The 2008 Presidential Elections: A Story in Four Acts

The 2008 Presidential Elections This page intentionally left blank The 2008 Presidential Elections A Story in Four ...

Author: Erik Jones | Salvatore Vassallo

34 downloads 879 Views 2MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

The 2008 Presidential Elections

This page intentionally left blank

The 2008 Presidential Elections A Story in Four Acts Edited by Erik Jones and Salvatore Vassallo

THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Copyright © Erik Jones and Salvatore Vassallo, 2009. All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–61938–8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

CON T E N T S

Figures and Tables

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Contributors

xi

Prologue Erik Jones and Salvatore Vassallo

1

Act 1 Choosing the Candidates One

The Democratic Primaries John A. Gans Jr.

15

Two

The Republican Primaries Trevor B. McCrisken

41

Three Third Parties William C. Binning

Act 2

The National Campaigns

Four

Setting the Agenda: “Yes We Can” Jennifer Palmieri

Five

A Perfect Campaign: The Role of Money, Organization, and Strategy Alicia Kolar Prevost and James A. Thurber

Six

67

The Conventions and Debates Andrew Wroe

85

99 115

vi

Contents Act 3

And the Winner Is . . .

Seven

The Victory of Barack Obama Michael E. Shin

135

Eight

The Other Elections: Congress and the States B. Guy Peters

151

Nine

The New Administration Fabrizio Bucci

165

Act 4 The Aftermath Ten

A New Foreign Policy for the United States? Mario Del Pero

195

Eleven

A New U.S. Economy? Jonathon W. Moses

213

Twelve A New U.S. Politics and Society? Christopher J. Bailey

231

Epilogue Erik Jones and Salvatore Vassallo

247

Index

253

F IGU R E S

A N D

TA BL E S

Figures 5.1 Money raised and spent by candidates and national party committees 5.2 Candidate donors, by amount of contribution 5.3 Contribution size as share of total contributions 5.4 Voters contacted in 2004 and 2008 7.1 Electoral outcomes in 2004 and 2008 7.2 Political polarization in the United States 11.1 Federal surpluses and deficits, 1968–2007 12.1 Democratic presidential vote share, 1960–2008 12.2 Proportion of congressional seats held by Democrats 12.3 Share of governorships and state legislatures controlled by Democrats, 1975–2009

105 106 107 111 139 148 220 237 238 238

Tables 5.1 Number of campaign offices in selected battleground states 5.2 Voter contact by 2008 presidential campaigns 5.3 Turnout by group 7.1 State-by-state results in the 2008 U.S. presidential elections 11.1 Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board 11.2 Summary of Senator Obama’s Fiscal Policies 11.3 Total public debt outstanding

108 111 112 141 215 218 221


AC K NOW L E DGM E N T S

This book would not have been possible without the generous support of our home institutions, the SAIS Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Bologna, and the Istituto Cattaneo. For the English-language edition, Barbara Wiza compiled the manuscript with the utmost attention and diligence, and Laura Beke, Denisa Lazarescu, and Camilla MacDonald did an excellent job of translating the Bucci and Del Pero chapters from Italian into English. For the Italian-language edition, thanks go to Jamel Napolitano, Silvia Pietrantonio, and Sara Salsini, who took on the enormous task of translating and editing the remaining chapters from English into Italian. Finally, Laura Beke and Saskia van Genugten provided essential research assistance; Saskia van Genugten also prepared the index. Erik Jones and Salvatore Vassallo Bologna, March 2009


CON T R I BU TOR S

Christopher J. Bailey is professor of American politics at the University of Keele. William C. Binning is professor emeritus of the political science department at Youngstown State University. Fabrizio Bucci is senior political counselor at the Embassy of Italy in the United States. Mario Del Pero is associate professor of American history at the University of Bologna. John A. Gans Jr. is a recent graduate of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University. Erik Jones is professor of European studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University and is pursuing a juris doctor in the United States. Trevor B. McCrisken is associate professor of American politics at the University of Warwick. Jonathon W. Moses is professor of political science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Jennifer Palmieri is the senior vice president for communications at American Progress. B. Guy Peters is Maurice Falk professor of American government at the University of Pittsburgh.

xii

Contributors

Alicia Kolar Prevost is associate director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. Michael E. Shin is associate professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. James A. Thurber is distinguished professor of government and director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. Salvatore Vassallo is professor of political science at the University of Bologna. Andrew Wroe is assistant professor in American politics at the University of Kent.

Prologue Eri k Jone s and Salvatore Vas sal lo

The election of Barack Obama as forty-fourth president of the United States gave cause for widespread celebration. People everywhere grabbed onto his message of hope and change to look forward to a brighter future. Nowhere was this more true than in Europe, where the historymaking nature of Obama’s victory carries a meaning all its own. No one would deny the significance of having an African American in the White House, nor would anyone understate the importance of seeing a new generation in power. Nevertheless, the promise that Obama represents in Europe goes beyond historic reconciliation between races and beyond his particular incarnation of the new. Obama promises to transform the transatlantic relationship into one within which Europe can aspire to a more meaningful role. In this sense, he offers a reconciliation of a different sort—helping the old world to come to grips with the resurgent and at times even volatile power of the new. What is more, Europeans have long anticipated Obama’s victory, even if they did not know it would come with Obama per se. They have looked for him, like a child of prophecy, in just about every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy. They sought him in Bill Clinton and, after Clinton, in Al Gore. Each time they were disappointed—never more so than in 2004. Seen from Europe, the 2004 U.S. presidential elections were a foregone conclusion. It was almost unimaginable that George W. Bush could retain control of the White House. The war in Iraq was not going well, and it showed every sign of deteriorating further. The U.S. economy was growing, but only just. The stock market was up, with the Dow Jones trading above 10,000, but any increase in employment

2

Erik Jones and Salvatore Vassallo

was slow, and income inequality was on the rise. Then, of course, there was the disastrous state of the American health care system. Despite paying more per capita in public funds than most European countries paid in public and private monies combined, the United States continued to trail in the international league tables for life expectancy, infant mortality, and, most of all, the number of people without insurance and therefore lacking adequate health care. You did not have to be a political scientist, an economist, or a policy analyst to know these things. They were all clearly explained in blockbuster film documentaries and on the editorial pages of the New York Times. Again, seen from abroad, the administration’s rebuttal was hardly convincing, coming from a bumbling president, a snarling vice president, and a mixed assortment of neoconservatives, right-wing Republicans, and fundamentalist evangelicals. Either such a coalition would never gain traction with the electorate or the United States really was a different place from what most Europeans imagined after all. The reelection of George W. Bush by an outright majority of U.S. voters came as a shock. Although many pundits in Europe suggested that the Bush administration would retain control of the White House, few if any predicted such a resounding victory. Instant explanations ranged from an increase in American religious fervor to an incompetent Democratic challenger. Whatever the real reason, Europeans developed a sense—bordering on insecurity—that they really did not understand American politics. They began to question America’s democratic credentials, recalling the very close contest in 2000 between then Governor Bush and Vice President Al Gore. Some Europeans even began to joke cynically that the choice of a U.S. president is so important that they too should be given a say. The change in the Republican Party’s electoral fortunes during the midterm congressional elections in 2006 did little to restore a sense of comfort or reassurance about American political institutions among Europeans. The United States is a democracy, but the nature of that democracy is unfamiliar to people brought up in a parliamentary tradition, for whom the two-year-long process involved in presidential elections remains a mystery. The fact that the presidential contest started almost as soon as the midterm congressional elections ended, triggered a fresh wave of speculation as to who would inherit the White House after Bush. This speculation was largely ignorant of the possible alternatives, but it was acutely aware of the stakes. If nothing else, the Bush administration taught Europeans that the personality of the U.S. president can make a difference. Fantasies aside, no one seriously expected

Prologue

3

a revolution in U.S. politics, and yet that still left them wide latitude to wonder how the new president would strike the balance between continuity and change. Continuity and Expectations The continuity in American foreign policy centers on the country’s sense of its own exceptionalism. Whether U.S. policymakers view Washington as the new Rome or the new Jerusalem, what is clear is that they regard it as a world apart. Europeans have come to expect nothing less. Nevertheless, they continue to hope for more. That explains why the transatlantic relationship is much more a popular fixture in Europe than it is in the United States. Few American newspapers lead with front-page stories about the tone or content of relations across the Atlantic. Most European newspapers do, at least from time to time. What is more, they always have, at least during the post–Second World War era, including after the cold war. The controversy that surrounded the buildup to war in Iraq in 2002 and 2003 was hardly exceptional. There have been any number of periods when press speculation about the possibility of a rupture in the relationship has been equally intense. Examples include Kissinger’s “year of Europe” in 1973, the SS-20 crisis later that decade, the installation of intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Italy and Germany during the early 1980s, the removal of those weapons and the modernization of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) short-range nuclear arsenal in the late 1980s, and the Yugoslav wars of the early to mid-1990s—to name just a few. Even the joint campaigns to liberate Kuwait and to stop the genocide in Kosovo sparked markedly different interpretations. Sure the alliance had come together, but that did not mean it would always do so in the future. Controversies in the transatlantic relationship center on two themes: one is how much the United States is willing to listen to Europe; the other is how much Europe is prepared to contribute. The concerns implicit in these discussions are that the United States will end up doing most of the heavy lifting and Europe will never lead. Seen this way, the imbalance in attention given to relations on either side of the Atlantic is a function of expectations. The debate about burden sharing within the NATO alliance, led by the United States, is too complex to capture the popular imagination, particularly when the administration is focused on maintaining the preponderance of American power. Too easily, the

4


transatlantic relationship collapses into caricature: Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus, or something like that. The European perspective is less pessimistic and yet, if possible, more frustrating—particularly in popular debate, where consistent and overwhelming majorities in most European countries favor the development of a European common foreign and security policy. European governments are willing to contribute more to collective security and in the foreign policy domain, but they cannot do so without more discretionary freedom from the leadership of the United States. This means that Europeans have either to create a new set of instruments for policy coordination and force projection outside of NATO or to find some way to use NATO assets without necessarily following America’s lead. The U.S. position on intra-European security cooperation further complicates this situation. As the presumption is that the Europeans are not carrying their share of the burden for collective security in the first place, there is no reason for any U.S. administration to support investment in a duplication of NATO assets. Instead, successive U.S. administrations have insisted that Europeans should focus their efforts on shoring up their national contributions to NATO. Of course, this makes sense from a burden-sharing perspective, but it is less useful as a demonstration of independence from the United States. No matter what the technical arrangements for using national forces when they are not already obligated under the terms of the alliance, the appearance is that Europe’s choice is whether to follow where America leads. This is where the controversy over Iraq becomes important—not as a conf lict within NATO but as a conf lict over the monolithic nature of American leadership. At the same time that the United States was preparing the ground for invasion, the Europeans were debating whether to participate. It was an exceptionally heated debate. It was also an exceptionally complex one. Despite the “old Europe, new Europe” rhetoric favored by the American media, the divisions within Europe were many and they were deep. Countries of all sorts came down on either side of the issue—rich and poor, large and small, East and West, North and South. More important, the debate often pitted the government against public opinion (as in Italy and Spain) or even divided the governing coalition (as in the Netherlands). What all Europeans shared was a sense of wonder that this major subject of political controversy counted for so little on the other side of the Atlantic. Within the Bush administration, the preparations were what mattered; the intra-European debate did not. The Bush administration gave no indication that it cared about the level of European

Prologue

5

support and every indication that it would proceed with or without its closest European allies. At one point, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld went so far as to suggest that even British participation was optional. Turkey’s refusal to open its borders to allow the United States to create a northern front for the conf lict was also shrugged off by the Bush administration. Access to Turkey would have been useful, but lack of access did not ultimately make a difference. In terms of burden sharing, the Bush administration had already planned for the worst. Indeed, it had done so precisely to avoid the need for transatlantic consultation—just as the Bush administration had declined European offers to invoke Article V of the NATO treaty during its preparations for the attack on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. The transatlantic crisis of 2002–3 was essentially an intra-European affair—and all the more toxic as a result. For example, the fact that the United States ignored Europe during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq overshadowed the progress that European governments had made in negotiating greater discretion to act collectively in the absence of American leadership. Everyone could tell you where their government stood in relation to the war in Iraq; almost no one ever heard about the Berlin+ arrangement for giving Europeans access to use NATO military assets. The Bush administration’s disregard for European political sentiments was hardly a new feature in the transatlantic relationship. Few U.S. administrations have had much patience with intra-European politics. Kissinger’s famous remark about Europe not having a phone number is a blanket indictment that has served most presidents well. Almost from the outset, however, the Bush administration elevated this sense of detachment to high art. It began with President Bush’s insistence on rejecting the Kyoto Accords, his removal of America’s signature from the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, and his determination to allow the Anti–Ballistic Missile Treaty to lapse so that he could push forward with the construction of ballistic missile defenses. Valid arguments can be made on both sides of these issues, and it is reasonable for allies to disagree over policy. The problem was that the Bush administration gave no opportunity to air any such disagreements. These were all subjects of intense controversy well before 9/11, and the Bush administration’s stance, from a European perspective, seemed to be that no controversy was too intense to be ignored. The 2001 European Union–United States summit held in Gothenburg, Sweden, poignantly illustrates the European political implications of

6


the isolationist diplomacy of the Bush administration. Such summits are primarily symbolic, and President Bush’s first was no exception. This time, however, the symbolism was not only inside the summit but outside as well. Bush arrived in Gothenburg to be greeted by popular protests—which he largely ignored. His snub did not go unnoticed. When Bush left, those protesters were still locked outside the security perimeter. As their frustration mounted, the protestors changed their focus from President Bush to the European Council, intensifying rather than dissipating their demonstrations. This pivot caught the Swedish police wholly unprepared, leading to violent clashes that left three protestors wounded. It was not the first such encounter in Europe that Bush would trigger. The situation later that summer only got worse. President Bush returned to Europe for the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations plus Russia. Again the protestors assembled, and again the police responded. The difference was that Genoa left one protestor dead. In Italian domestic political terms, the repercussions resonated for years thereafter. Of course, the Bush administration cannot be blamed for the “no-global” movement, which is the loose collection of groups responsible for the Gothenburg and Genoa protests. If anything, that movement started under the Clinton administration during the 1999 World Trade Organization summit held in Seattle. The point is that the Bush administration did almost nothing to mollify public opinion or to prevent the easy equation of opposition to globalization with opposition to the United States. Moreover, European leaders were well aware that by aligning with the Bush administration they risked courting the opposition of the no-global groups, and that by aligning against the Bush administration they could court their favor. The European response to the Bush administration was nothing if not opportunistic. Some governments sought to distance themselves from the United States to underscore their independence. Others sought to align themselves to highlight the strength of their special relationships. Examples of this behavior are not hard to find. German chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s decision to play on anti-American sentiments to strengthen support for his German Social Democratic Party (the SPD) during the 2002 parliamentary elections is one; Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s speech to the joint houses of Congress during the 2006 Italian parliamentary elections is another. The problem is that these positions hardened into stereotypes over time, and the clash of these stereotypes strengthened the perception of transatlantic crisis.

Prologue

7

The Italian situation is a good illustration of this dynamic at work. When President Bush invited Prime Minister Berlusconi to speak to the joint houses of Congress in February 2006, he blatantly interfered in Italian domestic politics, showing preference for one candidate over another by giving Berlusconi such a prominent place on the world stage. This action not only harked back to the old cold war policy of keeping the Italian Communists out of power but also made it difficult for Berlusconi’s opponent, Romano Prodi, to work closely with the Bush administration after Prodi’s coalition achieved victory at the polls. The facts that Italy had been a loyal ally of the United States under the center-left during Kosovo as well as under the center-right in Iraq and that Romano Prodi as prime minister would see his coalition break down over his support for U.S. policy in Afghanistan seemed hardly to matter. No European expects to be able to set the policy of the U.S. government. Few expect to be ignored so consistently or comprehensively either. The Bush administration not only elevated this practice to an art form; it also set it out as ideology. During the first of the 2004 U.S. presidential debates, Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry argued that his administration would differ from President Bush’s because of its willingness to explain to its allies the legitimacy of its policy actions. The Bush administration responded by describing such a practice as giving foreign countries an effective veto over the American pursuit of the national interest: a “global test.” Leadership, President Bush explained, is not convincing others that you are right; it is maintaining your conviction in the face of opposition. This position won the debate, and Kerry recanted the global test. From a European perspective, the outcome was anything but a break from U.S. policy or from America’s foreign policy traditions. Nevertheless, it was more continuity than they were wont to expect. Flexibility and Change The point about continuity can be overemphasized. The first Bush administration continued and exaggerated many of the tendencies inherited from the Clinton years—such as then secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s inclination to regard the United States as the world’s “indispensable nation”—but it offered a few new twists as well. The dismissive tone coming out of Secretary Rumsfeld’s Defense Department is one example; the promotion of faith-based initiatives is another. By

8


the same token, the second Bush administration was different from the first. President Bush won the 2004 election by emphasizing his decisive response to the threat of global terrorism, but he started his second administration by emphasizing his openness to work with his European allies. President Bush sent Condoleezza Rice to Europe for her first foreign tour as secretary of state and quickly followed with a trip to Europe of his own. During those trips the Bush administration made a point of including stopovers in Brussels to meet with representatives of the European Union. The implication of these visits was that Europe is not just a collection of great powers; Europe also has a personality—or, in EU-speak, an “actorness”—of its own. The challenge for Europeans has been to interpret the lasting significance of any change in policy or leadership style. It is here that the personality of the president became so important. Although many Europeans retained positive impressions of U.S. society and popular culture, in successive public opinion surveys they expressed deep dissatisfaction with U.S. government policy, and with the Bush administration most of all. Moreover, no change in the rhetoric coming out of the White House could dispel this popular disapproval, and no change in U.S. policy could be expected either, at least not so long as the United States remained embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not so long as it continued to wage a global war on terror through extraordinary renditions, secret CIA prisons, and the infamous Guantánamo detention center. Much of President Bush’s unpopularity in Europe derived from the strength of his personal commitment to (and identification with) each of these ventures. Given President Bush’s resounding victory over Senator Kerry, however, it was not obvious that any Democrat could win the White House while rejecting any of these commitments— let alone while rejecting them all. Virtually the whole of the American political class was implicated in the Iraq venture and the global war on terror, sitting members of Congress most of all. The nuanced position that the war in Iraq was justified even if the conduct was f lawed found little support among European public opinion, particularly after it became clear that no weapons of mass destruction would be found. Meanwhile the complicity of European governments in the practice of extraordinary rendition cast a pall over the conduct of the war against terror as a whole. Even governments ostensibly opposed to the Iraq campaign were implicated in this manner, and the transatlantic relationship was tarnished as a result. The 2006 midterm congressional elections could never have changed these popular impressions. The Congress is too complex and the

Prologue

9

president too visible for even a massive defeat of the Bush administration to have that effect. The only way to reverse the downward spiral in perceptions of the United States in Europe was to change the face of Americans abroad—and that meant changing the president of the United States. What the Europeans looked for was a great sense of f lexibility and a greater willingness to listen. Such characteristics would not eliminate the role of the United States as the world’s indispensable nation, but they would make it easier for Europeans to contribute to collective policies, and they would raise the profile of European independence as well. Before they could anticipate this new f lexibility, however, Europeans had to penetrate the American electoral process. The goal was not to generate a precise prediction of the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections, although precise and accurate predictions are always welcome. Rather, Europeans hoped to get a sense of the American political system’s capacity for change. For example, it would be unrealistic to expect a U.S. presidential candidate to campaign on a platform of surrendering American leadership in world affairs, but would it be possible for American “leadership” to take on a different character? More important, even assuming that a candidate could win on the promise of hope in a new future, what is to prevent the logic of American power from reasserting the importance of continuity over change? A Story in Four Acts This book was conceived at the start of the primary season for the 2008 presidential elections with such questions in mind. It is published too late to shape opinions before the elections take place, but it is still a timely aid to interpreting the significance of events after the fact. In this way, the goal is not just to explain how Barack Obama came to win the election but also to assess how durable his message of change will be in the European context. Along the way, the book should help Europeans understand what role they have to play in President Obama’s success. If the massive turnout for Barrack Obama in Berlin during his campaign trip to Europe in July 2008—and the overwhelming support Obama receives in European public opinion polling—are any indication, a change in U.S. foreign policy toward a more open multilateral framework is precisely the outcome that Europeans have longed for over the past two administrations (and more). It is not, however, a gift from the United States to Europe, and there is much the Europeans will have to contribute to the process as well.

10


The 2008 U.S. presidential elections are analyzed in four parts, or “acts”—starting with the primary contests to determine the nominees, moving to the national campaigns, looking at the outcomes, and anticipating the implications. The analysis of the primaries explains how the choice for U.S. votes crystallized as it did. It reveals both the depth of divisions within the Democratic Party and the residual strength of the Republican right. It also dispels a number of popular myths about American democracy—that there are only two parties, that the major parties are either bunched up in the center or dominated by the extremes, that name recognition is all that matters, or that money is the key to power. Once the primaries were decided, the candidates moved into the national campaign, where they had to compete with different opponents for control over a broader electorate. These campaigns relied on money and organization on a scale unprecedented even by American standards. Yet money and organization alone were not enough. The candidates had to participate in the traditional rituals of conventions and debates, while at the same time wrestling to control the media and the agenda. All of these factors contributed to the outcome, with the result that Obama’s victory was more comprehensive than anyone could have anticipated. The explanation of the outcome provides a vital insight into the coalition of forces that will govern the country over the next four years. At the popular level, this coalition is revealed through an analysis of voting patterns in the election of the president. Nevertheless, popular control over the U.S. president is limited; the inf luence of Congress is much stronger. Therefore it is necessary to look beyond the popular vote and to examine the results in the House and the Senate. It is also necessary to examine the constitution of the cabinet. The president is not just the face of the United States; he is also the chief executive of the administration. The personalities that he calls to office reveal both the structure of his support and the depth of his self-confidence. The implications of the elections are identified on three levels. The first concern is the conduct of foreign policy. Here the analysis necessarily explores how Obama succeeded with attitudes so different from those of both the Bush administration and the Clinton administration. The answer lies in the primacy of economics. Given the perilous state of the U.S. economy, foreign policy distinctions soon retreated into the background. By implication, the second concern lies there. The Obama administration came to power with a daunting economic agenda. Failure to address the nation’s concerns will almost inevitably

Prologue

11

lead to a collapse in support at the polls. A final concern is the durability of the social fabric. This goes beyond the question of who voted in support to consider who is likely to vote that way in the future, where they are located, and how their voices will be heard. The epilogue offers our reading of the role that Europe will have to play. The change in the United States has powerful implications for how transatlantic relations may develop in the future. Such potential can only be realized, though, if the countries of Europe make a positive contribution. This is not going to be easy. The demands on Europe will be difficult to meet. Given the popularity of the Obama administration, they will be difficult to resist as well. Europeans looked for change in the U.S. presidency. Now they must be ready to accept the consequences of getting their wish.


