seems to include an aversion to regulations of their industries (which is understandable from their perspective of maximising profits). Where I see a problem for the Democrats, and their particular failing in this election, was to make a convincing argument that their intended policies to spur the economy would indeed increase profits. This may, or may not, be true, but the intense negative advertising regarding Romney's business record gave this element of the population little reason to trust this argument. So, it would be easy enough for the Democrats to say "Sure, these guys are against us, but don't we have enough support to ignore them?". Perhaps, but only if their intention is to contribute to, and exacerbate the politics of separation and obstruction that has plagued the country. Clearly, writing off any large segment of the population relegates your position to mere political opportunism. Regardless of the frustration, the Democrats must find a way to reach out to the evangelical voters on issues of common concern, and to invite them to the bargaining table for the big decisions that are coming up in the political landscape. In general, one possible line is to engage with them on community building projects, that is finding ways to encourage communities to work together to solve issues of concern, crime being one option. I'm not suggesting a toughening of existing criminal punishment (heaven knows that's not generally helpful!), but in getting the community together to report crimes and identify areas that can be improved to reduce crime. Maybe this is a pollyanna project, but if I think that if it is approached with sincerity and gravity, it could be a nice olive branch. For the Industrialists the concern is to get them to the table to help get out of the financial mess, without polarising the discussion into shouting matches of different philosophy. One idea I've heard is to have a large meeting at a location away from DC (Camp David maybe?), and have series of working groups, away from the press and the party machinery, to work on specific issues. To be honest, I'm not sure if that could work, but as I have no other idea, that's all I can propose.
On to the Republicans. By most accounts a year and a half ago, this election should have been an easy Republican win. The economy was shaky in recovery, and the public was fed up, two elements in a typical easy way to defeat an incumbent. So, what went wrong? In part, I think that the Romney campaign played a far to "conservative" campaign against the president. It was clear that the Republicans arrived in the battleground states after the Democrats had already started pushing their message. Another problem was that Romney was never a good candidate for the Republican primary. Sadly this can be an issue for any candidate who doesn't have the purest of ideological credentials. So, while one can be sceptical of what positions were legitimately Romney, and what were stated to keep pace in the "More Conservative than Thou" matches, I don't think that anyone who managed to become Governor of Massachusetts could ever really be an arch-conservative. This left his only real option to win the primary as one of financial support, which only gave the Democrats more ammunition to through back at him. Of course this also left him in the regular campaign in the position of having to consistently reassure his base that he had their back, while courting moderates, a difficult dance at the best of times... Of course, there might also be substantial concerns in the Republican base. Outside of the white voters and Industrialists that the Democrats alienated, the Republicans had no meaningful argument for why those constituents should support them. There were a few near laughable attempts to court the Latino vote with ideas of entrepreneurship, but it doesn't seem that Latino voters found this argument convincing, especially when obtaining loans to begin a business is still a substantial difficulty. Republicans also wrote off African-Americans. The idea may have been that they were going to vote for Obama no matter what, but it makes them just seem to be political opportunists. Last, the Republicans had to stay with their base against the LGBTQ community. Most of America is in a transition on the matter of same sex marriage, but there are a host of other issues that could have been addressed to throw out some kind of idea that all the Republicans wanted to do was to force gay people back into the closet. One idea may have been supporting employment protection for sexual orientation (sure, I'd like to say add gender identity in, but even the Democrats haven't fully embraced that one!). Maybe the evangelicals would be irritated, but it wouldn't be a deal breaker since
most Americans tend to support this idea. The Industrialists could have been reminded that many of them voluntarily have granted these protections, so it would mostly be a measure for show.
Undoubtedly there is more on this topic, but I think I've covered the main points. The problem I see is in reconciling the two "warring camps". Please feel free to comment and disagree!
Joey