AC T

1

Choosing the Candidates


CH A P T E R

ON E

The Democratic Primaries John A . Gans J r.

Barack Obama writes in his 2006 best-selling book Audacity of Hope of a meeting with a political consultant who had been encouraging him to run for statewide office in his home state of Illinois. The meeting took place in late September 2001, after the terrorist attacks in the United States and after Obama’s unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000. Obama, then a state senator, was looking for his next move. A newspaper carrying a photograph of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden lay open on the table while the unnamed consultant explained to Obama his misfortune: “You realize, don’t you, that the political dynamics have changed.” The consultant continued, “Hell of a thing, isn’t it? Really bad luck. You can’t change your name, of course. Voters are suspicious of that kind of thing. Maybe if you were at the start of your career, you know, you could use a nickname or something. But now . . .”1 Obama admits to suspecting “he was right.”2 A little over seven years later, Obama was elected president of the United States of America. The electorate’s desire for change was one of the few consistencies of the two-year presidential campaign and was strong enough to overcome doubts about Obama’s inexperience, the electorate’s lingering racist tendencies, and the similarities between Obama’s name and that of America’s most wanted enemy. The campaign that made him the first African American president says as much about his political skills and instincts as it does about the future of U.S. politics.

16

John A. Gans Jr.

The man matched the moment. But that conf luence was far from assured. Throughout 2007, conventional wisdom considered then U.S. senator and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton the inevitable Democratic nominee and the likely next U.S. president. Her historic candidacy as the first woman candidate with a real chance of winning the Oval Office was made both possible and more complex by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, whose reputation and presidency continue to bring cheers from Democrats and derision from Republicans. The Clintons’ sway among Democrats, the historic nature of Senator Clinton’s candidacy, and the infrastructure her family had developed over two decades in national politics should have been impossible to beat. Nevertheless, Obama, his message, and his machine defeated the Clintons in an epic primary battle that was the political main event in 2008, given the difficulties posed for Republicans by the deeply unpopular sitting president George W. Bush. The primary campaign did more for Obama than earn him the nomination, for the issues discussed, the controversies tackled, and the strategies developed during the primary carried Obama to victory in the general election. Obama said in March 2008, when much was still in doubt, “I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.”3 The Democratic primary is what made that unique story one of victory. A look at the launch of the campaign, the lead-up to the pivotal Iowa caucus, the long road to the nomination, and the lessons and legacies of the primary campaign provides an appreciation of the trends shaping American politics today and a greater understanding of the forces that will shape the Obama presidency. Ultimately, a review of the primary helps explain how a local politician who, seven years before, thought his name alone would disqualify him from higher office was elected president. Legacies of 2004 and 2006 Political campaigns are typically waged on the basis of the lessons learned from the previous election. Despite the historic profiles of some of its participants, the 2008 campaign was no exception. The Democratic candidates and their campaign staffs took the 2004 presidential campaign and the 2006 midterm congressional elections as their points of departure. The 2004 Democratic primaries showed how a modern political insurgency campaign could be organized and financed. Howard Dean,

The Democratic Primaries

17

then governor of Vermont, launched his long-shot presidential campaign in May 2002. Dean used the Internet to raise record sums of money, rouse interest among his supporters, and eventually establish himself as the favorite in the race heading into the final stretch of the 2008 Democratic nominating contest. His spectacular fall—a distant third-place finish in the 2004 Iowa caucus and eventual f lame-out several contests later—did not obscure the promise the Internet held as a fundraising and organizing tool, especially for those candidates, like Obama, who believed in the need for guerrilla tactics against the perceived Clinton money and communications juggernaut. The 2004 primaries also underscored the importance of momentum. The energy that swept 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry to the nomination after his win in the 2004 Iowa caucus made the contest—the “first in the nation” contest, as determined by the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—critical to the hopes of any of the non-Clinton candidates. Another legacy of the 2004 campaign was how a volunteer army supported the reelection campaign of President Bush. Bush’s supporters were encouraged into activism—volunteering to work phones, canvass, and staff events—throughout the campaign by access to special events and gifts. The Bush volunteer program and its thorough tracking of volunteer activity were among the most significant campaign innovations of the 2004 cycle. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe aimed to emulate these innovations and build a “persuasion army out there—people in communities, who live where these same voters live, talk like them, think like them, have similar experiences.”4 The final lesson from 2004 was toughness. Many Democrats believed the Kerry campaign had failed to respond effectively to a late-summer round of attacks by a Bush-supporting group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The group questioned Kerry’s service in Vietnam, his actions after his return to the United States, and his fitness for office. The inaccurate attacks made by the group were promoted with $19.6 million in television advertisements paid for with contributions that were technically not part of the Bush–Cheney campaign.5 The Kerry campaign was slow to respond, and the accusations went unanswered for several days. Many Democrats regarded this refusal to fight back as the negligence responsible for Kerry’s defeat. As a result, the 2008 Democratic nominating campaign became a toughness contest. Clinton’s campaign pointed to “scars” earned in past partisan battles, and Obama claimed he would “stand up to that kind of politics . . . [because] the cause of change in this country will not be deterred or sidetracked

18

John A. Gans Jr.

by the old ‘Swift boat’ politics. The cause of moving America forward demands that we defeat it.”6 If the 2004 election showed the tactics that Democrats needed to adopt, the 2006 midterm congressional elections boosted their confidence that these tactics would work and offered a road map back to power. Leveraging voter discontent over the war in Iraq and perceived corruption among Republicans in Washington after several scandals, Democrats gained majorities in both chambers of Congress in 2006. Many of the Democratic candidates and the members of their campaign staffs learned important lessons working on behalf of Democrats around the country that year. Democrats did a better job in 2006 of harnessing the energy of their base than they had in 2004. Part of this improvement was due to the more favorable environment for Democrats in the midterm elections, but the Democratic base—both the traditional interests groups (unions, women, environmentalists, and gays and lesbians) and the still nascent Netroots (those partisans who use the Internet to organize, chat, and stoke enthusiasm for progressive causes)—had also become more sophisticated during the aggressive but unsuccessful effort to defeat President Bush in 2004. After Kerry’s 2004 loss, the base knew how to raise money and how to develop and promote a message. In 2006 they learned the most important lesson: how to win elections. The formula for winning in 2006 was partisan rhetoric, celebration of progressive values, strong pushback against attacks, policy positions targeted to the local environment, and a heavy placement of blame on President Bush. From Montana to North Carolina, from Indiana to California, the formula worked at all levels of politics. The historic win gave Democrats control of Congress, six new governorships, and a sense of momentum. One last dynamic was geographic. After the collapse of his 2004 presidential campaign, Howard Dean was elected chair of the DNC. As part of his campaign for that position, Dean committed to state parties around the country that the DNC would invest in building the party’s infrastructure in all fifty states. The “50-State” strategy was a lightning rod for criticism in Washington, where some players in the party believed it was a waste of money that could go to targeted races in optimal areas. But others, especially those Democrats in states considered strongly Republican and those who had learned the difficulties associated with a limited map in 2004, when Kerry could compete in only a small number of battleground states, supported the plan. With the 50-State infrastructure under development and new hope from


19

Democratic victories in Republican areas in 2006, Democratic contenders looked to capitalize on the groundwork already laid. In It to Win In this modern age, when politics and punditry have become a media obsession, the question of who would run for president in 2008 was already being asked when George W. Bush and his running mate Dick Cheney won the White House in 2000 over then vice president Al Gore. Because the older Cheney was unlikely to run for president, the prospect of an open race for the White House tantalized pundits for much of the Bush presidency. The debate over who would run quickly intensified with Senator John Kerry’s concession speech at Boston’s Faneuil Hall on November 3, 2004. The conversation was dominated by questions about one candidate in particular. Will she or won’t she? Can she or can’t she? The “she” in question was Hillary Clinton. Would she run and, if she did, could she win? The maneuvering for other candidates in both parties had to be based on assumptions about Clinton’s plans because she was running for reelection in New York in 2006 and so refused to make any presidential ambitions clear. As Senator Joe Biden said of Clinton in 2005 when discussing his own ambitions to run for the Democratic nomination in 2008, “I don’t know if I’ll do it, but I’m looking at it seriously. And she is, you know, the elephant in the living room. She’s the big deal.” 7 The Clinton brand had recovered from much of the damage done during and after their time in the White House. The family’s dedication and service to the Democratic cause and to the party was both broad and deep: the Clintons had worked on Democratic campaigns going back to the early 1970s. In addition, officials and operatives of both parties complimented Senator Clinton’s work ethic and her dedication to duty in the U.S. Senate. Former senator Bob Kerrey stated the conventional wisdom in 2005: “I don’t know how you beat her for the Democratic nomination.”8 Despite these strengths, several candidates worked to establish angles to pursue the nomination, including: ●

former U.S. senator, 2004 presidential candidate, and that year’s Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, who hoped to win the nomination by leveraging his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses in 2004, the goodwill he engendered among the

20

●

●

●

●

●

●

John A. Gans Jr. Democratic base (particularly labor unions) during that year’s race, and his work to fight poverty after he left the Senate in 2005. Edwards entered the race in late 2006 with an event in a poor neighborhood in New Orleans still struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Edwards ran a progressive, policy-driven campaign aimed at building momentum from a strong Internet presence, labor union support, and an Iowa victory. Edwards lost Iowa and left the race in late January 2008 U.S. senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, from Delaware and Connecticut, respectively, who ran diligent campaigns that played to their experience and their long service to the country and to the Democratic cause. Neither could gain much support or raise much money, but they added their serious voices to the many debates held throughout the primary New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who was one of the most experienced candidates on either side of the race. His campaign attempted to leverage this experience through several humorous advertisements that played on his long curriculum vitae, which included his governorship and stints in the U.S. Congress and Clinton administration. The first Hispanic candidate in either party to have a genuine chance at the White House, Richardson represented a growing constituency in the country and an important one for both political parties. Governorships had once been the proving ground for presidents, but Richardson ended up the only state leader to run on the Democratic side. His campaign closed after disappointing showings in Iowa and New Hampshire former U.S. senator Mike Gravel of Alaska and U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who leveraged their disgust with the war in Iraq, their passion, and their humor to build small but dedicated followings and to add color to the campaign trail and debates former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, who announced his candidacy early, in November 2006, but could not raise the resources he needed to compete. He dropped out in February 2007 former Virginia governor Mark Warner and U.S. senator Evan Bayh from Indiana, who looked to the right of Senator Clinton for space to challenge her for the nomination as popular Democrats from conservative-leaning states before they decided not to run presidential nominee in 2004 and U.S. senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who longed and worked hard for a second shot at the White House but ultimately decided not to run after controversy erupted over a mistold joke in 2006.


21

Not all the discussion around Clinton’s candidacy was positive. There were two main concerns. The first was her vote in favor of authorizing the war in Iraq. Her early and vocal support of the war was a tremendous sore point for liberal Democratic activists who did not support the war. The Democratic base still leans left on war and peace matters, and the authorization of the war had become even more frustrating for Democrats after critics from both parties blamed Kerry’s pained verbal maneuvers over his own authorization vote as one of the reasons for his loss in 2004. The other concern about Clinton was her electability. The question of whether the country would elect Hillary Clinton president could be broken down into two parts: was the country ready to elect a woman, and was the country ready to elect this woman? The first part was not seen as a significant hindrance in the Democratic primaries, when feminist appeals held significant sway among liberal voters, but the second was a cause for concern. Despite image rehabilitation and high marks for her serious work in the Senate, Clinton had a higher unfavorable rating than politicians with a similar national profile. According to a USA Today/Gallup poll, Clinton’s average favorable and unfavorable ratings for the period between June 2006 and December 2007 were 49.6 percent and 46.8 percent.9 In comparison, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain’s favorable and unfavorable ratings for the same period were 52.5 percent and 29 percent.10 Clinton tried to respond to doubters in an Internet video announcing her intention to run for the presidency. In the video, shot at her home in northwest Washington, Clinton declared, “I’m in it to win.”11 But the doubts remained, and Senator Dodd directly voiced the concern during a debate in October 2007: “Whether it’s fair or not fair, the fact of the matter is that my colleague from New York, Senator Clinton, there are 50 percent of the American public that say they’re not going to vote for her. . . . I don’t necessarily like it, but those are the facts. We as a party certainly have to take that into consideration. . . . We need to elect a Democrat—a Democrat that’s electable and a Democrat that can bring the country together.”12 Would He? As Clinton began to organize her campaign and build toward her announcement, Barack Obama was doing the same, despite some disbelief that he would dare run after only two years in the U.S. Senate.

22

John A. Gans Jr.

The publication of Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope in October 2006 and his campaigning on behalf of fellow Democrats during that year’s election took him around the country and allowed him to build on his reputation as a rising national star with an inspirational theme. The book’s message about the need for hope and a turning-of-the-page on “old politics” in order to reclaim the American Dream was as popular as Obama’s star-making speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Former U.S. senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart called The Audacity of Hope Obama’s submission for the “doctoral thesis” that should “be required of all those seeking the presidency.”13 After his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama “unequivocally” said, “I will not be running for national office” in 2008.14 But by October 2006, he was opening the door: “I would say that I am still at the point where I have not made a decision to, to pursue higher office, but it is true that I have thought about it over the last several months.”15 Four months later, he stood in the shadow of the Illinois State Capitol and proclaimed, “I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States. I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness—a certain audacity—to this announcement. I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”16 There were concerns about Obama’s own electability. Many wondered whether the country was ready to elect an African American president, and many questioned his experience. Obama himself addressed both concerns in March 2005: “If I were to run, the issue would not be my race, I think. People would ask about my inexperience or youth, is he too liberal—there would be a whole host of questions there. But I’m very confident I could campaign anywhere.”17 His campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004—against a lesser-light Republican opponent—and attitudinal changes in the electorate informed Obama’s confidence. In his 2004 race, Obama won eighteen out of nineteen white and Latino wards, twenty-three of thirty Cook County townships, and the five predominantly white counties surrounding Chicago.18 Obama won the votes of 32 percent of white men and 41 percent of white women, and 24 percent of his support consisted of Bush voters.19 The national trend looked promising as well: Gallup had tested acceptance of voting for an African American president since 1958 by asking, “If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be black, would you vote for that person?” In 2003, 92 percent said yes, as opposed to 37 percent in 1958.20 The question of Obama’s inexperience was solved in part by his speech opposing the Iraq war in 2002. His questioning of the Bush


23

administration’s plan, based on his prescient assessment of the situation in the Middle East, allowed Obama not only to position himself to the left of Clinton but also to promote his own judgment and to question the value of Washington experience. Obama said in July 2007, “One thing I’m very confident about is my judgment in foreign policy is, I believe, better than any other candidate in this race, Republican or Democrat . . . the notion that somehow from Washington you get this vast foreign policy experience is illusory.”21 Process With the candidates declared, the 2008 Democratic nominating process had already made history: for the first time, a woman (Clinton), an African American (Obama), and a Hispanic American (Richardson) had real opportunities to win their party’s nomination for president. The campaigning was to prove intense and relatively positive, and it was driven by the Democrats’ strong desire to win back the White House in 2008. But the party’s rules for the nomination and the order of the state nominating contests had almost as much effect on the outcome as the candidates and the issues. The nomination is determined by the number of delegates on the f loor who vote for a candidate at the party’s nominating convention. In 2008, this was scheduled for Denver at the end of August. Delegates from each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico each have one vote, and delegates from Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and Democrats Abroad each have half a vote. Delegate votes are determined by two methods. Pledged delegates are won through a series of primary elections and caucuses held in the states. These votes are awarded by proportional representation, which means that a candidate’s delegate count depends on the percentage of the vote he or she receives in each state. Thus a close-second-place finish still garners a significant allotment of delegates. In 2008, a total of 3,253 pledged delegate votes were awarded through the primaries and caucuses. The second method is through the allocation of the votes of the 824.5 unpledged delegates who are free to vote for any candidate at the convention. These “superdelegates” include members of Congress, governors, members of the DNC, party leaders, and others. Superdelegates can announce their chosen candidate at any time. In August 2006, the DNC announced that the first four nominating contests would be held in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. In an effort to preserve political tradition and be more

24

John A. Gans Jr.

representative, no other states were permitted to hold their contests before February 5, 2008, during this “pre-window.” Nevertheless, both Florida and Michigan tried to hold their contests in January. The DNC punished the two states by pledging not to seat their delegates at the convention. As a result, many candidates, except Clinton, Dodd, and lower-tier candidates, took their names off the Michigan ballot, and none of the candidates campaigned in Florida. Clinton went on to win both contests (against “uncommitted” in the case of Michigan), but because there were no delegates at stake, these wins did not “count.” After the outcome of the nomination had been largely determined, the DNC reinstated the delegations for Florida and Michigan, with each delegate receiving half a vote, in an effort to unite the party. Party nominee Obama eventually granted them full votes by the convention. Because of rule changes, retirements, and deaths, the number of delegates needed to win the nomination changed during the campaign. Once the Florida and Michigan compromises were established, more that 4,200 delegates were at stake. The winner of the nomination would need 2,118 delegate votes in Denver. A Winning Message: “Change We Can Believe In” Summer 2007 was what Obama strategist David Axelrod called “arid.”22 Hillary Clinton was the “inevitable” frontrunner in a crowded field. Her polling in key states showed significant leads. Her campaign team was hailed as the toughest ever assembled. And, when necessary, Clinton could rely on surrogate-in-chief Bill Clinton, who could drive a news cycle, draw a crowd, and inspire Democrats wherever he was dispatched on her behalf. Other candidates threatened—especially John Edwards in Iowa, where he could rely on residual support from the many in the state who had supported him in 2004—but Obama had established himself as the anti-Clinton candidate. In most national polling throughout the first three quarters of 2007, Clinton garnered nearly 40 percent of respondent support; Obama could boast support in the low to mid-twenties, and Edwards in the teens. But Obama’s momentum stalled in summer 2007. Although he continued to fundraise quite successfully (competing with and bettering the vaunted Clinton donor machine), his support in the polls stopped growing, or declined, and doubts began to creep in about his toughness


25

and his ability to beat the Clintons, let alone the Republicans in the general election. Obama faced a message challenge: he had to introduce himself, stay positive, and underscore doubts about Clinton. A successful introduction was critical to Obama—such a different candidate, with a foreign name, a complex family history, and a brief curriculum vitae. But the tension between the other two objectives was more significant. As a relatively new face on the scene, for Obama to attack the Clinton brand among Democrats would be difficult and could prove damaging, especially in Iowa, where positive campaigning was rewarded and negative campaigning had proved suicidal: John Kerry’s positive message allowed him to sail past a squabbling Howard Dean and Representative Dick Gephardt in 2004. Much of the frustration during summer 2007 came from Obama supporters, some of whom looked at a nearly twenty-point deficit in polling and wanted their candidate to attack Clinton more aggressively. Obama answered some of these critics in an unscheduled appearance before many of his most prominent donors. He called for a show of hands and asked, “Can I see how many people in this room I told that this was going to be easy?” He continued, “If anybody signed up thinking it was going to be easy, then I didn’t make myself clear . . . we’re up against the most formidable team in 25 years, but we’ve got a plan, and we’ve got to have faith in it.”23 That plan was subtle and evolving, but it was visible in Obama’s rhetoric. For much of the winter and spring of 2006–7, Obama had emphasized three themes: a self-effacing introduction (his “lifetime of debt” from school, his $12,000-a-year job as a “community organizer,” his family’s unique chemistry, and the encouragement he received to stay out of “something dirty and nasty like politics”); a call for a “different kind of politics . . . based on the ideals this country was founded upon. The idea that we are all connected as one people. That we all have a stake in one another”; and the need to “turn the page” to achieve real policy victories.24 These points were vague and procedural. By themselves, they were not enough to sway the voters either for Obama or against Clinton. Politics may be a dirty business, but Democrats wanted someone who could win at it. And regardless of the identity of the Democratic nominee, the page was going to turn, because Bush was leaving office in 2009 without an ordained successor. Over the summer and early fall, Obama’s edge grew sharper. First, he began to ask the question “What next?”25 Rather than simply “turning

26

John A. Gans Jr.

the page,” which was phased out of Obama’s stump speeches by November 2007, Obama answered—more self-confidently but still indirectly—by talking about the unique promise his presidency could hold vis-à-vis Clinton’s.26 According to his argument, only Obama could “bring the country together to solve problems” and offer “change we can believe in.”27 The new slogan, “Change We Can Believe In,” was as much about the hope Obama offered to his supporters as it was about voters’ doubts about and mistrust of Clinton, which kept her unfavorable ratings elevated. It was both positive about Obama and negative about Clinton, but in relief rather than directly, which protected Obama from accusations of negative campaigning. It was an actionable message that helped articulate the perceived Obama difference that inspired thousands of donors to contribute to his message. And it could be painted and printed everywhere: after its debut as a sign on the stump on October 19, 2007, in Arizona, the slogan was a constant presence on podiums, placards, and even on a plane throughout the primary before being tweaked during the general election.28 Fired Up, but Ready to Go? As any campaign veteran will tell you, developing a message is a challenge, but finding voters and getting them to the polls is the way elections are won. Difficult rules, a longer process than simply submitting a ballot, and quick changes in momentum make the struggle to get Iowa voters to caucuses on a cold night in early January one of the most challenging a campaign will face. Obama’s team made a strong, early commitment to the Iowa caucus. Obama’s early opposition to the war matched well with the pacifist nature of the state’s Democrats. Obama’s home state, Illinois, bordered the Hawkeye State and shared its Midwestern sensibility. But most of all, Obama’s campaign saw the early contest as key to overcoming the Clinton campaign. Michelle Obama hinted at this reality when she said in late September, “Iowa will make the difference. If Barack doesn’t win Iowa, then it’s just a dream.”29 Obama opened thirty-seven offices across the state and visited the state forty-four times between the launch of his campaign and caucus night.30 Obama took to the state a grassroots approach to activism and getting out the vote, which were in part a result of his bottom-up preference for social change, honed during his past as a community organizer.


27

This inclusive model was challenged by memories of Howard Dean’s collapse in Iowa in 2004, when his army of young supporters failed to deliver him a victory in the state. Dean finished third, and John Kerry was carried to victory on the shoulders of his seasoned supporters— long-time Iowa activists and firefighters. The Dean collapse left many people dubious about the potential of game-changing candidates carried by new process participants. To win, Obama would need to overcome those headwinds as well as the doubts over his inexperience and the chances of an African American candidate in a largely white state. Clinton’s campaign had always been hesitant about Iowa. During Bill Clinton’s campaigns in the 1990s, he never significantly competed in the Iowa caucus: in 1992 native son U.S. senator Tom Harkin was expected to win the state, and in 1996 Clinton faced no real competition as a sitting president. Early in the 2008 process, former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack was expected to win the caucus, but he dropped out in February 2007 and endorsed Clinton. In May 2007, a memorandum written by Clinton’s deputy campaign manager suggested Clinton should consider skipping the state in order to run a national primary that took advantage of her strengths as the frontrunner and minimized the impact of the Iowa outcome. The memo argued that a significant commitment to Iowa could be dangerous to Clinton’s candidacy because of the intense investment of time demanded by Iowa voters, the disconnect between Iowa’s pacifist tendency and Clinton’s early support for the war in Iraq, and the difficult rules of the caucus system. Clinton publicly rejected the memo and said, “I am unalterably committed to competing in Iowa.”31 Clinton went on to spend more than $20 million in Iowa, open thirty-four offices, and visit the state thirtyfive times over the course of the campaign.32 The showdown was set. The November 2007 Jefferson–Jackson dinner, the annual fundraising dinner for the state Democratic Party that brings key Iowan activists and elected officials together, became a key night in demonstrating Obama’s potential. As an Obama spokesperson said, the dinner is a “place to deliver a message, but it is also a place to show organizing muscle. It shows you can get people to show up at the same place at the same time.”33 Obama’s team packed the room with energetic supporters, and the candidate, in his new stump speech, asked the crowd, “Are you FIRED UP? Are you READY TO GO? FIRED UP! READY TO GO!”34 The Obama-leaning crowd was prepared, with one side of the room holding red signs saying “Fired up!” and the other holding blue signs saying “Ready to go!”35 The display demonstrated, however crudely, that the Obama campaign could organize their supporters, and

28

John A. Gans Jr.

the speech represented Obama’s closing “Change That America Can Believe In” message. The momentum began to build up that night in Des Moines. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign scoffed at the display. Clinton adviser Mandy Grunwald said, “Our people look like caucus-goers and his people look like they are 18 . . . they look like Facebook.”36 The reference to the Facebook social networking Web site used by students in high school and college and by people in their twenties and thirties was not an innocent one. Rather, it was meant as a reminder of the collapse of previous youth-propelled candidates such as Dean, whose young supporters disappeared on caucus night. Clinton planned to rely on women voters, older voters, and working-class voters—typically heavy caucus participants. The reference to Facebook also demonstrated a lack of appreciation for the tremors underfoot in the heartland of America that night. Heartland and Heartburn Leading up to the caucus on January 3, 2008, the entire political world was focused on Iowa, the Midwestern state that is home to just 1 percent of the U.S. population. Polls showed a tight three-way race between Obama, Clinton, and Edwards, each with the support of around a quarter of respondents. In the two weeks before caucus night, each news cycle became a gauge of candidate momentum. One day Clinton would get the coveted endorsement of the powerful Des Moines Register; another, news stories would suggest Edwards was cresting. But on New Year’s Eve, the respected Register poll was released showing Obama gaining ground. Obama received the support of 32 percent of likely Democratic caucus goers, Clinton 25 percent, and Edwards 24 percent.37 (The survey of 800 likely Democratic caucus goers was conducted from December 27 to December 30, 2007, and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.) Obama’s lead had as much to do with changes in the poll’s turnout model as it did with an Obama surge. Polls must predict the likely turnout for elections in order to formulate the weighting for respondents’ preferences, and long-time caucus observers were beginning to sense a significant increase in turnout. The precise rules of the caucus system present significant organizational challenges for candidates. Voters must report to specific locations, of which there are thousands around the state, in living rooms,


29

schools, libraries, and other venues. Once they reach an appointed precinct location, voters must organize themselves and earn the support of others in order to win the caucus for their particular candidate. This means that the campaigns need to keep track of how many of their supporters are going to any specific venue. Thus turnout forecasting is as critical to campaign field operations as it is to polling. In 2004, more than 120,000 people participated in the Democratic caucus. Initially, the Clinton campaign believed 90,000 Iowans would turn out in 2008, before upping the estimate to 150,000. That was still drastically wrong: 250,000 turned out to participate in the caucus.38 Obama won 38 percent of caucuses to Edwards’ 30 percent and Clinton’s 29 percent. Some 22 percent of caucus goers were under the age of twenty-five.39 The Facebook crowd proved they were indeed “Fired Up and Ready to Go.” In victory, Obama gained twenty-seven delegates. The campaign quickly moved on to New Hampshire, where Clinton had built a strong campaign on relationships dating back to her husband’s campaign in 1992. (New Hampshire is where Bill Clinton earned the nickname the “Comeback Kid”.) However, the momentum unleashed by Obama’s large Iowa win and the short time (four days, including a weekend) between the two contests made predicting the outcome difficult. The state’s primary is supposed to give less well-known candidates the chance to build support one living room at a time, but by the time the political road show landed in the Granite State after the Iowa caucuses, the only question was whether the state would be the end or the savior of Clinton, the biggest name in Democratic politics. Throughout the weekend leading up to the primary, polling pointed to a strong Obama surge, and he received rock-star treatment from the media and the crowds in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Clinton tried to connect with the state’s voters, even as she battled through reports of campaign staff acrimony and fought back tears while explaining her motivation and struggles to a group of voters in Manchester, New Hampshire. Video of the emotional moment was analyzed in nearly every television, radio, and Internet political outlet. Her efforts paid off: Clinton achieved an unexpected victory, winning the primary with 39 percent of the vote to Obama’s 37 percent. Edwards came in a distant third, with 17 percent. In her victory speech Clinton claimed she “found [her] own voice” in New Hampshire.40 After the results were known, Obama asked his strategist David Axelrod, “This is going to take a while, isn’t it?” Axelrod responded, “I think so.”41

30

John A. Gans Jr. The Long Road

No one at the time knew how right Obama would turn out to be that night in New Hampshire. The battle between Clinton and Obama would continue into June. The two would spend hundreds of millions of dollars, campaign in virtually every state and territory, dominate the airwaves, and motivate Democrats across the country before Obama could be called the nominee. In the meantime, U.S. senator John McCain won the Republican nomination for president in March 2008, setting up a general election campaign against one of the most well-liked Republicans in the country. The momentum Obama gained in Iowa on January 3 ebbed and f lowed, but his Iowa performance had demonstrated his ability to build enthusiasm, reliably turn out the vote, defeat an established and formidable machine, and win in a state with a small African American population. The performance helped carry him to the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in August. But far from being for naught, the long months battling Clinton between the first caucus and the convention were marked by a number of developments that shaped Obama’s general election candidacy, helped determine the November outcome, and reshaped American politics. Obama took the delegate lead in early February 2008. He then won a string of eleven victories in a row that built his lead and the momentum he would need to win the nomination, though not to end the contest. The long winter and spring were a result of the Democratic Party’s proportional method of assigning delegates. As long as a candidate received more than 15 percent of the vote in a state, they received some of the state’s delegates. This is different from the Republican method, which allocates most states in a winner-takes-all-delegates system. The Democrats’ use of proportionality meant that small states mattered significantly. Obama and Clinton could continue to add delegates as long as contests were being held. Obama’s team appreciated these rules and planned for the long road. Although it focused on gaining momentum with a win in Iowa, the Obama campaign prepared for a delegate battle that placed a premium on small states. The day after the Iowa win, the campaign told Iowa staffers they had been assigned to new states and would leave immediately. These campaign operatives, more savvy for their work and success in Iowa, were sent to small states around the country. Obama went on to perform well and build an advantage in these states, and it made the difference: in Idaho, Nebraska, Vermont, Maine, Mississippi,


31

North Dakota, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Alaska, Obama gained 118 delegates to Clinton’s 57.42 Clinton could continue to add delegates, but because of the proportionality rules it was incredibly difficult for her to catch up with Obama. Clinton’s difficult task became nearly impossible after the DNC ruled against reinstating the complete Florida and Michigan results. The reason both Obama and Clinton could compete in each state was their individual appeal to different parts of the Democratic voting base. Obama attracted support among African Americans, younger Democrats, well-educated whites, and independents; Clinton built her campaign on women, white workers, Latinos, and seniors. As the campaign continued, these trends hardened, and it became possible to estimate state outcomes on the basis of computer regression models. One extraordinarily successful model used by the Web site www.fivethirtyeight.org was able to predict many state outcomes more accurately than traditional pollsters on the basis of the profile of the state’s voters and the trends in voting behavior.43 As the primary crept toward a close, two challenges to Obama became apparent. The first was the concern that Obama could not win over those Clinton supporters, especially women and workingclass whites, who stayed with Clinton even as it became apparent that she was unlikely to win the nomination. Clinton’s candidacy had a clear feminist pull on women voters. More troubling to Democrats than identity appeal were Obama’s losses in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana, which highlighted his disconnect with working-class voters. Obama’s difficult relationship with white workers was in part a result of Clinton’s long bond with the Democrats’ blue-collar base and in part a result of lingering racial tensions. Already strained, the connection was further weakened by comments Obama made at a closed fundraiser in San Francisco in early April 2008, when he said, “In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it . . . they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” 44 Both Clinton and McCain criticized the comments as proof of Obama’s elitism, a charge leveled effectively against Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, while Obama tried, with mixed success, to explain away the remarks.

32

John A. Gans Jr.

The second challenge, Obama’s relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, complicated the first. Wright was the long-time pastor at Obama’s church, the man who had married Obama and his wife Michelle, and the inspiration for the title of Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. Obama’s camp believed Wright could be enough of a distraction that he was asked not to participate in the launch of Obama’s campaign in February 2007. When video of some of Wright’s f lamboyant sermons was broadcast on ABC News in mid-March, Obama’s relationship with Wright exploded into a scandal that mixed race and patriotism, two volatile chemicals in American politics. Wright’s declarations, including “God damn America!” and his announcement after the terrorist attacks of September 2001 that “America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” were a major threat to Obama’s candidacy.45 The relationship also challenged Obama’s longtime aversion to racial identity politics and his campaign’s efforts to avoid overt discussions of race. In a rare significant strategic change, Obama personally chose the Wright saga as the moment to depart from this set plan and give a speech on race. His remarks in Philadelphia on March 19, 2008, including a discussion of the racial issues in his own family and a denunciation of the Wright videos as a distraction from what needed to change in the country, allowed Obama to begin to move beyond the matter. The issue still hurt him; Gallup recorded an increase in Obama’s unfavorable rating from 32 percent to 37 percent between late February and early May 2008.46 But when Obama finally disowned Wright after another outburst from the reverend in late April 2008, the campaign was able to move on from the matter. These two challenges were as much a threat to Obama’s chances in a general election as they were in the nomination fight. They were built on the fears of past Democratic election failures—being seen as elite and out of touch—and on one fear unique to Obama—the foreignness of his upbringing, name, and religious experience. Obama’s efforts to address both challenges with direct appeals to working-class voters, through a speech on race, and by distancing himself from Wright were aimed at reassuring Democratic delegates and laying the ground for the campaign against McCain. The threat of additional damage to his brand and Clinton’s decision to continue campaigning until the end of the contests in June put Obama in a difficult position, as he needed to continue to run in Democratic nomination contests, prepare for the general election, and answer the attacks of the Republican Party and the McCain


33

campaign. But during the final weeks of the campaign, Clinton held back her criticisms. On June 3, 2008, the last night of the contests, Obama traveled to Minnesota, the site for the upcoming Republican National Convention, and declared himself the Democratic nominee: “Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another—a journey that will bring a new and better day to America. Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.”47 Clinton conceded and endorsed Obama four days later. In her speech, Clinton called on her supporters to stand behind the Democratic nominee: “I entered this race because I have an old-fashioned conviction that public service is about helping people solve their problems and live their dreams. I’ve had every opportunity and blessing in my own life, and I want the same for all Americans . . . the way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States.”48 Obama’s Lessons in Victory In addition to the efforts to address the challenges posed by his perceived elitism and the Wright and racial issues, the long primary helped Obama in other ways. From his debating performance to his fundraising, from his campaign’s field operations to his messaging, Obama was a better candidate for having competed with and been challenged by Clinton. The lessons he learned from January 2007 to June 2008 helped him defeat Senator McCain in the general election. These lessons included: ●

calling out political gimmicks. In late April 2008, gas prices in the United States were rising, Obama was still dealing with the fallout from the Reverend Wright videos, and Clinton was looking to climb back in the race with wins in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries. Clinton called for a summer suspension of the federal gasoline tax to lower prices for consumers. Obama called the proposal “an election year-gimmick” and a “shell game.”49 Most economists and policymakers agreed with Obama, but that did not mean Clinton would fail to benefit politically from her position on the gas tax in Indiana and North Carolina. Obama stood firm in his opposition and won a large victory in North Carolina and lost

34

●

●

John A. Gans Jr. by just a small margin in Indiana. Clinton had missed her chance fundamentally to alter the race. Obama’s confidence in trusting voters to reject gimmicks was on display again in the general election when he rejected the strong calls by the McCain campaign significantly to increase domestic oil drilling having faith in the plan. What Obama said to his doubting supporters in October 2007—“We’ve got a plan, and we’ve got to have faith in it”—proved useful in the general election when his campaign stalled slightly owing to attacks and maneuvers by the McCain operation in August and September 2008.50 But Obama’s campaign did not panic; they did not fire many staffers; they did not leak their doubts to the press. They assured nervous Democrats, they stuck to their plan, and they won the election not changing the subject; pushing back. When campaigns feel a strong headwind against an idea, they often trim their sails and try to change the subject. Obama rejected this tactic. In 2007, during a debate in which he was asked, “Would you be willing to meet separately, without preconditions, during the first year of your Administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?” Obama responded, “I would.”51 Clinton’s team, presaging what the McCain campaign would do during the general election, called Obama naïve. Obama’s campaign aides worried about the impact of his answer and tried to change the subject, but Obama said, according to one staff member, “This is ridiculous. We met with Stalin. We met with Mao. The idea that we can’t meet with [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is ridiculous. This is a bunch of Washington-insider conventional wisdom that makes no sense. We should not run from this debate. We should have it.”52 The McCain campaign tried to use the issue to demonstrate their candidate’s foreign policy experience and expertise. Rather than being beaten down, the Obama campaign pushed back on the matter, building on their experience and success in the primary. Legacies of the 2008 Democratic Primary

In addition to teaching Obama lessons he used in the general election, the 2008 Democratic primary fundamentally altered U.S. politics at the meta- and mechanical levels. These legacies will be shaped by Obama’s performance in office, but they will also define his political


35

environment and inf luence his allies and, most important, his opponents. This will be most true in 2012 when the Republican primary is held to find Obama’s reelection challenger. As the 2008 race was inf luenced by the 2004 and 2006 campaigns, the 2012 race will surely be inf luenced by the legacies of 2008, including: ●

●

●

●

inclusivity. The historic, legitimate candidacies of Clinton, Obama, and Richardson have opened the door to male and female candidates of different races, and potentially different religions. Although the full effects of Obama’s victory on U.S. race relations have yet to be determined, practically speaking the monopoly white men have held on the presidency is over. With Obama as precedent, future candidates of color will have an easier time addressing the question “Will the country elect an ____?” And even in defeat, Clinton’s candidacy, though fraught with accusations and displays of sexism, has probably done the same for women candidates the prominence of money. As the first candidate since the 1970s reforms came into effect to win completely outside the public financing system available to candidates, Obama changed the way elections will be run in the United States with his fundraising success. His ability to raise a significant portion of his contributions online and from small donors fueled his campaign machine and gave him momentum. All the signs indicate he will be able to use this network and again redefine fundraising success for his reelection. Unless the rules change, any future challenger who cannot demonstrate an ability to compete with Obama’s fundraising operation will be a nonstarter the importance of message consistency. The consistency of Obama’s message has set a high bar for future campaigns. The source of this consistency was Obama’s prescience concerning, and embodiment of, change. Campaign manager David Plouffe pointed to message efficiency as a key to Obama’s victory: “We had a consistent message. What was our slogan the entire primary? ‘Change we can believe in.’ We adjusted slightly for the general—‘Change we need.’ That didn’t change. That was boring to the press, but that consistency, I think, wore well with voters.”53 Obama’s and his opponent’s ability to replicate that consistency during the 2012 campaign will be judged by the press and pundits as evidence of sophistication building a custom machine quickly. The performance of Obama’s campaign during the primary against a vaunted Clinton team built over two decades proved that an effective campaign operation

36

●

●

John A. Gans Jr. could be built from scratch in one year. By November 2008, Obama’s machine had raised more than $750 million, employed 5,000 people, and boasted millions of active volunteers.54 Much of Obama’s victory is due to his own talent and the inspiration he gave to millions, from volunteers to high-profile endorsers, but his success also proved that there is enough talent and technology in the political universe to overcome deficits of time and experience. Future candidates, especially Republicans in 2012, will try to build their own machines according to Obama’s blueprint, timetable, and success the importance of running everywhere. The Obama campaign learned in the primary to be greedy, to campaign for votes everywhere. They built on the 50-State investments of Dean’s DNC and set up full campaign operations in states that had not seen campaign commitment during a presidential election in decades. The result was the small-state delegates needed to beat Clinton in the primary; general election wins in long-time red states such as North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana; and a landslide victory in the electoral college. It is likely that Democrats and Republicans will need in future to demonstrate they can contend in more than a narrow band of battleground states to be seen as contenders the importance of running now. Obama’s impatience may be the most significant legacy of the Democratic primary, just as his inexperience is the biggest question as he enters his first term. Although Obama is not the youngest president ever elected, he has one of thinnest statewide and national political résumés (protestations about the value of “Washington experience” aside): just two years in the U.S. Senate before he began his campaign. Eventual supporter and former commerce secretary Bill Daley said in early 2006, “The conventional wisdom would be, don’t jump too quick.”55 But in response to the assertion that it was “too soon,” Obama celebrated the “fierce urgency of now” and said, “There’s such a thing as being too late.”56 The success of his first term will determine whether anyone will ever again heed the warning that it is “too soon.” Conclusion

The night he was elected the forty-fourth president of the United States, Barack Obama said in his victory speech, “This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations.”57 As the


37

first African American with a genuine chance at the presidency, Barack Obama made history the day he announced his candidacy for president. The distance traveled from his breakfast meeting in September 2001 to his victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park on November 4, 2008, was both remarkable and significant. The president-elect was not the man who entered the race through an earnest, direct-to-camera Internet video in January 2007. His hair was grayer. His face had aged. But more important for those who want to understand American politics and the future Obama presidency, he was not the same politician. Barack Obama’s journey through the Democratic nominating process made him president. The lessons he learned, the way he handled the issues, and the brand he built positioned him to defeat John McCain in the general election. The primary will also inform the politics of his presidency and beyond. Although it falls short of the dramatic transformation Obama prescribed in his rhetoric and writings, Obama has changed the nation’s politics with his unique background, limited experience, and 2008 primary performance. His first term will continue the evolution of the game, and his fellow players will respond. As the campaigning commences in the wake of Obama’s inauguration, the new president and his future opponents will attempt to apply the lessons and create new legacies in the elections of 2010 and 2012. Notes 1. Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (New York: Crown, 2006), 3. 2. Ibid. 3. Barack Obama, “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: ‘A More Perfect Union,’ ” March 18, 2008, www.barackobama.com/2008/03/18/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_53.php (accessed November 2008). 4. Craig Gilbert, “2008 Presidential Candidates Obama, McCain Find Lessons in 2004 Campaign,” Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee), June 28, 2008, www.jsonline.com/news/ president/29561629.html (accessed November 2008). 5. The Institute for Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harward University (editor), Campaign for President: The Managers Look at 2004. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006, 218. 6. Mike Allen and Ben Smith, “Obama: Don’t ‘Swift Boat’ Me,” Politico.com, November 17, 2007, www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6949.html (accessed December 2008). 7. Jennifer Senior, “The Once and Future President Clinton,” New York, February 14, 2005, http:// nymag.com/nymetro/news/politics/national/features/11082 (accessed November 2008). 8. Ibid. 9. USA Today, “USA TODAY/Gallup Poll Results,” May 5, 2008, www.usatoday.com/news/ politics/election2008/2008-05-04-polltable_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip (accessed November 2008).

38

John A. Gans Jr.

10. Ibid. 11. Evan Thomas and Newsweek staff, “How He Did It,” Newsweek, November 17, 2008, 47. 12. Ken Rudin, “Is Hillary Clinton Electable?” Political Junkie, NPR.org, November 1, 2007, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15843708 (accessed November 2008). 13. Gary Hart, “American Idol,” New York Times, December 24, 2006, http://query.nytimes. com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E1D61531F937A15751C1A9609C8B63&sec=&spon= &partner=permalink&exprod=permalink (accessed November 2008). 14. James L. Merriner, “2008?” Chicago, March 2006, www.chicagomag.com/ChicagoMagazine/March-2006/2008-/ (accessed November 2008). 15. “Meet the Press transcript,” MSNBC.com, October 22, 2006, www.msnbc.msn.com/ id/15304689 (accessed November 2008). 16. Barack Obama, “Full Text of Senator Barack Obama’s Announcement for President,” February 10, 2007, www.barackobama.com/2007/02/10/remarks_of_senator_barack_ obam_11.php (accessed November 2006). 17. Merriner, “2008?” 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Jake Tapper, “Obama: ‘Better Judgment’ on Foreign Policy,’ ” ABCNews.com, July 25, 2007, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3413377&page=1 (accessed November 2008). 22. Jodi Kantor, “An Old Hometown Mentor, and Still at Obama’s Side,” New York Times, November 24, 2008, A1. 23. Karen Tumulty, “How Obama Did It,” Time, June 5, 2008, www.time.com/time/politics/ article/0,8599,1811857,00.html (accessed November 2008). 24. Barack Obama, “Remarks of Senator Obama to the California State Democratic Convention,” May 2, 2007, www.barackobama.com/2007/05/02/remarks_of_senator_obama_ to_th.php (accessed November 2008). 25. Barack Obama, “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: A Change We Can Believe In,” November 3, 2007, www.barackobama.com/2007/11/03/remarks_of_senator_barack_ obam_30.php (accessed November 2008). 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Interview with unnamed Obama for America campaign official, December 2008. 29. Domenico Montanaro, “Michelle Obama and Iowa’s Importance,” MSNBC First Read, September 27, 2007, http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/09/27/383598.aspx (accessed November 2008). 30. Eric M. Appleman, “Barack Obama—Organization, Iowa,” Democracy in Action: P2008, www. gwu.edu/~action/2008/obama/obamaorgia.html (accessed November 2008); Appleman, “Iowa Visits—Democratic Prospects,” Democracy in Action: P2008, www.gwu.edu/~action/2008/ ia08/iavisits08d.html (accessed November 2008). 31. Associated Press, “Clinton Denounces Memo about Her Skipping Iowa,” USA Today, May 24, 2007, www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-05-23-clinton-iowa_N.htm (accessed November 2008). 32. Peter Baker, “About That Mike Henry Memo,” The Trail, Washingtonpost.com, January 10, 2008, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/10/about_that_mike_henry_ memo.html (accessed November 2008). 33. Roger Simon, “Jefferson Jackson a Warm-Up for Iowa,” Politico.com, November 11, 2007, www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6815.html (accessed November 2008). 34. Thomas and Newsweek staff, “How He Did It,” 46. 35. John McCormick, “Obama Talks about ‘Fired Up, Ready to Go,” The Swamp, ChicagoTribune.com, November 12, 2007, www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/ 2007/11/obama_talks_about_fired_up_rea.html (accessed December 2008).


39

36. Simon, “Jefferson Jackson.” 37. Thomas Beaumont, “New Iowa Poll: Obama Widens Lead over Clinton,” Des Moines Register, December 31, 2007, http://beta.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20080101/NEWS09/301010015/-1/iowapoll07 (accessed November 2008). 38. Thomas and Newsweek staff, “How He Did It,” 49. 39. Ibid. 40. CQ Transcriptions, “Transcript: Clinton Thanks New Hampshire for Comeback after Primary Win,” Washingtonpost.com, January 8, 2008, www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/01/08/AR2008010804092.html (accessed November 2008). 41. Thomas and Newsweek staff, “How He Did It,” 49. 42. Jonathan Weisman, Shailagh Murray, and Peter Slevin, “Strategy Was Based On Winning Delegates, Not Battlegrounds,” Washington Post, June 4, 2008, A01, www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/03/AR2008060304268_pf.html (accessed November 2008). 43. Mark Blumenthal, “The Poblano Model,” National Journal Online, May 8, 2008, www. nationaljournal.com/njonline/mp_20080507_8254.php (accessed November 2008). 44. Abdon M. Pallasch, “Obama: God, Guns Are Only Refuge of Bitter Pennsylvanians,” Chicago Sun Times, April 12, 2008, www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/891685,CSTNWS-obama12.article (accessed November 2008). 45. Evan Thomas and Newsweek staff, “The Long Siege,” Newsweek, November 17, 2008, 67. 46. USA Today, “USA TODAY/Gallup Poll Results.” 47. Barack Obama, “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Final Primary Night,” June 3, 2008, www.barackobama.com/2008/06/03/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_73.php (accessed November 2008). 48. CQ Transcriptions, “Transcript: Hillary Clinton Endorses Barack Obama,” NYTimes.com, June 7, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/us/politics/07text-clinton.html (accessed November 2008). 49. David Espo, “Clinton Seeks Vote on Gas Tax Holiday, Obama Calls It ‘Shell Game,’ ” Associated Press, May 2, 2008, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2008/05/02/ clinton-seeks-vote-on-gas-tax-holiday-obama-calls-it-shell-game/ (accessed November 2008). 50. Tumulty, “How Obama Did It.” 51. Ryan Lizza, “Battle Plans,” The New Yorker, November 17, 2008, www.newyorker.com/ reporting/2008/11/17/081117fa_fact_lizza?printable=true (accessed November 2008). 52. Ibid. 53. Lloyd Grove, “World According to . . . David Plouffe,” Portfolio, December 11, 2008, www. portfolio.com/views/columns/the-world-according-to/2008/12/11/David- PlouffeInterview?print=true (accessed December 2008). 54. Ibid. 55. Merriner, “2008?”. 56. Barack Obama, “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner,” November 10, 2007, www.barackobama.com/2007/11/10/remarks_of_senator_barack_ obam_33.php (accessed November 2008). 57. Barack Obama, “Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama: Election Night,” November 4, 2008, www.barackobama.com/2008/11/04/remarks_of_presidentelect_bara.php (accessed November 2008).


CH A P T E R

T WO

The Republican Primaries Trevor B. M c Cri ske n

The Republican Party nomination for president of the United States of America in 2008 was considered by some observers a poisoned chalice.1 Only once since the 1950s had a party maintained control of the White House for more than two consecutive terms, when George H. W. Bush won a single term in office after eight years of Ronald Reagan. Bush had been vice president for those eight years, however, and Reagan had left office with a higher approval rating than any U.S. president since polling began in the 1930s. In 2008, in contrast, the outgoing twoterm Republican president, George W. Bush, had among the lowest public approval ratings of any U.S. president. As the primary season began in January 2008, support for Bush was at a mere 32 percent.2 This time there was also no heir apparent, because the equally unpopular vice president Richard (“Dick”) Cheney was not interested in the nomination. The Republican Party had already suffered at the hands of the electorate in the 2006 congressional elections, largely as a reaction against Bush’s policies. Republican fortunes appeared to be at a distinctly low ebb. Meanwhile, Democrats were getting fired up not only in anticipation of finally ushering Bush out of the White House but also by the prospect of electing either the first woman or the first African American to the highest office in the land. Yet not all was gloom and doom among Republicans. Although the nation as a whole may not have liked the sitting president, opinion was particularly partisan, and 76 percent of Republicans approved of Bush and his policies.3 Of course, this raised something of a dilemma for

42

Trevor B. McCrisken

any prospective candidate. To win the nomination a candidate would need to stay close enough to the Bush presidency to retain this partisan support but far enough away to convince the rest of the nation that he or she was a different kind of Republican. The field of candidates who threw their hats in the ring seemed, at least at face value, to offer interesting possibilities for the party and the nation. It included a nationally recognized former New York mayor who was one of the “heroes” of 9/11, a popular former U.S. senator turned television and film actor, a bass guitar–playing former governor and pastor, an attractive and charismatic former governor of a northeastern state, and a decorated former navy pilot and famous prisoner of war. Nonetheless, Republican voters were not particularly enthused by the choices on offer to them. An ABC News/Washington Post poll found, for example, that only 19 percent of likely Republican voters in Iowa were “very satisfied” with the field of candidates, about one-third of the satisfaction expressed by Democrats ahead of the caucuses in the state.4 The seven candidates for the Republican presidential nomination who entered the primary season were: ●

●

Arizona senator John McCain, who had failed in his previous bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. McCain, a self-styled “maverick” in the Senate, was best known for his strong stance on campaign finance reform, with the 2002 McCain– Feingold Act, and also for his heroism during the Vietnam war, when he had been a prisoner of war for five and a half years. His strengths appeared to include that he had been “right” about the Iraq war, having argued long before President Bush adopted the policy that a “surge” of troops was needed to bring stability and security back to the country. This apparent toughness and expertise in foreign and defense matters provided the backbone of McCain’s campaign, together with the perhaps contradictory claim that he was the anti-establishment candidate who could rectify the admitted problems of the Bush years Former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani enjoyed frontrunner status for much of the pre-primary campaign. Renowned for his “zero tolerance” approach to crime, he was credited with cleaning up the city and making it a much safer and more prosperous place. His reputation was sealed in the eyes of most Americans by his handling of the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, from which he emerged something of a national, if not international, hero.

The Republican Primaries

●

●

●

43

Giuliani expected to be carried through the primary season by his widespread name recognition and his claim that, although he might not be a “nice guy,” he was exactly the kind of person the country needed at a time of deadly threats from abroad and growing economic problems at home Mitt Romney had been governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, where he was best known for turning around a state deficit and for presiding over a major health care reform act. Much attention in the campaign was placed on Romney’s religious beliefs, as he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and would have been the first Mormon to gain a presidential nomination. He leaned heavily on his charm and charisma, his apparent fiscal toughness, and his own personal fortune, from which he injected vast sums of money into his campaign war chest Fred Thompson was a former senator from Tennessee who was also nationally recognized as a popular television and film actor, with parts in No Way Out, The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard 2, In the Line of Fire, and most notably in more than a hundred episodes of the television series Law and Order as district attorney Arthur Branch. Before he officially launched his campaign in September 2007, Thompson ran a six-month “phantom campaign” after indicating early his interest in running. This led to a relatively determined online campaign to convince him to enter the race and good ranking in polls tracking potential candidates, but this did not translate into significant financial support, and his public appearances were not deemed a great success. His “celebrity” status made him an intriguing but ultimately unsuccessful candidate Mike Huckabee was the former governor of Arkansas, a job that had been a stepping stone to the White House before, of course. He appealed particularly to social conservatives in the party because he had served as a Baptist minister and, unlike some of his competitors for the nomination, had an unambiguous position on abortion, gay marriage, and other social conservative issues. His populism was also affirmed by his public appearances playing the bass guitar and his often humorous participation in popular television shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. After polling well in the run-up to the opening contests of the primary campaign, he won the Iowa caucus and performed well in conservative Southern states, but he struggled to build this strong start into significant enough support outside this region

44 ●

●

Trevor B. McCrisken Texas congressman Ron Paul received a small but enthusiastic degree of support throughout the nomination campaign, fueled largely by a vibrant Internet presence. His fundraising was stunningly successful in the final quarter of 2007, outstripping that of all other contenders. His libertarian and constitutionalist stances meant that he was never likely to have widespread appeal within the party, though he did gather a handful of delegates to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he also held an alternative convention that proved a minor irritant to John McCain and the party Long-term California congressman Duncan Hunter was the alsoran of the Republican campaign, notching up barely any significant support and pulling out of the race on January 19, 2008, after finishing last in the Nevada caucuses. In addition to Hunter, four other officially declared candidates for the Republican nomination dropped out of the race before the primary season began: Senator Sam Brownback (Kansas), former governor of Virginia Jim Gilmore, Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, and former governor of Wisconsin and secretary of health and human resources Tommy Thompson.

Given the perceived weakness of the field, many analysts assumed the Republican primary season would be a long, drawn-out affair rife with internecine warfare that would perhaps not be settled until the nominating convention. As with previous contests where no clear leader was apparent, name recognition, issue positions that appealed to the party base, links to core support among the inf luential religious right, dedication to a strong defense, and running a strategic and focused campaign seemed likely to be factors that would enable a winner to emerge. In 2008, these factors played out much earlier for the Republicans than many observers supposed they would, with Senator John McCain becoming the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party relatively early in the primary campaign. In contrast, the Democratic Party experienced what looked like a far more divisive and damaging battle between two strong, powerful frontrunners that lasted almost to the convention f loor. The 2008 Republican nominating process, however, revealed the extent to which all the candidates had problems that weakened their chances of success not only in securing their party’s nomination but also, for John McCain, in defeating their Democratic opponent in November.


45

Giuliani and Thompson: Knowing Me, Knowing You Name recognition is often regarded as a major advantage for candidates heading into a presidential nomination campaign. Three of the main contenders for the Republican nomination already had high levels of national name recognition, though for very different reasons: McCain, Giuliani, and Thompson. Although at times his campaign appeared to falter badly, as we shall see below, McCain was ultimately successful in securing the nomination. For both Giuliani and Thompson, what Republican voters already knew about each of them proved to be both advantageous and burdensome. Throughout most of 2007, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani held a significant lead over all of the other candidates for the Republican nomination, with relatively consistent support of around 30 percent among likely Republican primary or caucus voters.5 Giuliani’s greatest strength stemmed from his actions in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. As one New Jersey newspaper reported at the time, “Thanks largely to his uncanny ability to appear to be everywhere during this grim period, New York’s mayor has risen from the ashes of the tragedy as an unequivocal hero of the moment.” 6 Giuliani was praised not just nationwide but internationally, even receiving an honorary knighthood from the queen of the United Kingdom, and he sealed his post-9/11 credentials with a rousing pro–war on terror speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention.7 Giuliani’s reputation as he entered the race for the presidency was that of a tough, unf linching defender of the American way who would stand up to the threat of international terrorism and was not afraid to name the enemy as “radical Islam.” Giuliani used his strident advocacy of continuing and strengthening the Bush administration’s war on terror as the keystone of his campaign, frequently reminding voters in his speeches, interviews, and one-on-one encounters that “Islamic terrorists are at war with us,” that the threat to the United States was “existential,” that “they hate you,” and that “they want to kill us.” 8 Highly unusually for a candidate whose highest previous elected office was that of a city mayor, albeit mayor of a major international city, Giuliani was widely perceived as having strong foreign policy experience and credentials. This perception persisted despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm for building solid foreign policy experience

46

Trevor B. McCrisken

when he withdrew early from the deliberations and investigations of the Iraq Study Group co-led by former secretary of state James Baker III.9 Giuliani’s popularity in the campaign also stemmed from his reputation as the man who cleaned up New York City with his zero-tolerance policies. As the New York Times observed, when Giuliani became mayor in 1993 New York was “widely considered a city beyond governance, an uncontrollable metropolis where violent crime, entrenched bureaucracy and swollen welfare rolls were accepted as the grim but unshakable realities of urban decline.”10 Giuliani was widely perceived to have turned the city around as mayor, with crime falling precipitously, the welfare rolls reducing, and jobs and neighborhoods reviving. This tough approach to crime and welfare was appealing to those Republicans who threw their support behind Giuliani for most of 2007. Although Giuliani’s reaction to 9/11 and his zero-tolerance policies were well known, so too were other character traits and standpoints on a range of issues that most Republicans found far more problematic. Giuliani was known to be pro-choice, to support gun control, and to believe gay and lesbian Americans deserved certain rights. He had been divorced twice, and on the second occasion he had announced the split from his wife live on television before telling his watching family. He had also performed in drag on more than one occasion. None of these factors endeared Giuliani to the social conservatives in the party, and specifically not to the religious right. Gary Bauer, evangelical leader of the advocacy group American Values, made clear his feelings on the matter: “Of all the candidates, Mayor Giuliani is the most problematic from the standpoint of values-motivated voters. There is no question about that.” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, agreed that “he gives social conservatives very little to be motivated about” and warned that if the Republican Party “break[s] faith with evangelical social conservatives on these issues, I believe a lot of social conservatives will break ranks with the GOP.”11 Evangelical leader Pat Robertson, broadcaster and former candidate for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, endorsed Giuliani’s campaign, but this was not enough to alleviate the deep-rooted concerns about his social positions, personal integrity, and character traits.12 Even Giuliani’s “hero” status from 9/11 was challenged in potentially damaging ways for his campaign. New York’s firefighters had played a crucial role in clearing the World Trade Center of as many people as possible while fighting back the fires, and almost 350 of them had died when the towers collapsed. Yet the International Association of


47

Fire Fighters, the largest firefighters union in the United States, issued a video in July 2007 condemning Giuliani’s management of events on September 11, 2001, accusing him of being responsible for the firefighters being ill-equipped, and criticizing him for shifting too quickly from a policy of recovering the dead to a policy of cleaning up the area in the weeks that followed.13 Giuliani’s foreign policy credentials were also challenged, with critics accusing him of conf lating the threats confronting the United States by grouping together Iraqi insurgents, Al-Qaeda operatives, and Iranian agents as a “monolithic dark force” rather than moving toward a more nuanced view that would separate him from Bush in the eyes of the broader electorate to whom it was assumed he would appeal.14 Giuliani compounded some of the negative perceptions of his policy positions and doubts over his credentials by making some rather bizarre gaffes during the campaign. Most glaring of these was taking a cell phone call from his wife Judith during a nationally televised speech at the National Rif le Association. Not only did he answer the call, but he carried on a short conversation, something that campaign advisers admitted was a fairly regular occurrence despite their insistence that he not do so. Most damaging of all, though, was Giuliani’s decision not to campaign in the earliest contests in Iowa, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina but to focus his efforts on winning the Florida primary on January 29. It is widely accepted that the early contests are deeply significant and can shape the course of the entire primary season. To ignore that period seemed courageous at best, suicidal at worst. As it was, Giuliani entered the frame at a point when his formerly excellent polling numbers had slipped back considerably, he had been almost entirely out of the media spotlight since the first contest in Iowa in early January, and he had allowed his closest rivals for the nomination—John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee—to set the pace in the campaign, to build up momentum, and to demonstrate the seriousness of their candidacies while Giuliani seemed more or less invisible. The situation was compounded by the rush by a number of states to move their primaries up in the calendar, which meant the entire selection process began earlier than ever before (with Iowa on January 3) and was likely to be decided by as early as February 5, the new “Super Tuesday,” with Republican nominating contests being held across twenty-one states. The fevered media focus on the early races was, therefore, even keener than in previous years, making Giuliani even more conspicuous by his absence.

48

Trevor B. McCrisken

The Giuliani campaign was banking on the “winner-takes-all” rules on delegate accumulation in most Republican contests to work to his advantage if he won big states such as Florida, New York, and California.15 In the winner-takes-all method of selection, the candidate who wins the plurality of the votes in a primary election is given all that state’s delegates to the nominating convention as committed supporters of their candidacy, rather than delegates being distributed proportionally, as is the practice in the Democratic Party. Consequently, Giuliani’s competitors had secured a number of delegates by the time he properly contended the Florida primary, and he went into the contest with none. Giuliani’s strategy proved disastrous: he took a mere 15 percent of the primary vote in Florida and finished a distant third. Giuliani had fewer than half the votes of the winner of the state John McCain (36 percent) or of second-placed Mitt Romney (31 percent). In fact, he finished only 2 percent ahead of fourth-placed Mike Huckabee.16 Giuliani’s bid for the presidency was essentially over, and he withdrew from the race the next day, endorsing John McCain for the party’s nomination. Rudy Giuliani’s bid for the Republican nomination demonstrates clearly that name recognition and a well-known track record are not necessarily advantages in a campaign. Indeed, the concerns over what was already known about Giuliani undermined much of his ability to appeal for support from the base of the party, a crucial constituency for any campaign to be successful. The former New York mayor might have succeeded in overcoming some of his perceived weaknesses had he campaigned more widely and more vigorously, particularly in the states that held the earliest primaries and caucuses, but his campaign strategy misfired spectacularly, and the firm favorite from mid-2007 left the race without a single committed delegate to the nominating convention. Like Giuliani, Fred Thompson had widespread name recognition when he entered the race for the Republican nomination. He was perhaps known less for his political experience as senator from Tennessee, however, than for his starring role in the popular television drama Law and Order and from other film and television performances. Thompson’s conservative credentials appeared to be strong, with him taking clear positions on the right to bear arms and on the need to crack down on immigration and illegal immigrants, and also comparing scientists who warn of the devastating effects of global warming to those in the days of Galileo who insisted the world was f lat.17 Thompson also came with a tragic yet redemptive personal story. In 2002, he stepped back from political life after he lost his adult daughter to an accidental


49

prescription-drug overdose. He then married his second wife, Jeri Kehn, with whom he had two children, and found the desire to return to politics. Thompson’s Hollywood career and his personal life did not sit well with all potential supporters. Thompson, sixty-four when he ran for president, was almost a quarter of a century older than his glamorous, bleach-blonde, forty-year-old second wife. Much of the conservative Internet chat room, talk radio, and cable television community was abuzz with crass questions about whether the Republican Party, let alone the country, was ready for “a president with a trophy wife.”18 Jeri Kehn Thompson had strong professional credentials of her own as a media consultant for a DC law firm and former employee of the Republican National Committee, but this did not stop the pejorative chatter about her strengthening as claims emerged that she was exercising “tremendous power” over her husband’s bid for the White House, acting as both his campaign manager and his top political adviser.19 Social conservatives have also been strong critics of Hollywood’s output and the values associated with it. In a national poll conducted shortly before the 2008 election, 59 percent of all Americans agreed that “the people who run the TV networks and the major movie studios do not share the religious and moral values of most Americans,” a number that rose to 68 percent among conservative protestants. Indeed, 43 percent of those polled believed there was “an organized campaign by Hollywood and the national media to weaken the inf luence of religious values in this country.”20 Although associations with Hollywood may not have been a great disadvantage for major Republican candidates in the past—Ronald Reagan most notably—Thompson’s association was more current, and the concerns about Hollywood were voiced more vociferously than they had been during the 1980s. Indeed, when the presidential campaign began in earnest later in the year, Republican candidate John McCain and his supporters relentlessly ridiculed Democratic candidate Barack Obama for his apparent “celebrity” status in the United States and internationally.21 Despite the furor over his wife and his celebrity status, Thompson had caused quite a stir among supporters on the Internet who campaigned for this “New Reagan” to make his candidacy official after he suggested he might run on a television chat show.22 But his campaign failed to capitalize on this early pre-primary momentum, despite some good early polling figures. When the primary season opened, he ran a distant third in Iowa, second in the Wyoming caucus dominated by Mitt Romney, sixth in New Hampshire with barely 1 percent of the

50

Trevor B. McCrisken

vote, fifth in Michigan, fifth in Nevada, and finally a distant third in South Carolina—the first primary in his native South, where he had expected to build most of his support. Thompson withdrew from the race a few days later, having failed to capitalize on being an established national face and having been unable to quash the concerns about his lifestyle and his personal independence, no matter how ill founded they were. He had also made relatively limited appearances in crucial states and at times appeared unenthusiastic during his campaign speeches. Indeed, The Times of London concluded that he had run “one of the most baff lingly lackadaisical and listless campaign efforts of recent times.”23 Clearly, being recognized nationally was not enough in and of itself for either Thompson or Giuliani to run a successful campaign. Both candidates’ name recognition might have facilitated initial media attention and generated some public interest, but their campaign strategies failed either to capitalize on their advantages or to alleviate doubts and concerns about their perceived weaknesses. As the primary season opened, both these national figures were overshadowed by the early running of two initially less well-known candidates who appeared to tick more of the boxes of core Republican voters. Romney and Huckabee: One of Us At least since the 1970s, the religious right in the United States has been a significant force in electoral politics, and particularly in its support of Republican Party candidates.24 Conventional wisdom holds that a significant increase in the white evangelical Christian vote is what tipped the balance in favor of George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. The number of voters in the 2004 presidential election who identified themselves as “white evangelical” or “born-again” Christians, however, actually remained at essentially the same level (23 percent) it has been in each presidential election since 1992. The difference in 2004 was that some 78 percent of these evangelical voters cast their votes for Bush, a 10 percent gain on the evangelical vote he received in 2000. Bush also gained greater support from Catholic voters than in his previous election. As the Pew Research Center has concluded, although the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as white evangelical has shifted little since the late 1980s, their political partisanship has changed considerably. In 1987, white evangelical Protestants were almost as likely to be Democrats


51

(29 percent) as they were to be Republicans (34 percent). By 2004, however, Republicans outnumbered Democrats among white evangelical Protestants by more than two to one (48 percent to 23 percent).25 Together with their power as a voting group for Republicans, evangelical groups claimed that they were often “more aggressive and sometimes better organized on the ground than the Bush campaign” and that their efforts on his behalf in crucial battleground states such as Ohio and Florida made all the difference in getting out the vote.26 Clearly, in 2008 the religious right would again be a crucial constituency within the party’s base from which any potential Republican presidential candidate would have to gain support to be successful. We have already noted how Rudy Giuliani’s prospects for the nomination suffered greatly as a result of the opposition his candidacy faced among conservative evangelicals. So where would the religious social conservatives throw their support in the 2008 campaign? Two candidates seemed best suited to be the choice of the religious right: Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Mitt Romney’s religious beliefs proved to be both an advantage and a burden. Romney made numerous efforts to reach out to the religious right within the party, making appearances at conservative Christian institutions such as Regent University in Virginia, openly declaring himself a “person of faith,” frequently quoting from scripture, and setting out strong positions on “moral issues” such as abortion, marriage, and the need for strong families.27 According to the online proRomney group Evangelicals for Mitt, “Conservative evangelicals do not have to compromise on our values this election: Gov. Romney embodies all the principles for which we’ve long fought.” The group’s Web site argued that Romney embraced “a comprehensive and positive values agenda.” The former Massachusetts governor was said to stand for “the sanctity of life, protecting traditional marriage, defending religious liberty and basic human rights at home and abroad, combating poverty and disease within the world’s poorest communities, fighting for better quality of life for our citizens, and winning the War on Terror.”28 Despite these positive claims and endorsements from prominent evangelicals, including the chancellor of Bob Jones University, large numbers of evangelical Republicans had serious doubts over whether they could support Romney. As a Mormon, Romney’s religious beliefs stood well outside the conservative mainstream. Mormonism is regarded by many Americans as a cult rather than a religion, and a quarter of Americans say they would have reservations about voting for a Mormon to be U.S. president. This

52

Trevor B. McCrisken

figure rises to 36 percent, more than a third, among white evangelical Protestant Republican voters, many of whom regard Mormonism as heretical. Romney was also perceived as “very religious” by 46 percent of the public, more than twice the figure for his competitors for the Republican nomination.29 It is clear that Romney’s faith was considered a major factor by large numbers of Americans and that for much of the conservative core of the Republican evangelical vote it was not a positive attribute. There was much confusion, and indeed ignorance, over what Romney’s religious beliefs actually were and what his relationship to his faith would be as candidate and then president. The American public generally lacks knowledge about Mormonism and holds a number of negative perceptions about the religion. Only 49 percent of Americans say they know “a great deal” or “some” about the Mormon religion, and a mere 25 percent “believe that the Mormon religion and their own religion have a lot in common.” The words most associated with Mormonism are “polygamy” and “bigamy.”30 This lack of understanding and the negative perceptions associated with Mormonism were ref lected in the response by one of Romney’s opponents to a reporter’s question about whether he thought Mormonism was a cult or a religion. Mike Huckabee responded: “I think it’s a religion. I really don’t know much about it. Don’t Mormons believe Jesus and the devil are brothers?”31 Like John F. Kennedy before him, who had to confront the perceived problems associated with his Catholicism, Romney finally took to the stage to explain his position on faith, giving a twenty-minute speech at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, on December 6, 2007. Romney mentioned the word “Mormon” only once, saying, “I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it.” He emphasized the historical importance of religion in the development of the United States and in his own life but made clear that “I do not define my candidacy by my religion.” He argued that “a person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.” Indeed, he reminded the audience, any form of religious test for public office was prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. He also tried to lay to rest any fears that as president he would be dictated to by his Church’s leaders: “Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert inf luence on presidential decisions. . . . If I am fortunate to become your President, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest.”32 Romney did, however, make multiple references to


53

how important the “values” shared by all religions are and to the fact that his decision making would be informed by his personal values, rooted in his faith—values that he shared with the conservative evangelicals to whom he was attempting to appeal. Romney’s speech gained widespread media coverage but had little impact on his polling figures, the level of reservations Americans had about a Mormon becoming president, or the percentage of “highly religious” Americans who preferred him over his opponents. After the speech, Gallup found that “Americans are about as likely today (80%) as they were in March (77%) to say they would vote for a Mormon if their party nominated someone of that faith for president.”33 Romney’s popularity among “highly religious” Republicans (those who attend church on a weekly basis) remained “basically f lat,” going up from 10 percent to 14 percent after the speech but falling back to 10 percent in the next poll.34 Among all Republican voters, Romney’s speech appeared to have a negligible effect on his standing, as he remained on 14 percent, still some distance behind Giuliani but on a level with the other main challengers for the nomination.35 Barack Obama would demonstrate how a major speech on a fundamental yet potentially controversial defining characteristic of a candidate can invigorate a campaign when he addressed race in a speech in March 2008; Romney’s attempt to engage with his faith failed to generate anything like the same column inches, blogosphere buzz, or public discussion. For a significant number of Republican voters, his religious beliefs were regarded as a problem, and no single speech was going to change that. Romney’s campaign had other problems. For all his charisma and all-American good looks, the doubts raised about his faith were compounded by concerns over his credentials as a northeastern Republican. Like Giuliani, he struggled with the base of the party because of some of his policy positions and suspicions that he was quite simply “not one of us.” Giuliani scoffed that Romney had been governor of “Taxachusetts,” fears were expressed over the nature of Romney’s proposals for health care reform, and he was accused of having f lip-f lopped on issues such as abortion and gay rights in order to appear more conservative than had been politically expedient in Massachusetts.36 These doubts were ref lected in Romney’s struggle to raise funds and his need to pump some $35 million of his personal fortune into his campaign coffers. Romney faltered as Huckabee and McCain gained important early victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. He did win the Wyoming and Nevada caucuses and, more important, the primary in Michigan, the state of his birth. But he came in a distant third in South Carolina, the

54

Trevor B. McCrisken

first major Southern state, where the conservative evangelical votes he had courted so heavily went largely to Huckabee, who secured almost twice as many votes as Romney, with McCain coming in first. Romney then lost to McCain in Florida, meaning that he went into the new Super Tuesday on February 5 trailing McCain as the new frontrunner, who had also received the boost of Rudy Giuliani’s endorsement when he dropped out of the race. Romney won the Maine caucus and then picked up seven more states on February 5 (Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah). McCain had won only two states more than Romney at this stage, but the winner-takes-all nature of the Republican contests in most states meant he was pulling ahead. By the end of Super Tuesday, McCain had 680 of the 1,191 delegates he needed to win the nomination at the Republican National Convention, and Romney had only 270. Huckabee was also still in the race, with his 176 delegates so far, meaning that Romney faced tough odds to catch up with McCain while continuing to compete with Huckabee for the conservative base of the party.37 He judged it to be a bridge too far and suspended his campaign on February 7. Whereas faith and electoral politics made uneasy partners for Mitt Romney, they proved the lynchpin of Mike Huckabee’s unexpected early success story on the Republican campaign trail. Huckabee gained in popularity throughout the pre-primary season largely because he had what appeared to be unassailable conservative and religious credentials. These credentials increasingly marked him out as a credible choice for those social conservatives and evangelicals who were struggling to find a viable candidate among the field. Huckabee performed extremely well in the early races, beginning with a stunning victory over Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses. Huckabee was highly likable, charming, and witty, with a down-toearth, extemporaneous speaking style that connected well with audiences both at the stump and during his many popular television talk show appearances. He explained his appeal in simple terms that also suggested he was in touch with “average Americans” as the country’s economic situation worsened: “People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off.” His “folksy” appeal was sealed by his playing the electric bass guitar in a classic American rock band called Capitol Offense and during various television appearances, including on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.38 Unlike McCain and Romney, whose appeal increased with the age of the voter, Huckabee drew


55

greater support among voters aged eighteen to thirty-four and thirtyfive to fifty-four than he did among older voters.39 Crucially, though, Huckabee appealed directly to the party’s evangelical supporters. Huckabee was an ordained Southern Baptist minister and televangelist before entering politics and becoming governor of Arkansas. He had studied at a Baptist university in Arkansas and attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. His positions on social issues were unequivocal: he stood firmly against abortion and same-sex marriage, where Romney had appeared inconsistent. Huckabee ran a quiet but effective campaign on a shoestring budget, with very little money being raised, a limited staff of only “a campaign manager, a press secretary and his daughter,” and none of the usual resources of a modern campaign such as “polls, focus groups or expert briefings.” 40 Huckabee made up for this lack of traditional campaign resources by personally working up informal networks of fellow pastors and evangelicals, particularly in Iowa, not only the site of the first Republican contest but also a state with a sizable evangelical vote. Huckabee also gained endorsements and active support from significant evangelicals, most notably Tim LaHaye, one of the authors of the best-selling Left Behind series of novels about the “end times.” 41 As the New York Times put it, Mike Huckabee “rode a crest of evangelical Christian support to victory” in the Iowa caucuses. He won 34.4 percent of the votes in the state, beating Mitt Romney, his closest contender, by more than 10,000 votes. A poll of people entering the Republican caucuses found that 80 percent of Huckabee’s supporters in the state identified themselves as evangelicals. Evangelical turnout was also up some twenty points on previous years, with 60 percent of Republican caucus goers claiming to be evangelicals.42 Huckabee’s strong showing because of evangelical voters in Iowa was also ref lected in his national numbers: he ended 2007 and began 2008 as the first choice among the candidates of “highly religious” Republican voters. His numbers and his lead among this group peaked immediately after his victory in Iowa, with 33 percent of highly religious Republicans preferring him over all other candidates, support that was more than twice as strong as that for any of his challengers. It is revealing, however, that by mid-January, although Huckabee’s support among the highly religious remained relatively unchanged at 30 percent, John McCain had closed the gap among this group to only four points, with 26 percent support in the wake of his victory in the New Hampshire primary.43

56

Trevor B. McCrisken

Huckabee’s failure to capitalize and build upon his victory in Iowa demonstrated that although appealing to the conservative base and the evangelical vote could be a distinct advantage, it was not in and of itself enough to secure the nomination. What undermined Huckabee’s bid for the presidency, despite his strong conservative credentials and the evangelical vote, was that his support and the states he won were concentrated within the so-called Bible belt, and he struggled to make a significant dent in McCain’s broader appeal and growing support in northern and western states, particularly those with the biggest cache of delegate votes available. As Gallup concluded, “Huckabee’s ability to do well in a state’s GOP primary is highly related to how religious that state is,” 44 measured specifically by the level of church attendance in the state. Huckabee won Iowa because of the high number of regular churchattending Republicans who turned out in the caucuses. In contrast, he came a disappointing third in New Hampshire, where weekly church attendance among Republicans is considerably lower than the national average (39 percent nationally, and only 24 percent in New Hampshire). Exit polls showed clearly how reliant on highly religious voters he was. He secured 34 percent of the vote among those who attended church more than once a week, more than any of his opponents. Among those who attended church less than once a week, however, Huckabee received only 6 percent of the vote. In Florida also, where weekly church attendance is slightly below the national average for Republicans, Huckabee performed less well, coming in in fourth place, narrowly behind Giuliani but far behind Romney and the primary winner, John McCain.45 Even in highly religious states, Huckabee’s appeal was not necessarily enough to defeat the growing strength of the McCain campaign. South Carolina, for example, has the highest estimated church attendance in the United States. Among those who attend church weekly in South Carolina, Huckabee beat McCain by a 43 percent to 27 percent margin, yet Huckabee’s strong showing among the most religious of voters did not prevent him from losing the state by three points to John McCain.46 Huckabee did chalk up further victories on Super Tuesday in the states with the highest levels of church attendance— Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee—and also surprised Romney with his victory in West Virginia. After winning Louisiana and Kansas on February 9, Huckabee kept his campaign alive for almost a month longer but suffered a series of heavy defeats by McCain. Huckabee conceded on March 4, 2008, after McCain had secured 1,289 delegate


57

votes to win the nomination and Huckabee had secured only 267 delegates. Huckabee defied expectations by outperforming candidates who had greater existing name recognition, whose campaign funds were far superior, and who had far greater organizational resources. Where Giuliani and Romney in particular had suffered as a result of their inability to appeal to or subdue the concerns of evangelical voters, Huckabee drew his greatest support from this group. His candidacy proved that the evangelical vote was a strong and inf luential aspect of Republican electoral politics. However, Huckabee’s inability to secure victories outside those states with highly religious Republican voters also demonstrated the limitations of the power of conservative white evangelicals within the Republican Party. Their support alone is not enough to secure any candidate the nomination of the party for president. Although the religious right and social conservatives cannot be ignored, a successful bid for the Republican nomination needs to have broader appeal and must in particular win votes from the more moderate supporters of the party. In 2008, that successful candidate was Senator John McCain of Arizona. McCain: The Winner Takes It All John McCain was an unlikely character to emerge as the party’s choice for presidential candidate in 2008. In his long career in the U.S. Senate, McCain built for himself a reputation as a “maverick”: a free-speaking, antiestablishment advocate of campaign finance reform, an opponent of “pork barrel” politics, and a supporter of immigration reform. Although his roll-call record demonstrated that he voted conservatively far more than his critics would suggest, McCain was more than willing to ally himself with liberal Democrats to advance his reform agenda and to oppose the “moneyed interests” he believed dominated much of Congress. McCain’s “outsider” status had been used against him in his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. In a bitter battle with George W. Bush during the early primary season, McCain had also been subjected to a series of personal attacks and a relentless smear campaign that made accusations about his fidelity, his sexuality, and his mental stability, ultimately casting doubt on his viability as a candidate and contributing to his defeat.47 Not only did these weaknesses and the potential for further smears remain, but by the time of the 2008

58

Trevor B. McCrisken

election McCain would be seventy-two years old, making him the oldest American to be elected to a first term as president were he successful in his bid for the White House. He had also had surgery for melanoma, leaving concerns over his future health and vigor. The odds appeared stacked against McCain’s candidacy, yet he had strong positives also. He was a veteran navy pilot who had spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war in north Vietnam, demonstrating great valor and courage in the face of brutal treatment and abuse at the hands of his captors. His military experiences had caused him to focus substantially on foreign affairs as a U.S. Senator, such that he could lay claim to being the most experienced foreign policy expert among the Republican candidates—an asset he felt was critical during what he maintained was a time of war. He could also point to his maverick status as a way to distance himself when necessary from the Bush administration and to appeal not only to moderates within the party but also to the independents who were eligible to vote in some of the nominating contests. McCain’s was the first name to rise to the top of polls in late 2006 and early 2007 investigating whom Republicans would select as their candidate, though at that early stage the main response was “don’t know.” 48 As 2007 progressed, however, McCain’s name fell away as the greatest interest was generated around Giuliani and Thompson. By September 2007, following internal wrangling and changes in his campaign team, McCain’s fortunes had fallen so far that he set out on a three-state “No Surrender” tour on a bus with the call to arms emblazoned on its side. The catchphrase was designed to draw attention to two major points: first, McCain’s campaign was not over and he was ready to battle hard to ensure he was successful; second, it drew attention to what McCain regarded as his greatest strength—his position on Iraq.49 By mid-2007, the Iraq war had been going on for more than four years, had claimed the lives of more than 3,500 U.S. forces, and had reached a new high of 62 percent of Americans saying the war was a mistake.50 Nonetheless, McCain was adamant that the United States had to remain in Iraq and strive to see through its policies and achieve “victory.” McCain had been an early critic of Bush’s war in Iraq, but not because he opposed the war. Rather, McCain was convinced the United States had failed from the beginning to send sufficient numbers of U.S. troops into Iraq to control the situation and then bring about stability and security for the Iraqis. He had advocated the deployment of larger numbers of troops long before the Bush administration adopted its “surge” strategy, and he spent most of 2007 trying to convince people


59

that it was the correct policy and that it would work. Public approval of the surge was low throughout its first six months, showing signs of improvement but rising to only 31 percent by early August.51 As with all polling on the Iraq war, however, opinion was deeply divided along party lines, with Democrats deeply opposed to the war and the surge and Republicans highly supportive. Among Republicans there was 60 percent approval for the surge in August 2007, almost twice the national average, and 76 percent of Republicans maintained that going to war in Iraq had not been a mistake.52 Such figures suggested that McCain’s position on Iraq would have far greater resonance among the Republican voters he needed to win the party’s nomination than it would in the country at large. Indeed, in July 2007, although he was trailing badly in national polls for the nomination, McCain was trusted by 67 percent of Republicans to handle the war in Iraq effectively, only eight points behind the national frontrunner, Giuliani. McCain, therefore, chose an effective strategy with his “No Surrender” campaign, and the positive results were obvious immediately, with his September polling figures being the highest he had achieved for four months. He stood third still but was twelve points behind Giuliani and only four points behind Thompson.53 Despite taking some bad knocks, McCain had kept his campaign alive, and he ended the year still a viable candidate, with good name recognition and, despite some question marks over his conservatism, strong credentials on national security and defense. Although he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, the result left the Republican establishment wondering whether John McCain might not be their best bet for the nomination. Giuliani’s refusal to campaign properly in contests before Florida had seen his star fade badly, Romney was wounded by his defeat in Iowa and the continuing doubts over the role of his faith, Thompson was failing to generate enthusiasm, and the triumphant Huckabee was nevertheless not expected to sustain the same level of support in states with fewer evangelical voters. McCain then performed what the New York Times characterized as a “Lazarus-like” comeback in New Hampshire, winning the state that had also kick-started his campaign in 2000. After the serious setbacks to his campaign in mid-2007, McCain worked tirelessly to win support in New Hampshire, making countless appearances in the state and holding multiple town-hall meetings. Mike Dennehy, McCain’s campaign director in the state, estimated that his candidate must have spoken directly with 25,000 people during his visits. This personalized strategy paid off, with McCain securing the votes of 38 percent of

60

Trevor B. McCrisken

Republican voters and, crucially, the same proportion of unaffiliated “independent” voters.54 McCain’s victory in New Hampshire catapulted him to the front of the Republican pack in tracking polls and gave him the frontrunner status that had been out of reach during the previous year. A CNN/ Opinion Research Corp. poll saw McCain’s rating jump twenty-one points to 34 percent of registered Republicans, and Gallup saw his popularity leap to 33 percent among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.55 Winning the New Hampshire primary can be crucial in building momentum for presidential nomination hopefuls; indeed, from 1952 to 1988 no candidate won the presidential election without first winning their party’s primary in New Hampshire. Given the weaknesses of the other candidates in the field, McCain’s victory put him in a significantly stronger position going into the next few contests. He faltered in Michigan, losing to Romney, who benefited from voters’ concerns about the economy, but he came back strongly with further victories in South Carolina and Florida. By Super Tuesday, on February 5, it had become clear that among McCain’s key advantages over his opponents were the perceptions that he was the most experienced candidate and that he had the greatest chance of beating either Clinton or Obama in the November election. Polling in the two biggest Super Tuesday states, California and New York, revealed that in both states McCain led Romney, Huckabee, and Giuliani by some distance on the ability to “get things done in Washington,” on having the best chance of beating a Democrat in the presidential election, on standing up for what he believed in, and on being in touch with the American people.56 Credibility and electability were measures by which, for all the problems analyzed above, the other candidates were failing to meet voters’ expectations. On Super Tuesday, McCain went on to win handsomely in New York, was a strong winner in California, and took Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, and Oklahoma. The winner-takes-all rules in most of these states meant that he raced ahead of Mitt Romney in the delegate count, causing the former Massachusetts governor to withdraw from the race. McCain’s Super Tuesday victories and the withdrawal of Romney virtually assured that he would become the Republican Party’s nominee, with Huckabee staying in the race only until catching McCain became a mathematical impossibility. Yet on the day Romney stepped out of the race it was apparent that McCain was far from the unambiguous choice of everyone in the party. Romney announced the suspension


61

of his campaign at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 7, 2008, before a stunned audience who booed at the mention of John McCain. The Arizona senator addressed the same convention two hours later and was greeted by jeers as well as cheers as he tried to convince the audience that he was a conservative whom they could trust. McCain’s positions on campaign finance laws and immigration, as well as his voting record against tax cuts and a Constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, continued to trouble the right within the party, with some conservative leaders, including Tom DeLay, publicly expressing doubts that they could vote for McCain in the general election.57 The lack of enthusiasm for McCain’s emergence as the presumptive nominee for the party was also apparent in public opinion polling, with only a slim majority of Republicans (51 percent) telling Gallup in February 2008 that they would be satisfied if he won their party’s nomination.58 By June, only 37 percent of Republicans said in a CNN poll that they were either “extremely” or “very enthusiastic” about voting in the presidential election, compared with 63 percent of Democrats.59 Conclusion John McCain rose to the top of a field of candidates for the Republican nomination for president all of whom were problematic in one way or another to large numbers of Republican voters. No single candidate had been able to draw unequivocal support from all of the disparate wings of the party’s support. The conservative base, and in particular its evangelical core, had shown themselves particularly difficult to please. Giuliani’s social positions and personal lifestyle had proved largely unacceptable to this group, and his choice not to campaign in the earliest contests had only exasperated those hoping he could bridge the gap with conservatives by talking tough on domestic and international security. Mitt Romney was suspected of not being a “true believer” in social conservative positions, as he had shifted opinion across the years, and a sizable number of Republicans could not accept the idea of voting for a Mormon. Despite taking strong conservative positions, Fred Thompson had campaigned ineffectually and had not combated effectively Internet and talk radio chatter about his second wife. Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney each saw their chances of taking the nomination slip away from them as they failed to garner sufficient support in the first few contests of the primary season. Mike Huckabee was the exception to the rule, emerging as the clear choice

62

Trevor B. McCrisken

of evangelical voters. His candidacy also demonstrated, however, that despite the obvious power of this group within the party, winning the nomination required the ability to appeal more broadly to less religious Republican voters. John McCain, therefore, emerged as the winner, despite the doubts, concerns, and even opposition of the conservative core, because he was able to establish this wider appeal with a combination of name recognition, experience of Washington, willingness to stand up for positions he believed in, such as “winning” the Iraq war, and ability to connect with the public through his highly personalized style of campaigning. He was also helped greatly by the winner-takesall rules of the Republican primary and caucus contests in most states, which enabled him rapidly to build up a significant lead in the number of committed delegates who would vote for him at the Republican National Convention. McCain faced many problems ahead on March 4, 2008, however, as he looked ahead to the Republican National Convention in September as the presumptive nominee of his party. He needed to find a way to placate the doubts of the conservative base of the party while also broadening his appeal among the moderates and independents he would need to win the election in November. With the economy worsening, he needed to find a way to keep his national security agenda at the forefront of discussion, because it was held to be his greatest policy asset. With the Democratic Party nomination still being contested between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, he also needed to find ways to attract the media spotlight as the front pages turned their focus to the fascinating battle to determine who his general election opponent would be. “The contest begins tonight!” he proclaimed triumphantly after winning the nomination, but McCain’s path to the presidency was not an enviable one by any measure. Notes 1. See, for example, Peter Beinart, “When Right Is Wrong,” The New Republic, April 24, 2006, www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=bbaf 70a5-ef bb-4e87-8144-a2afe5ed0c2d. 2. Lydia Saad, “No Improvement in Job Scores for Bush or Congress: Approval Ratings Hold Steady at Previous Levels from December,” Gallup, January 10, 2008, www.gallup.com/ poll/103675/Improvement-Job-Scores-Bush-Congress.aspx. 3. Ibid. Only 7 percent of Democrats approved of Bush’s presidency in January 2008, but 20 percent of independents supported the president. 4. Gary Langer, “Republican Enthusiasm Is Low: Republican Contenders Meet in Iowa for First Network Debate Sunday,” ABC News, August 5, 2007, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ story?id=3444367&page=1.


63

5. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Giuliani Leads, Four More at or above 10% in GOP Contest,” Gallup Poll, November 16, 2007, www.gallup.com/poll/102751/Giuliani-Leads-Four-OthersDouble-Digits-GOP-Nomination.aspx. 6. Quoted in Jennifer Steinhauer, “A Nation Challenged: The Mayor; In Crisis, Giuliani’s Popularity Overf lows City,” New York Times, September 20, 2001, http://query.nytimes. com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9805E7DA103BF933A1575AC0A9679C8B63. 7. “Giuliani Receives Honorary Knighthood,” BBC News, February 13, 2002, http://news. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1817333.stm; Rudy Giuliani, “Honorable Rudy Giuliani, Former Mayor of the City of New York,” 2004 Republican National Convention, New York, August 30, 2004, www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/repconv04/giuliani083004sp.html. 8. Amanda Ripley, “Behind Giuliani’s Tough Talk,” Time, August 22, 2007, www.time.com/ time/nation/article/0,8599,1655262,00.html. 9. Ibid. 10. Matt Bai, “America’s Mayor Goes to America,” New York Times Magazine, September 9, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/magazine/09Giuliani-t.html. 11. David Cook, “Giuliani’s Popularity in ’08 Race Alarms Conservative Religious Leaders,” Christian Science Monitor, October 11, 2007, www.csmonitor.com/2007/1011/p25s01-usmb. html. 12. David D. Kirkpatrick and Michael Cooper, “Pat Robertson Surprises with Endorsement of Giuliani,” International Herald Tribune, November 8, 2007, www.iht.com/articles/2007/ 11/08/america/campaign.php. 13. Marc Santora, “Video by Firefighters’ Union Urges Opposition to Giuliani,” New York Times, July 12, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/us/politics/12giuliani.html?_r=1. 14. Ripley, “Behind Giuliani’s Tough Talk.” 15. Tom Curry, “Winner-Take-All: Bonus or Bust for Giuliani?” MSNBC, January 18, 2008, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22718118. 16. “McCain Wins Florida, Giuliani Expected to Drop Out,” CNNPolitics.com, January 30, 2009, www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/29/f l.primary/index.html. 17. John Solomon, “In On-Line Writings, Thompson Flashes His Conservative Credentials,” Washington Post, July 27, 2007, A06. 18. Susan Saulny, “Will Her Face Determine His Fortune?” New York Times, July 8, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/fashion/08JERI.html. 19. Holly Bailey, “Not-So-Hidden Power,” Newsweek, August 13, 2007, 34. 20. Martilla Communications Group/Anti-Defamation League, “American Attitudes on Religion, Moral Values and Hollywood,” October 2008, www.adl.org/hollywood_poll_ 2008/hollywood_poll.pdf. This poll was conducted on behalf of a group dedicated to stopping anti-Semitism, but the sample polled was demographically representative of the national U.S. population. 21. Michael Falcone, “Obama Gets ‘Celebrity Treatment’ in New McCain Ad,” The Caucus, New York Times blog, July 30, 2008, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/ obama-gets-celebrity-treatment-in-new-mccain-ad. 22. Chad Groening, “Fred Thompson—The Next Ronald Reagan?” GOPUSA.com, March 20, 2007, www.gopusa.com/news/2007/march/0320_fred_thompson.shtml. 23. Tim Reid, “Lacklustre Fred Thompson Quits, Leaving the Rest to Battle for Evangelical Vote,” The Times, January 23, 2008, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_ americas/us_elections/article3234366.ece. 24. See, for example, Steve Bruce, The Rise and Fall of the New Christian Right: Conservative Protestant Politics in America, 1978–1988 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); John C. Green, Mark J. Rozell, and Clyde Wilcox, eds., The Christian Right in American Politics: Marching to the Millennium (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003); E. J. Dionne Jr., Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Kayla M. Drogosz, eds., One Electorate Under God? A Dialogue on Religion and American Politics (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2004).

64

Trevor B. McCrisken

25. “Religion and the Presidential Vote: Bush’s Gains Broad-Based”, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, December 6, 2004, http://people-press.org/commentary/? analysisid=103. 26. Alan Cooperman and Thomas B. Edsall, “Evangelicals Say They Led the Charge for the GOP,” Washington Post, November 8, 2004, A01. 27. Perry Bacon Jr., “Romney Reaches to the Christian Right,” Washington Post, May 6, 2007, A04. 28. “Why We Support Governor Romney,” Evangelicals for Romney Web site, www. evangelicalsformitt.org/why.php. 29. Scott Keeter and Gregory Smith, “How the Public Perceives Romney, Mormons,” Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, December 4, 2007, http://pewforum.org/docs/? DocID=267. 30. Ibid. 31. Zev Chafets, “The Huckabee Factor,” New York Times Magazine, December 12, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/magazine/16huckabee.html. 32. “Text: Romney’s ‘Faith in America’ Address,” New York Times, December 6, 2007, www. nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us/politics/06text-romney.html?ref=politics. 33. Lydia Saad, “Percentage Unwilling to Vote for a Mormon Holds Steady,” Gallup, December 11, 2007, www.gallup.com/poll/103150/Percentage-Unwilling-Vote-Mormon-HoldsSteady.aspx. 34. Frank Newport, “Huckabee, McCain Lead among Highly Religious Republicans,” Gallup, January 15, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/103750/Huckabee-McCain-Lead-AmongHighly-Religious-Republicans.aspx. 35. Lydia Saad, “Giuliani Leads GOP Race; Huckabee, Others Tie for Second,” Gallup, December 18, 2007, www.gallup.com/poll/103348/Giuliani-Leads-GOP-Race-HuckabeeOthers-Tie-Second.aspx. 36. Collin Levy, “The Prosecutor and the Salesman: Rudy and Romney Rumble over TaxCutting Credentials,” Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2007, www.opinionjournal.com/ extra/?id=110010722; Michael Dobbs, “Romney’s ‘Flip, Flop, Flip,’ ” Washington Post, December 20, 2007, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/12/mitt_ romneys_f lip_f lop_f lip.html. 37. “Election 2008: Republican Delegate Scorecard,” CNNPolitics.com, February 6, 2008, www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/scorecard/#val=R. 38. Steve Gorman, “Huckabee Jams on Leno Show,” Reuters, January 3, 2008, www.reuters. com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN0261705020080103. 39. Jeffrey M. Jones, “McCain, Romney Support Higher among Older GOP Voters,” Gallup, January 30, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/104047/McCain-Romney-Support-HigherAmong-Older-GOP-Voters.aspx. 40. Michael Luo and David D. Kirkpatrick, “At Huckabee Central, Cheers for Evangelical Base,” New York Times, January 4, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/us/politics/04repubs. html. 41. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Christian Conservatives and the Caucuses,” The Caucus, New York Times blog, January 3, 2008, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/christianconservatives-and-the-caucuses. 42. Luo and Kirkpatrick, “At Huckabee Central.” 43. Newport, “Huckabee, McCain Lead.” 44. Frank Newport, “Mike Huckabee’s Challenge: Former Arkansas Governor Dependent on Religious Vote,” Gallup, January 25, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/103957/ MikeHuckabees-Challenge.aspx. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid.


65

47. Richard H. Davis, “The Anatomy of a Smear Campaign,” Boston Globe, March 21, 2004, http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial-opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/21/the_ anatomy_of_a_smear_campaign. 48. Frank Newport, “ ‘Don’t Know’ Leads for President in 2008,” Gallup, December 5, 2006, www.gallup.com/poll/25738/Dont-Know-Leads-President-2008.aspx. 49. Michael Cooper, “Dispatches from the ‘No Surrender’ Bus,” The Caucus, New York Times blog, September 14, 2007, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/dispatches-from-theno-surrender-bus. 50. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Latest Poll Shows High Point in Opposition to Iraq War,” Gallup, July 11, 2007, www.gallup.com/poll/28099/Latest-Poll-Shows-High-Point-Opposition-IraqWar.aspx. 51. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Public Optimism about US Troop Surge in Iraq Improves but Remains Low,” Gallup, August 8, 2007, www.gallup.com/poll/28330/Public-Optimism-AboutUS-Troop-Surge-Iraq-Improves-Remains-Low.aspx. 52. Frank Newport, Jeffrey M. Jones, and Joseph Carroll, “Gallup Poll Review: Key Points about Public Opinion on Iraq,” Gallup, August 14, 2007, www.gallup.com/poll/28390/ Gallup-Poll-Review-Key-Points-About-Public-Opinion-Iraq.aspx. 53. Frank Newport and Joseph Carroll, “GOP Update: McCain Gains While Romney Fades,” Gallup, September 18, 2007, www.gallup.com/poll/28702/GOP-Update-McCain-GainsWhile-Romney-Fades.aspx. 54. Patrick Healy and Michael Cooper, “Clinton Stuns Obama; McCain Wins,” New York Times, January 8, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/us/politics/08cnd-campaign. html?hp. 55. Paul Steinhauser, “Poll: New Hampshire Win Rockets McCain to Front-Runner Status,” CNNPolitics.com, January 11, 2008, www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/11/2008.poll/ index.html; Lydia Saad, “Clinton and McCain On Top Following New Hampshire,” Gallup, January 14, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/103735/Clinton-McCain-Top-Following-NewHampshire.aspx. 56. Jeffrey M. Jones, “McCain’s Experience an Asset in New York, California,” Gallup, January 29, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/104008/McCains-Experience-Asset-New-YorkCalifornia.aspx. 57. Elisabeth Bumiller and David D. Kirkpatrick, “Romney Is Out; McCain Emerges as GOP Choice,” New York Times, February 8, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/us/ politics/08campaign.html. 58. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Democrats Much More Enthused about Their Candidates: Six in 10 Democrats Believe Clinton, Obama Better Than Most Prior Candidates,” Gallup, February 12, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/104305/Democrats-Much-More-Enthused-About-TheirCandidates.aspx. 59. Paul Steinhauser, “Poll: Republican Support, Enthusiasm Down,” CNN Politics.com, June 13, 2008, www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/13/poll.republicans/index.html.


CH A P T E R

T H R E E

Third Parties Wi l l i am C. B i nni ng

Presidential elections in the United States were not always or only held between Democrats and Republicans. A number of minor parties and independent presidential campaigns have inf luenced American presidential elections. Indeed, the Republican Party was an outsider itself at one time. The Republican Party replaced the Whig Party as the second major party in 1854. That replacement has not been repeated, and the same two major parties have dominated presidential elections since then. The smaller parties have nevertheless remained important. In the twentieth century, minor political parties and independent presidential candidates had an impact on which major party candidate was elected and had occasional inf luence on public policy. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party helped to weaken the Republican candidate, William Howard Taft, and elect Woodrow Wilson. There are those who maintain that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the candidacy of Ralph Nader in 2000, who also ran in 2004 and 2008, contributed to the controversial defeat of Al Gore.1 In 1992, the quixotic billionaire Ross Perot garnered 19 percent of the vote, a historically significant accomplishment for an independent candidate. It is disputed whether Perot contributed to the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, but there is no dispute that Perot’s candidacy focused the attention of both major political parties on the annual budget deficit and the national debt of the United States. Clinton ended his presidency with a budget surplus. The inf luence of third parties is limited by the reliance on firstpast-the-post or plurality electoral systems of different types across the

68

William C. Binning

United States. The U.S. electoral college is actually fifty-six separate simple-majority ballot systems (the District of Columbia has three votes in the electoral college, and Nebraska 2 and Maine award electors by congressional districts). The challenge such systems represent was best characterized by Maurice Duverger. He argued that the two-party systems in the United States and other nations are explained by the fact that the “simple majority single ballot systems favors the two-party system.”3 One part of his explanation of how this electoral system limits the growth of minor parties is what Duverger called the psychological factor. He wrote, “In cases where there are three parties operating under the simple-majority single ballot system the electors soon realize that their votes are wasted if they continue to give them to a third party.” 4 They transfer their vote to the lesser of the two evils. Modern pollsters claim to be able to see this in their survey data. In 2008, Scott Rasmussen, of the well-known and well-respected Rasmussen polling firm, restated Duverger’s thesis in an interview with Politico. In the matter of the role of third parties in 2008, he argued that if the race remained close, anything could make the difference. He said that in the 2008 election, both Nader and Barr were slipping in the polls and that “people who are unhappy with a candidate say they will vote for a third party, but they get more dissatisfied with the possibility of helping the greater evil win as the election gets closer.”5 Duverger’s thesis may not be a scientific law; however, it is a powerful explanation for the lack of significant success of minor parties in the United States. Moreover, it is not the only constraint that smaller parties face. In addition to the bias of the electoral law, there are a number of other barriers to minor parties in the United States, including discriminatory state ballot access laws, campaign finance laws, costly legal challenges by the two major parties, and, recently, the rules for participation in U.S. presidential debates. These challenges are discussed below. The Candidates Who Did Not Run In 2008, a number of what promised to be significant independent presidential campaigns did not materialize. One of the first efforts was Unity 08, founded in 2006, a so-called bipartisan political movement that intended to nominate a presidential ticket on the Internet. It was founded by three well-known political operatives: Democrat Hamilton Jordan, a leading operative in the surprising nomination

Third Parties

69

of Jimmy Carter in 1976; Gerald Rafshoon, a former Carter administration communication director; and Doug Bailey, a renowned Republican political consultant. Unity 08 maintained that their polling data suggested Americans were weary of the bickering of the two existing political parties, did not believe those parties were capable of making the necessary changes for the nation, and were open to a bipartisan ticket. The organization recruited the well-recognized Sam Waterson of NBC TV’s Law and Order to make television ads. Unity 08 bought nationally televised ads that featured Waterson calling on citizens to sign up for the movement on the Internet. Those who signed up were to be delegates to a virtual nominating convention. The selected Internet-nominated candidate would have to agree to pick a vice presidential running mate from the other party. One person who indicated a slight interest in the Unity 08 nomination was former Georgia senator Sam Nunn. Other possible candidates included the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, and Nebraska’s Republican senator and Bush critic Chuck Hagel. The Unity 08 Internet delegates would also determine this political ticket’s platform. The Unity 08 group expected to be treated as a nonprofit organization under federal campaign and tax laws; however, the Federal Elections Commission ruled that Unity 08 was a “political committee” and had to abide by the relevant federal campaign finance laws. In January 2008, Unity 08 was disbanded, claiming the Federal Elections Commission ruling was the cause. Unity 08 sought relief from the commission’s decision, but the ruling was upheld by a U.S. district court in October 2008. Two Unity 08 founders, Bailey and Rafshoon, joined the Draft Bloomberg movement. The most interesting independent presidential campaign exploration in 2008 was that of Michael Bloomberg. He had a fortune estimated at more than $11 billion, which he made from Bloomberg L.P., a financial information services company. That money gave him the opportunity to run expansive campaigns for political office. Bloomberg was first elected mayor of New York City as a Republican in 2001. In that race, he spent an estimated $79 million of his own money. He spent $85 million of his own money in his reelection bid of 2005. The expectation was that, like Ross Perot, Bloomberg, as an independent presidential candidate, would spend in the neighborhood of $1 billion of his own money if he entered the 2008 presidential election. That, coupled with the fact that he would likely put the state of New York in play, made him a very formidable independent presidential candidate. He, and more particularly his skillful aides, kept his name in the news and

70

William C. Binning

created continued speculation about his presidential candidacy, even though he publicly denied having any interest in running. The rumors started early in the nominating process and well before the national campaign. In June 2007, Bloomberg fueled speculation that he was considering running as an independent presidential candidate when he announced that he was no longer a member of the Republican Party and was now an independent. There was more than mere speculation to this growing story, as Bloomberg’s top aides began to explore ballot access issues for independent candidates and to conduct surveys to determine Bloomberg’s chance of winning. His aides argued that although this potential bid by Bloomberg was similar to the personally financed bid of Ross Perot, Bloomberg’s chances of winning were greater because, unlike Perot, Bloomberg was a tested politician. He had been elected and reelected in the challenging New York City media market. In addition, he was given credit in many circles for his successful performance-based management style. In December 2007, Bloomberg had traveled to China and spoken at a climate control conference in Bali, Indonesia. The prospective Bloomberg candidacy picked up momentum in early 2008 when Bloomberg went to Texas to meet with Clay Mulford, an expert in ballot access issues for third-party presidential candidates. Mulford had been the campaign manager for Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996. Bloomberg’s pro–gun control, pro–gay marriage, and pro-choice positions put him much closer to the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. If he ran, it was expected his campaign would look to typically Democratic states such as California and New York for electoral college votes. The national press speculation about a Bloomberg presidential bid reached a peak in early January 2008 when Bloomberg attended a meeting with a dozen or so former national leaders to discuss forming “a ‘government of national unity’ to end gridlock in Washington.” 6 The meeting was held on January 7 at the University of Oklahoma. The host of the meeting was the president of that university, David L. Boren, a former U.S. senator from Oklahoma; other notables included former senators San Nunn (D-Georgia), Charles Robb (D-Virginia), Gary Hart (D-Colorado), John Danforth (R-Missouri), and William S. Cohen (R-Maine). This group was critical of the extreme partisanship in Washington DC. Boren denied that the group was designed to persuade any one person to run for president. Bloomberg was the center of attention at this meeting and spoke to the interests of those in attendance by stating that “what has changed is that people have stopped

Third Parties

71

working together” and that government has become “dysfunctional.” The meeting enjoyed considerable attention from the Washington Post and the New York Times. A more definitive announcement by Bloomberg of his candidacy was anticipated at this meeting; however, that announcement did not materialize. As time dragged on, Bloomberg’s unannounced candidacy came under increasing criticism from the editorial pages of the New York newspapers as well as the Wall Street Journal, one of whose columnists, John Fund, wrote a scathing editorial piece entitled “Mayor McTease” and said that “the Mike Bloomberg presidential boom-let has become politics longest tease.” 7 The explanation for this delay may lie in the numbers. The public opinion polling data were not very favorable to Bloomberg: national polls indicated that he was not well known, and New York polls showed mixed feelings about his candidacy. Whatever the reason, the expectation that Bloomberg would make a presidential bid began to falter. Mayor Bloomberg’s last teasing comments were his defense of Ralph Nader’s announced candidacy, when Bloomberg said Nader was not a “spoiler” and that Nader had every right to run. Bloomberg said, “I’ve just never understood why, just because you’re a member of a party, you have special rights.”8 These comments led many to speculate that Bloomberg was really speaking about his own candidacy and would soon enter the race. That speculation ended quickly when Bloomberg wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times on February 28, 2008, in which he said he was not running but argued for the independent approach to issues that he had been advocating. That was the end of the Bloomberg presidential candidacy. In the fall of 2008, Bloomberg and his forces plotted to circumvent New York City’s two-term limit on the office of mayor so that he could run for a third term. The Role of Third-Party Presidential Candidates in the 2008 Presidential Election Despite the aborted Unity 08 campaign and the end of the Bloomberg candidacy, a number of minor parties and independents did run for president in 2008. Initially, the party and the candidate that received the most attention from the press and in measured Google searches was the Libertarian Party candidate, Bob Barr.9 Barr had served as a Republican member of the House of Representatives and gained some national attention when he served on the House Judiciary Committee during

72

William C. Binning

the Clinton impeachment proceedings. He joined the Libertarian Party two years before he sought its presidential nomination. Bob Barr and the Libertarians The Libertarian Party was founded in 1971 and nominated its first presidential candidate in 1972, when it received a mere 3,674 votes. Its best showing was in 1980, when its candidate, Ed Clark, got 1.06 percent of the national vote. The Libertarian Party’s principles are based on the writings of Ayn Rand, whose most notable work is Atlas Shrugged. The book promoted an antistate and antigovernment planning philosophy. The Libertarians’ first choice for their 2008 party nomination was Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. Paul ran a surprisingly strong race for the Republican nomination for president in 2008, attracting numerous voters and campaign contributions. When Paul made it clear he was not going to run as a Libertarian but would instead seek reelection as the Republican congressman from the fourteenth district in Texas, the Libertarians turned to Bob Barr. Barr announced his candidacy for the Libertarian nomination only ten days before the Libertarian Party convention, which was held in Denver, Colorado, on May 23 and 24. The fit between Barr and the Libertarian Party was not perfect. Barr had to change a number of his previous policy positions and persuade skeptical convention delegates that his conversion was sincere. He had to change his position on medical use of marijuana, favored by many Libertarians. Barr had been a proponent of the war on drugs and now had to recant that error in judgment. Another past policy position Barr had to change was his support for the Patriot Act, which Libertarians saw as a threat to the individual freedoms they espoused. He also had to abandon support for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Libertarians are skeptical of any government regulation of private behavior. Barr overcame most of his detractors and became the Libertarian Party nominee after five convention ballots. Barr and the Libertarians hoped they could capture the votes and the financial support enjoyed by Ron Paul in the Republican presidential GOP primary. Paul had garnered more than 1 million votes and raised $35 million. Barr’s Web site was designed by the same team that designed Ron Paul’s Web site. However, Barr did not gain the same level of support, and Ron Paul was reluctant to endorse Barr, even though Paul did not embrace his party’s nominee, John McCain.

Third Parties

73

In the spring of 2008, there was endless speculation about the states in which Barr might drain votes away from McCain and help Obama. Ben Smith of Politico reported that David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, entered this game of speculation by suggesting that Alaska10 was “one of the states where we think Barr can get 6, 7, and 8 percent.” Plouffe also pointed to Georgia and said, “Barr will get some votes [in Georgia]. If Barr were to get two percent in most states, our belief is he’ll get four percent here, most of it coming out of McCain’s hide.”11 Barr’s candidacy did move the Obama campaign to spend money and hire staff to campaign in Georgia. As late as early August, the Obama campaign was hiring more field staff to work in Georgia. The Obama campaign hoped that, as a former Georgian congressman, Bob Barr’s potential drain on McCain’s vote and the sizable African American population in the state would result in an Obama win in Georgia, which had been reliably Republican since Clinton won it with the help of Ross Perot in 1992.12 There was speculation that Barr might spoil the electoral college votes for McCain in various other states and give them to Obama. These were the states where either the Libertarians had done well in the past or Ron Paul had done well in the 2008 Republican primaries or caucuses. They included Colorado and New Hampshire, both battleground states in 2008. Barr’s message was pitched at possible McCain supporters. In a Wall Street Journal article, Barr wrote that Senator McCain cannot be trusted to pick conservative judges.13 Before Barr could present any kind of a challenge, however, he had formally to enter the race—and that meant getting on the ballot in those fifty-six electoral districts scattered across the United States. Getting on the Ballot Nomination by a minor party such as the Libertarian Party does not ensure ballot access for the candidate. In the U.S. federal system, rules for ballot access are determined and administered by state governments. State law is not very encouraging to minor parties. In fact, state laws often discriminate against minor parties. In the United States, minor parties and independent candidates spend a good deal of their energy, time, and money collecting the necessary signatures and meeting particular state requirements. If they fail to get ballot access, they often seek relief in state and federal courts. Occasionally, a minor party also has to fend off challenges to its ballot position from the major parties, who view the minor-party candidates as possible threats to their

74

William C. Binning

candidates’ chances of winning. The Democrats challenged minor parties’ petitions in 1936, 1948, 1965, 1980, and 2004.14 The Republican Party challenged a minor party’s petitions for the first time in 2008, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. In the state court, the Pennsylvania Republicans challenged the Libertarian Party’s use of a substitute candidate for their presidential petitions by circulating another person’s name and not Barr’s for signatures to qualify the party in the state. The challenge was filed by the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s county Republican chairman. On September 15, 2008, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth ruled against the challenge to Bob Barr’s substitution paperwork and allowed Barr onto the ballot.15 The Libertarians also had to go to court for relief in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Louisiana. The Libertarian Party spent time and money in federal court to seek ballot access in Ohio. In 2006, the sixth district circuit court of appeals ruled unconstitutional Ohio’s law requiring that a minor party’s petition for ballot access contain 1 percent of the last vote cast and was due an entire year before the general election. In 2007, the secretary of state said she would accept petitions submitted by late November 2007 that had half of the 1 percent of the last vote count. No minor party complied, even though the Libertarian Party made an effort. The party sought relief in federal court on the grounds that it had tried and that the Ohio law was unconstitutional, so evidence of a “modicum of support” was sufficient for ballot access. The federal court found in favor of the Libertarians, and they were given access to the 2008 Ohio ballot. In 2008, the Libertarians filed a number of court challenges to state ballot access decisions that ruled they had not qualified to be on the ballot because they had not filed the petition by the deadline or they did not have enough signatures. They sought court relief in West Virginia16 and in Maine. Barr ended up as a qualified candidate on the ballot in forty-five states. Visibility Getting on the ballot is one thing; introducing yourself to the voters is another. Part of the problem can be solved only with money to pay for organization, travel, and advertising. Bob Barr was something of a disappointment to the Libertarian Party in 2008. He was not a very successful fundraiser. Barr’s Federal Elections Commission filing in October 2008 showed that he had raised only $1.2 million.

Third Parties

75

Getting the media’s attention is another problem. Among the more curious shortcomings of Barr was his failure to appear at a national press event orchestrated by Ron Paul. Paul summoned all the minorparty candidates to a press event for what was called the “Other Ballot Choices” at the National Press Club in Washington DC on September 10, 2008. Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party and Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party appeared, as did the figure who received the greatest press attention, Ralph Nader. Later that day, Ron Paul and Ralph Nader were guests of Wolf Blitzer on CNN, where the two agreed that they would not support the candidates of the two major parties because those parties did not represent the interest of the American people. They maintained that all four minor-party candidates—Nader, Barr, McKinney, and Baldwin—agreed on four issues: (1) end the war in Iraq and bring the troops home; (2) repeal the Patriot Act; (3) end the use of deficit spending to finance imperialism abroad; and (4) rein in the Federal Reserve Board, which is out of control.17 At this event, Paul, a Republican candidate for reelection to Congress, urged voters to “reject the two candidates who demand perpetuation of the status quo and pick one of the alternatives that you have the greatest affinity to, based on issues.”18 Barr gave no reason for being a no-show at the Ron Paul event, though later he offered Paul the vice president slot on his ticket. All of this led David F. Nolan, the first chairman of the Libertarian Party, to declare, “As of yesterday afternoon, Bob Barr’s Presidential campaign is effectively over.” Nolan said there were signs of serious trouble before the no-show at Ron Paul’s news conference. He characterized Barr’s suggestion that Ron Paul join the ticket as insulting.19 Barr certainly had irritated Ron Paul, who a week later endorsed Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party for president. All hope of Libertarian candidate Barr capturing Ron Paul’s financial and electoral primary support was lost. In the closing weeks of the campaign, the Barr campaign focused on the Wall Street bailout. Such government intervention was diametrically opposed to the principles of the Libertarians, who hoped to capture the frustration of Republicans with McCain’s support of the federal government’s bailout. Ralph Nader Despite all of the early speculation about Barr and his possible impact on the outcome of the election, the minor candidate who received the most support in national polls was Ralph Nader. Some of those polls

76

William C. Binning

showed Nader draining votes from Barack Obama in some states and from John McCain in other states. In 2008, Ralph Nader, at the age of seventy-four, ran for president as an independent candidate. He announced his candidacy on the inf luential Sunday television program Meet the Press, when the late Tim Russert was still serving as the host.20 Of course, Nader has been widely criticized in Democratic political circles for, as many see it, contributing to Al Gore’s loss to Bush in 2000. The 537-vote loss in the state of Florida is a particular grievance to Democrats. Nader defended his candidacy by saying, “It’s the rational approach.” “If you’re locked out of the governmental system, if you can’t get a hearing and I can’t, you go to the electoral system. What’s my alternative? Should I go to Monterey and watch the whales?”21 He was dismissive of his past role as a spoiler and said that if the Democrats could not win in 2008, they should fold. At the time, his announcement was given no credibility by Barack Obama, who said that “a few percentage [points] of the vote going to another candidate is not going to make any difference.”22 In 2008, the Democratic Party preferred to ignore Nader rather than fight to get him kicked off the ballot. Nader’s major campaign theme over the years has been opposition to what he sees as undue corporate power in the United States. It is a campaign theme that resonated in a presidential campaign dominated by the issue of the meltdown of global financial markets. Nader maintains that corporations control the political electoral system and the Republican and Democratic political parties and that Washington is occupied by corporations. On the absence of a Canadian-style health care system, while campaigning in the battleground state of Ohio, Nader said, “Nothing is done about it in Washington other than the two parties dialing for the same corporate dollars from the same corporate crooks.”23 The Presidential Debates It is not enough for a minor-party candidate to receive the media’s attention; he or she must also be taken seriously as a candidate—and that means getting access to the presidential debates. Nader complained a great deal that he and the other alternative voices to the two major parties were excluded from the nationally televised presidential debates, which since 1976 have become one of the most significant forums in the American presidential campaign cycle. Nader expected to be excluded from the 2008 presidential debates, but that did not

Third Parties

77

stop him from complaining about it. He cited his exclusion as further evidence of the undue inf luence of corporate power in America. The Debate Commission, which is dominated by representatives of the two major parties, requires that the candidates receive 15 percent or more in recent polls to be included in the debates. This threshold is difficult, but not impossible, to cross. The last minor candidate included in a presidential debate was Ross Perot. Nader sees that 15 percent threshold rule as being directed at him, and he has campaigned constantly against the current debate format and funding. The Debate Commission is run as a nonprofit corporation and funded by corporate contributions. For Nader, this is further evidence to support his charge that corporations have excessive inf luence in American politics. Nader held rallies at both major party conventions. In one of his rally speeches, he said the biggest thing that the Republicans and Democrats have in common “is the velocity with which their knees hit the f loor when corporate interests knock on their door.”24 Various efforts were made to have the minor-party candidates debate in 2008. They received very little press attention. Nader debated with Chuck Baldwin in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 30, and the only attention that debate received was taping by C-Span. Managing Expectations Nader did not maintain that he was going to win the presidency. He fits the classic model of minor parties in the United States in this respect. Rather than trying to win, he says that he will be moving the candidates toward his issues. He argues that reform movements start small and build momentum. He hoped to reach 5 percent of the national vote in 2008. He thinks that is when his movement will be taken seriously. His campaigns have not been moving the numbers in a direction that shows momentum. In 2000, when he was running as the Green Party candidate, he collected 2.74 percent of the total national vote, or 2.88 million votes. As an independent candidate in 2004, he slipped to 0.38 percent of the national vote, or 465,560 total votes. His financial disclosure report in October 2008 showed he raised more than $4,109,285. As for Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party, the greatest hurdle for Nader’s candidacy is ballot access. In this area, Nader holds longstanding grievances against the Democratic Party. In 2007, Nader sued the party for attempting to bankrupt his campaign by challenging his petitions in eighteen states to force legal action and drain his campaign

78

William C. Binning

funds. In 2004, Nader was removed from the Pennsylvania ballot by the court for having an insufficient number of valid signatures. He needed 51,273 to qualify, and 37 percent of his signatures were deemed invalid. He owes $61,000 in legal fees for that court fight. Nader is seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages, and injunctive relief from the Democratic Party. His argument is based on the fact that those who scrutinized his petitions were Democratic legislative caucus employees who have since been indicted for doing political work while on the state payroll. Nader and his campaign spent most of their time and energy trying to qualify for the ballot in various states. In the United States, a candidate must qualify in each state separately, and each state has different requirements in terms of the number of signatures needed, who can circulate, when they can circulate, and when they have to file their petitions. Fulfilling some of the requirements is a painstaking task. Nader has made ballot access for third parties part of his platform, arguing that there is a “two-party elected dictatorship.” 25 Given the variety of problems he has faced in different parts of the country, it is easy to see why Nader has struggled for easement of ballot access restrictions. Hawaii is an example. In 2008, Nader appealed a case he lost in federal district court in 2004 against the Hawaiian ballot access law. He advanced two issues: the constitutionality of the petition-checking procedures and of requiring an independent presidential candidate to collect six times as many signatures as are needed for an entirely new party with its own primary.26 The situation in Arizona is indicative as well. Nader challenged Arizona’s onerous signature requirement to get on the state’s ballot. He specifically criticized Arizona’s requirement that petition circulators be qualified to vote in the state, which meant he could not use outof-state circulators to get on the ballot. In addition, Arizona has not determined how many signatures Nader needs to qualify for the ballot as an independent presidential candidate.27 In a sense, Nader’s ambition is to reverse the logic of Duverger’s claim about the relationship between electoral systems and party systems. Part of Nader’s campaign is an attack on the two-party system in the United States. On Nader’s Web site, Peter Camejo, Nader’s running mate in 2004, wrote, “The two party system . . . has become the single most successful political form for the rule of a minority over a majority in the history of the world.”28 As it turned out, his victory was personal and not systemic. Nader was successful in gaining ballot access in forty-six states. His ballot access campaign was called efficient

Third Parties

79

by Richard Winger, editor of the respected Ballot Access News. Even so, the two-party system remains predominant. Getting on these ballots made it possible for Nader to continue to promote his policy agenda throughout the national campaign. Nader, who continually used corporations as his foil, was critical of the $700-billion Wall Street bailout and focused the closing weeks of the 2008 campaign on that issue. He said the bailout package was forty pages of deception. He said Congress had bailed out a corrupt and mismanaged industry. He said what was needed was comprehensive regulation, because that is where Washington had failed, and that the problems stemmed from the 1999 Financial Deregulation Act. He also wanted a speculators’ tax. Nader had long been a critic of Wall Street and held a protest rally next to the New York Stock Exchange on October 16, 2008. He said the stock exchange had become “a speculative casino ridden by corruption, deception and crime.”29 Julie Bosman, a New York Times reporter, wrote on October 20, 2008, that with the collapse of the financial markets, “Mr. Nader now on his fourth presidential run has finally found a real-life event to illustrate what he has made a cause of his career.” The Others There were other minor-party candidates on the 2008 presidential ballot, including Cynthia McKinney, who ran as the Green Party candidate. McKinney was a controversial Democratic member of Congress from Georgia. She served from 1992 until she was defeated in a primary in 2003. She returned to Congress in 2004 and was defeated in 2006. She then left the Democratic Party and joined the Green Party in 2007. McKinney struggled to raise a paltry $187,000. The Green Party was on the ballot in only thirty-two states. Professor Kenneth Waltzer, commenting on the problems of the Green Party, said that the party has a history of supporting environmental policies, but because “green issues” are gaining attention by the major parties, interest in the Green Party has waned.30 This is the classic fate of third parties in the United States: their popular issues are taken up by the two major parties. Another minor-party candidate was Chuck Baldwin, the candidate of the Constitution Party. Baldwin was the pastor at the Crosswood Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. He was also a radio talk show host. Baldwin had defeated the better-known Alan Keyes by a twoto-one margin for the party’s nomination. Keyes responded by seeking and gaining the American Independent Party nomination in California

80

William C. Binning

on a legal technicality that caused quite a dispute because Baldwin did not gain ballot access in California. Baldwin’s Constitution Party was on the ballot in thirty-seven states, and he secured Ron Paul’s endorsement for president. Baldwin was also the candidate of the Alaskan Independence Party, which created a stir because Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s husband was reportedly a member of the party at one time. Election Results The 2008 presidential election will not be noted for the role that minor parties played. They had little impact. The national vote totals of the minor-party candidates were not very impressive, nor is there any evidence of momentum for a particular minor party in 2012. Ralph Nader fared best, with a total national vote of 738,475. Libertarian Party candidate Barr collected 523,686 votes, Constitution Party candidate Baldwin received 199,314 votes, and Green Party candidate McKinney received 161,603 votes.31 There were 131 million votes cast for president in 2008. The minor parties also had little impact on the policy agenda. No particular issue that a third-party candidate raised needs to be addressed by the Obama government in the way Ross Perot brought attention to the national debt and deficit in 1992. The minor parties certainly did not even come close to inf luencing the outcome of the presidential election the way Nader did in 2000. The minor parties arguably inf luenced the electoral college vote outcome in a few states. In North Carolina Obama received 49.9 percent, McCain 49.5 percent, and Barr 0.6 percent. Barr was the only ballot-qualified minor-party candidate in North Carolina. In Indiana, Obama garnered 49.9 percent, McCain 49 percent, and Barr 1.1 percent. In Missouri, McCain collected 49.6 percent, Obama 49.1 percent, Nader 0.6 percent, Barr 0.4 percent, and Baldwin 0.3 percent. Even so, all is not lost. State law makes it difficult for minor parties to qualify for ballot access in future elections without meeting the burden of petitioning over again. In 2008, some minor parties succeeded in collecting enough votes to maintain their status in certain states. The Libertarians retained their ballot status in twentyseven states, the Greens are in sixteen states, and pending some court proceedings the Constitution Party will have ballot access in nineteen states.32 This ballot status will make it easier for these parties to contest the presidential elections the next time around. Hence, despite their

Third Parties

81

marginal role in the presidential election of 2008, minor political parties will continue to be a part of the fabric of American elections. Notes 1. Christian Collet and Jerrold Hansen, “Sharing the Spoils: Ralph Nader and the Green Party, and the Election of 2000,” in Multiparty Politics in America, ed. Paul Herrnson and John Green (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). 2. Obama won one Nebraska congressional district in 2008 and received one electoral college vote. 3. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1954), 217. 4. Ibid. 226. 5. Ben Adler, “Nader, Barr Muscle onto the Nov. Ballots,” Politico, September 10, 2008, www. politico.com/news/stories/0908/13595.html. 6. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/30/nation/na-bloomberg30. 7. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120026233358986931.html. 8. http://wcbstv.com/campaign08/bloomberg.mayor.nyc.2.662297.html. 9. “Bob Barr, Ralph Nader Dominate Online Coverage of Alternative Candidates,” June 11, 2008, www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/06/bob-barr-ralph-nader-dominateonline-coverage-of-alternative-candidates. 10. This was long before the selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate. 11. Ben Smith, “Plouffe: Barr Could Make the Difference,” Politico, June 25, 2008, www. politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/Plouffe_Barr_could_make_the_difference.html. 12. Jeanne Cummings, “Obama Has Cash to Attack McCain’s Base,” http://cbsnews.com/ stories/2008/07/30/politics/politico/printable4307832.shtml. 13. Gerald F. Seib, “Irked Extremes May Mean a Happy Political Middle,” Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121727893666190931.html. 14. Richard Winger, Ballot AccessNews. http://www.ballot-access.org/ 15. “Barr Wins Pennsylvania Substitution Lawsuit,” September 15, 2008, www.ballot-access. org/2008/09/15/barr-wins-pennsylvania-substitution-lawsuit. 16. “Libertarian Party Loses West Virginia Case,” September 5, 2008, http://www.ballotaccess.org/2008/09/05/libertarian-party-loses-west-virginia-case. 17. http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/09/10/intv.tsr.paul.nader.cnn.cnn? iref=videosearch. 18. “Advance Copy of Ron Paul’s Wednesday Press Conference,” http://thirdpartywatch.com/ 2008/09/09/advance-copy-of-ron-pauls-tuesday-press-conference-he-says-vote-thirdparty. 19. “The Barr Campaign Is Over, Says David F. Nolan,” http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/ 09/12/the-barr-campaign-is-over-says-david-f-nolan. 20. “ ‘Meet the Press’ transcript, ‘Ralph Nader, David Brooks, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michele Norris, Chuck Todd,’ February 24, 2004,” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23319215. 21. Pual Farhi, “Miles to Go in Ralph Nader’s Race for Reform: This Is No Time to Slow Down,” June 25, 2008, www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-16775766.html. 22. Nick Timiraos, “Obama Not Concerned by Possible Nader Bid,” February 23, 2008, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/02/23/obama-not-concerned-by-possible-naderbid/?mod=googlenews_wsj. 23. Mark Niquette, “Nader Goes on the Attack: In Bexley, He Rails against Government Ties to Big Business,” September 9, 2008, www.campaign.com/content.taf ?_function=read&oi d=1690&title=Nader_Goes_on_Attack_In_Bexley.

82

William C. Binning

24. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/28/ralphnader.uselections2008?gusrc=rss& feed=worldnews. 25. Ibid. 26. “Nader Appeals Hawaii Decision to 9th Circuit,” June 2, 2008, www.ballot-access.org/ 2008/06/02/nader-appeals-hawaii-decision-to-9th-circuit. 27. Dan Nowicki, “Nader Calls Rules for Ballot in Ariz. a Civil-Rights Issue,” March 18, 2008, www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0318nader0318.html. 28. “Capitulation,” April 25, 2008, www.votenader.org/blog/2008/04/25/which-side-areyou-on. 29. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2300927.stm. 30. Key House, “Green Party Experiences Less Popularity with Recent Elections,” July 27, 2008, www.statenews.com/index.php/article/2008/07/green_party_experiences_less_ popularity_with_recent_elections. 31. Update, December 20, 2008, www.ballot-access.org. These results were certified and presented to Congress by the Federal Elections Commission: http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/ fe2008/2008presgeresults.pdf. 32. “Changes in Qualified Status for Minor Parties,” November 5, 2008, http://www.ballotaccess.org/2008/11/05/changes-in-qualified-status-for-minor-parties-2.

AC T

2

The National Campaigns


CH A P T E R

FOU R

Setting the Agenda: “Yes We Can” Je nni fe r Pal m i e ri

In those words, “Yes we can,” a weary country—besieged by an economic crisis of historic proportions, two wars, the sense that our racial and religious divides were widening, and a growing fear that our best days were behind us—found its bearings. These words connected America to its 200-plus-year continuum of struggle and triumph. They asserted America’s strengths as a measure of its ability to do right by the American people and lead the world, not a measure of its ability to defeat an opponent. They offered the hope that after hundreds of years of struggle for civil rights, America might be ready to elect an African American man president of the United States. In retrospect, it seems improbable that President Obama’s opponents had much chance of stopping his hopeful and historic campaign. The historical, demographic, and political stars had aligned in favor of the election of America’s first black president. Yet, as the campaign played out in real time, political observers viewed the race through the most common of political prisms—the anti-incumbent campaign. Through that prism, the Democrats’ best bet for winning the White House was Hillary Rodham Clinton, the experienced candidate America had known for more than fifteen years. Barack Obama’s candidacy made for a great story, but it seemed implausible that post-9/11 America would turn from the presidency of George W. Bush to elect our first black president, who had less than one term in the Senate, with the name of Barack Hussein Obama.

86

Jennifer Palmieri

What most observers failed to realize was that 2008 was an antiincumbent campaign in the broadest sense. Voters did not just reject the policies of President Bush; they rejected politics—partisanship, special interests’ control over Washington, the notion that only the powerful and politically connected matter, governing by fear, and the belief that in 2008 America a black man could still not be elected president. There is little question that the grueling, relentless Democratic primary was a far tougher hurdle for Obama than the general election. President Bill Clinton had a similar experience after a relatively bruising Democratic primary in the 1992 campaign. No issue arose in Clinton’s general election campaign against President George H. W. Bush that Clinton had not already effectively combated in the primary election. The same proved true for Barack Obama. He has testified many times to the fact that Hillary Clinton made him a better candidate. That is undoubtedly true. It was also of immeasurable benefit to Obama that the attacks John McCain lobbed against him were largely the same arguments the public heard Hillary Clinton try—and fail— to use against Obama in the primary. Clinton was widely criticized for launching attacks against Obama that the Republicans could later use against him. McCain did indeed use Hillary Clinton’s own words against Obama in the general election, and those made for some uncomfortable moments for Obama. But, by and large, by the time the public heard McCain make those arguments against Obama, the attacks had lost their efficacy. They were the attacks of a loser. Hillary Clinton’s and John McCain’s campaigns followed a similar message trajectory. Their strategy was based on the premise that as experienced candidates with decades of government service they were best prepared to lead America at a dangerous time. Soon enough it became clear that their Washington experience was a hindrance when voters compared it to the clean slate of hope offered by Obama. Both Clinton and McCain eventually recalibrated their messages to make the more awkward and nuanced argument of being the candidate offering “the right kind of change,” as Senator McCain did, or the candidate who was experienced at making change, as Senator Clinton did. It was not a year for nuance. Both Clinton’s and McCain’s campaigns were derided for being unable to match the compelling nature of Obama’s message. True. But if there was an alternative strategy either Clinton or McCain could have employed that would have beaten Obama’s empowering message of hope and change, I have yet to hear it articulated. At some level, it was over for both Hillary Clinton and John McCain the day Barack Obama entered the race.

Setting the Agenda: “Yes We Can”

87

Barack Obama’s message can be summed up in one sentence. He inspired voters to believe in his—and their—ability to change politics and he overcame doubts about his lack of experience and unconventional background by proving himself to be a more capable leader and more in touch with the American people than his opponents. Simple, really. But the story of how it came to be is quite extraordinary. Opening Moves [T]his campaign can’t only be about me. It must be about us—it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams.1 From day one, Obama very consciously sought to focus his campaign on the voters, not himself. Obama supporters were not working for a campaign; they were part of a cause. He did everything possible to make supporters feel ownership of this cause—from his embrace of the communal “Yes, we can” slogan to his focus on online organizing and small-donor fundraising. Even the way he takes a stage was meant to be communal—clapping along with the audience as if to make clear that he is just another member of the cause and not the subject of it. He could have easily gone in the other direction. After his remarkable speech at the 2004 convention, this self-described “skinny kid with a funny name” was an overnight national political celebrity. The message of his campaign could have been all about his unusual biography and the historic nature of his candidacy, the story of a mixed-race kid who struggled to put himself through the best schools, worked on the streets of Chicago to better the lives of the city’s poor, and is the natural heir to civil rights heroes such as Martin Luther King. Obama chose a different path. And he probably did so for a number of reasons. First, he had the luxury of not having to work to make himself appealing to voters. They were already attracted to him. If anything, he was in danger of being overexposed and getting too much attention. “Cult of personality” candidates don’t wear well, and they have a hard time attracting support from voters outside of the party faithful. Second, convincing America to elect a black freshman senator with the foreign-sounding name of Barack Hussein Obama was not going to be easy. The Obama campaign had to convince America that Obama was ready to lead and, despite his exotic background, understood the lives of ordinary Americans.

88

Jennifer Palmieri

Given those factors, a campaign focused on voters made a lot of sense. The message was all about inclusion and the common beliefs that bound us to each other. He connected with voters by posing his beliefs as their beliefs. From Obama’s announcement speech: And if you will join with me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching before us; if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the debt we owe past and future generations, then I am ready to take up the cause, and march with you, and work with you.2 The message was echoed in a video Obama released the day before he formally announced his candidacy in which he said, “This campaign will only work if it is a vehicle for your hopes and dreams.” He insisted that his campaign was not about winning an election; it was a campaign to “take our country back and fundamentally change our politics.” Compare that inspirational message with the bumper-sticker slogan Hillary Clinton unveiled the day she got into the race: “I am in to win.”3 Obama’s focus was never on himself, and that helped make his appeal universal. He rejected all trappings of glitz in his campaign. He adopted a low-key approach from the start with his announcement video, the first of many messages the campaign would send directly to supporters throughout the race. There is no sparkle in this video. Not one campaign sign. Obama speaks straight to camera in shirt sleeves and in front of a plain white door. In two minutes and fourteen seconds he lays out both the message and strategy of his campaign. They are one and the same. You can change Washington. And you start by being part of this campaign. It is stunning how closely the strategy he describes tracks with what actually happened: the person-to-person organizing, Web organizing, online fundraising of small donations, empowering of supporters to make their own campaign Web sites—it is all there.4 The Frontrunner Clinton’s campaign was about playing it safe and projecting a message of inevitability. Become the nominee by behaving as if you already are the nominee. Scare off opponents with big sums of money and big


89

endorsements. It is the same strategy President Bush used to overwhelm most of his opponents in the 2000 Republican primary. The problem with the inevitability strategy is that it begins to crumble at the first sign of weakness. For Hillary Clinton an early sign of trouble came at the end of the second quarter of fundraising in 2007 when Obama finished well ahead of her, with $32 million raised compared with $27 million raised by Clinton.5 Fortunately for her there was precedent for a challenger being able to raise lot of money in the Democratic primary but failing to turn such financial support into votes. The specter of Howard Dean, who raised tens of millions of dollars more than his opponents only to finish third in the Iowa caucuses, haunted Barack Obama’s campaign. Right up until December 2007, that is, when the political world was rocked by a Des Moines Register poll showing Barack Obama leading both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the Iowa caucuses.6 The Des Moines Register was the gold standard of Iowa polls. Nevertheless, the political world had a hard time imagining the paper could possibly be right in this case. Iowa was always expected to be a battle between John Edwards, who had done well in the 2004 Iowa caucuses, and the overall frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. On January 3 the world had its answer: Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses by more than eight points.7 Throughout February 2008, Obama continued to rack up wins in small states Hillary Clinton largely ignored in choosing instead to focus on big primary states such as Ohio and Texas. It was a risky strategy, and it doomed her candidacy. With every victory Obama’s strength and the will of his supporters increased exponentially. Obama and Clinton both found an old adage of politics to be true: for a challenger, winning begets winning; for the frontrunner, losing begets losing. New Hampshire gave the wounded frontrunner a reprieve on the night of January 9, 2008, when Hillary Clinton pulled off a comefrom-behind victory to finish well ahead of Barack Obama in the primary. It was Clinton’s night, but a good deal of focus was on Barack Obama. Would his success in Iowa turn out to be f leeting? Or had he truly succeeded in transforming this improbable candidacy into a cause that could go all the way? The answer came in a clear, declarative sentence that rallied tens of millions of supporters to his side: “Yes, we can.” As Obama did so many times in the campaign, that night in New Hampshire he managed to weave the history of the nation into the narrative of his own campaign to make his unlikely quest seem possible

90

Jennifer Palmieri

and—perhaps even more critical for the candidate with the exotic background—familiar to the American people: We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we’ve been told we’re not ready or that we shouldn’t try or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.8 . . . the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing. And everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect.9 Hillary Clinton’s mocking of Obama’s optimism at a speech in Rhode Island in late February gave voice to a lingering concern about Obama. Sure he was inspirational, but was he tough enough to take on the Republican machine? Was he tough enough to take on the same Republican machine that managed to level such vicious attacks against John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election that the decorated war hero was forced to defend his own patriotism against an opponent who never served a day in the military. One of the biggest concerns Democratic voters had about selecting Hillary Clinton as their nominee was that she was too polarizing to win a general election. She had spent fifteen years in the trenches taking hits from the right wing, and she had the scars to show for it. Some would argue she brought these attacks on herself with a number of miscues from the early days of her husband’s administration that rubbed many Americans the wrong way. Another, perhaps more plausible theory is that she infuriated the right by her simple refusal to die. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, it could not be denied that Clinton’s unfavorability ratings ranked the highest of all the Democratic candidates, and the concern remained that she would never be able to garner more than 50 percent of the general election vote. The concerns about her polarity were tempered significantly by respect for her tenacity and the belief that she would be a formidable foe for whomever the


91

Republicans nominated as their candidate. Say what you will about Hillary Clinton, Democrats knew that she could take a punch and— more important—that she could land a punch. What would become of the inspirational but inexperienced and perhaps naïve Barack Obama once he was in the crosshairs of the Republican Party? It was feared he would wither. Ironically, it was Obama’s grueling primary battle against Hillary Clinton that gave him the chance to prove he was every bit as tough as she was. And he proved it with a brilliant strategy that exposed Clinton herself as helping to perpetuate Republican charges that Democrats were weak on national security and big government spenders. Bill Clinton worked hard to convince voters in 1992 that he was a “new Democrat” and sought to break with the party’s tradition of support for social spending with the declaration that “the era of big government is over.” He was a “defense hawk” and appointed a Republican to serve as his secretary of defense. He was perceived as having promoted his own political fortunes at the expense of fellow Democrats through “triangulation,” where he positioned himself as the reasonable centrist, more liberal than über-conservative Republicans. Hillary Clinton was seen as a centrist in the same mold as her husband. After eight years of George Bush, centrist Democrats were losing appeal in the party. Of particular concern to Democratic voters was that Hillary Clinton voted for the highly unpopular Iraq war. The question persisted in the minds of Democrats: how different would she really be from Bush? In November 2007, while he was still trailing both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton in the Iowa polls, Barack Obama gave a speech at the annual Jefferson–Jackson dinner that electrified the state. It was in this speech that he first offered the message of “Change you can believe in,” which, along with “Yes, we can,” became clarion calls of the campaign. “Change you can believe in” has come to represent the hopeful nature of Barack Obama’s campaign. That night in Des Moines it was delivered as a rebuke of Hillary Clinton and Democrats who cowered in the face of Republican attacks. The implication was that Hillary Clinton’s style of politics wasn’t going to change anything: And that is why the same old Washington textbook campaigns just won’t do in this election. That’s why not answering questions ’cause we are afraid our answers won’t be popular just won’t do. That’s why telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won’t do. Triangulating and poll-driven positions

92

Jennifer Palmieri

because we’re worried about what Mitt or Rudy might say about us just won’t do. If we are really serious about winning this election Democrats, we can’t live in fear of losing it.10 And then a more direct shot at Hillary Clinton: I am running for President because I am sick and tired of Democrats thinking that the only way to look tough on national security is by talking, and acting, and voting like George Bush Republicans.11 These words were an elixir for frustrated Democrats angry with party leaders’ failure to launch an effective fight against George Bush and his war in Iraq. Here was a Democrat who would challenge not only Republicans but the Democrats who cowered in the face of Republicans as well. The point was clear. This was a Democrat who would fight back. Hillary Clinton learned just how resolute Obama would be in the face of attacks on February 29, 2008, with the release of her “3am” ad. The ad juxtaposed a phone ringing in the White House in the middle of the night with footage of innocent, sleeping children and ended with an assured Hillary Clinton answering the phone, ready to handle the crisis at hand competently.12 It was a scare tactic, plain and simple, meant to raise doubts about Obama’s ability to handle a national security crisis. Clinton was widely criticized for engaging in the same type of political fear-mongering Republicans had been using against Democrats for the past eight years, particularly as she was launching this attack against the man who was likely to be the Democratic nominee. No doubt Clinton’s campaign knew she would be attacked for the ad, but they did it anyway because they knew that for all the lamenting about these kinds of ads and how unfair they were, they worked. They worked, that is, provided your opponent was willing to accept the premise of the ad and would be too scared to launch a counterattack. Obama was not willing to play along. By five o’clock that same afternoon the Obama campaign was on the air with an ad that used virtually the same script and footage as the Clinton ad but closed with Obama depicting himself as the only candidate who had the right judgment to be against the Iraq war from the start. It was a brilliant stroke. And it was devastating for Clinton. Her ace in the hole was supposed to be her experience, the significant advantage she held over Obama in the polls on the question of who was best prepared to be commander in chief. It was the same formula


93

Republicans had used against Democrats for years. Attack their ability to handle national security issues and watch them cower in the corner. But Obama would not play ball. He refused to cower and instead turned Clinton’s perceived strength against her by highlighting her support for the unpopular war. Clinton’s candidacy limped along for three more months, and she enjoyed a number of important victories in March and beyond, but she never truly recovered from the blow Obama dealt her that day. The fact was that if she could not beat Obama on the commander-in-chief question, there was little justification left for her candidacy. The Nomination It did not take long for Obama to inspire America. Convincing voters that he understood America was a more difficult task. Republicans pursued two major lines of attack against Obama in the general election. The first, and most prevalent, message was that he was not ready to be commander in chief. The second, and murkier, line of attack was that he was an elitist who lived among Americans but was not truly American. Some of these attacks were outright lies, including the charge that he had gone to school in a madrassa while living in Indonesia as a child or that he was raised Muslim. Other attacks were of the guilt-by-association variety, where he was attacked for the comments of his pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright and for “palling around with terrorists” such as his Chicago associate of the 1960s, radical Bill Ayers.13 Although, at some level, Obama battled these perceptions right up to election day, throughout the campaign Obama sought ways to connect his story to the tapestry of American life. His bio ads highlighted his Kansas roots, his working-class mother’s dedication to Obama’s education, and his grandfather’s service in the Second World War. Senator Edward Kennedy’s early endorsement of Obama was a huge boost to Obama’s campaign and a tough blow to Hillary Clinton. Getting the stamp of approval of the Democratic Party’s most famous and respected political family helped to legitimize Obama’s candidacy. Ted Kennedy had passed the torch to Barack Obama, and by doing so he put the Obama candidacy in a new and familiar context. He was not a foreigner; he was the next John Kennedy. Obama’s convention speech offered the most direct response to the notion that he was an elitist who did not understand America. He

94

Jennifer Palmieri

took on McCain’s campaign ad that depicted Obama as the “biggest celebrity in the world.” The ad juxtaposed footage of Obama speaking in front of a crowd of hundreds of thousands in Berlin with photos of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears preening for the paparazzi, and it was getting traction. McCain had trailed Obama in the polls from the beginning. Wanting to run a positive campaign, he held off running negative ads. By July it was clear to the McCain campaign that the only way they could prevail in the election was to try and drag Obama down. McCain had no chance of “winning” the campaign. He could only hope to beat Obama. The ad was having an impact, and the highly regarded Obama campaign was being criticized for not responding more aggressively to these attacks. Obama was also suffering the lingering effects of an observation he had made during the primary that Pennsylvania voters “cling to guns or religion” as a way of dealing with their economic troubles.14 Obama was not in serious trouble; he still led in the polls, but McCain was making headway with this line of attack, and it needed to be contained. The convention speech brilliantly wove Obama’s own life story with the story of struggling Americans by evoking his grandfather, who served in the Second World War, his mother, who went on food stamps to support Barack and his sister, and his grandmother, who struggled to advance in her work and sacrificed to make sure her grandson would have a better life. Obama closed this section with the observation “I don’t know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.”15 It did the trick. McCain continued to try to use the “celebrity” argument, but it had lost its sting. Poll after poll showed that by wide margins the American people believed that Barack Obama understood their problems, not John McCain. The Financial Crisis The economy was always going to be a difficult issue for whoever ended up as the Republican nominee. Rising unemployment, the foreclosure crisis, record gas prices, and stock market dives had all happened on the Republican watch, and voters were looking for dramatic change. However, John McCain ended up being particularly inept at convincing middle-class voters that he understood their economic struggles.


95

Most famously, McCain asserted that the “fundamentals of the economy were strong” on the morning of “Black Monday,” when the stock market tanked following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.16 Early in the campaign, McCain drew fire for offering that “the issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.”17 When asked by a reporter how many homes he owned, McCain could not give an answer and told the reporter, “I’ll have my staff get to you” (according to media accounts, he owned eight homes).18 Finally, when asked to define at what point a person was “rich,” McCain settled on any person making more than $5 million,19 causing Obama to charge in his convention speech that McCain defines “middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year.” That may not have been the fairest charge to make against McCain, but the collective impact of all of these misstatements left voters with the belief that McCain was out of touch with the economic struggles they were enduring. As Obama said often on the campaign trail, “It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care. It’s because John McCain doesn’t get it.”20 McCain did not expect to beat Obama on economic issues, but he did hope to beat him on the question of who was best prepared to be commander in chief and lead the country. The commander-in-chief argument was never as effective as it might have been for McCain because of his support for the unpopular Iraq war. McCain also grossly undermined his argument that Obama was not prepared to be commander in chief with his own selection of Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Palin had been a governor for less than two years and had no national security experience. It was simply not plausible to argue that Palin was prepared to be commander in chief but Obama, who had been on the Senate International Relations Committee for four years, was not. McCain’s erratic responses to the economic crisis effectively also hurt him with voters. He careened from one position to another on how to handle the Wall Street crisis, while Obama projected a calm sense of purpose and confidence. Obama ended up with an eighteen-point advantage over McCain on the question of who was best prepared to handle a financial crisis. 21 Wall Street’s collapse dealt the final blow to McCain’s campaign. The Change Election It was a tough year to be a Republican. And, as Hillary Clinton and John McCain could attest, it was a tough year to run as the “experienced” candidate. In this “change” election, the more conventional candidates,

96

Jennifer Palmieri

including McCain and Clinton, were left to make the awkward case to voters that perhaps they didn’t want quite as much change as Obama was offering. Both Clinton and McCain tried to convince voters that they, too, were different from Bush but an ultimately safer pick than Obama and a sounder choice for commander in chief. Any good candidate knows that it is best to run your own race. Pick your message, and stick with it. Once you start defining yourself against your opponent’s message, you are operating from a position of weakness. Eventually, both McCain and Clinton came to the reluctant conclusion that they had to adapt their message to fit the changed political landscape Obama had created. John McCain answered Obama’s “Change you can believe in” with “A leader you can believe in.” 22 Hillary Clinton tried the twist that she had been working to bring “positive change to people’s lives for 35 years.”23 These were anemic responses to a titanic message. It was not a year for nuance or compromise. Voters wanted real, undiluted change. Nearly everyone—friend and opponent alike—admired Obama’s oratory. Most failed to recognize the calculated, methodical strategy that lay at the foundation of his message. Obama drew supporters in with his inspiring words. Then he made it very clear what he expected of them. The campaign’s message and strategy were one and the same. It was a message that balanced a call to duty with empowerment, and it imbued his supporters with a sense of responsibility. A responsibility they fulfilled in record numbers. Obama was an extraordinarily talented candidate with an incredibly compelling message. His biggest handicap was the conventional political wisdom that as an unproven, inexperienced candidate he would not be able to translate his inspirational message into votes. That conventional wisdom was largely shattered with his win in Iowa. With that victory, Obama’s message crossed the threshold from being merely inspiring to being truly empowering. New York Times columnist Frank Rich posited after the election that a great tragedy of the Bush administration was that for eight years we were led by a group who taught us that we were “small and bigoted— easily divided and easily frightened.”24 At its most fundamental level, Obama’s victory was a rebuke of those defeatist and divisive assumptions many of us in America had come to believe about ourselves. His improbable campaign—with its combination of inspiring words and methodical, disciplined work—restored hope for many about what was possible in America. Yes, we can win Iowa. Yes, we can beat the unbeatable. Yes, we can reclaim our nation.


97

Notes 1. Barack Obama, February 10, 2007, http://www.barackobama.com/2007/02/10/remarks_ of_senator_barack_obam_11.php. 2. Barack Obama, February 10, 2009. http://www.barackobama.com/2007/02/10/remarks_ of_senator_barack_obam_11.php. 3. John Roberts, “Hillary Clinton launches White House bid: ‘I’m In,’ ” January 22, 2007, www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/20/clinton.announcement/index.html. 4. Kate Phillips, “The Prelude to the Obama Deconstruct,” February 9, 2007, http://thecaucus. blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/the-prelude-to-the-obama-deconstruct. 5. Online NewsHour transcript, “Obama Tops Rivals, McCain Slips in Campaign Fund Raising,” July 2, 2007, www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/fundraising_07–29. html. 6. Thomas Beaumont, “Obama Pulls Ahead for Democrats in Iowa Poll,” December 1, 2007, www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071201/NEWS09/71201009/ -1/caucus. 7. “Iowa Caucus Results,” http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/states/ IA.html. 8. Barack Obama, January 9, 2008, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Remarks_of_Senator_ Barack_Obama_on_New_Hampshire_Primary_Night. 9. Hillary Clinton, February 24, 2008, http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-nacampaign25feb25,0,7611510.story. 10. Barack Obama, November 10, 2007, http://www.barackobama.com/2007/11/10/remarks_ of_senator_barack_obam_33.php . 11. Ibid. 12. “Hillary Clinton 3am Ad,” www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcR6enq JZJ8. 13. Kate Phillips, “Palin: Obama Is ‘Palling Around with Terrorists,’ ” October 4, 2008, http:// thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/palin-obama-is-palling-around-with-terrorists. 14. Abdon M. Pallasch, “Obama: God, Guns Are Only Refuge of Bitter Pennsylvanians,” April 12, 2008, www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/891685,CST-NWS-obama12.article. 15. http://www.demconvention.com/barack-obama/. 16. Robert Barnes and Michael D. Shear, “McCain: Fundamentals of Economy Are ‘Strong’ but ‘Threatened,’ ” September 15, 2008, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/09/15/ mccain_fundamentals_of_economy.html. 17. James F. Smith, “McCain: It’s about the Economy,” December 18, 2007, www.boston.com/ news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/12/mccain_its_abou.html. 18. Kenneth P. Vogel, “McCain Family Owns 8 Properties,” August 21, 2008, www.politico. com/news/stories/0808/12700.html. 19. Greg Miller, “Who’s Rich? McCain and Obama Have Very Different Definitions,” August 18, 2008, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/18/nation/na-rich18. 20. “We Are Better Than These Last Eight Years,” Prepared remarks of Barack Obama to the Democratic National Convention, August 28, 2008, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26446638. 21. Paul Steinhauser, “Obama Widens Lead in National Poll,” October 7, 2008, www.cnn. com/2008/POLITICS/10/06/poll.of.polls/index.html. 22. Sam Stein, “McCain Rips Off Obama’s Slogan and Logo,” June 4, 2008, www.huffingtonpost. com/2008/06/04/mccain-rips-off-obamas-sl_n_105266.html?page=3. 23. Matt Stearns, “Clinton’s ‘35 Years of Change’ Omits Most of Her Career,” February 3, 2008, www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/26377.html. 24. Frank Rich, “It Still Felt Good the Morning After,” November 9, 2008, www.nytimes. com/2008/11/09/opinion/09rich.html?_r=1.


CH A P T E R

F I V E

A Perfect Campaign: The Role of Money, Organization, and Strategy A l i c i a Kolar P revo st and Jam e s A . Thurbe r

Campaigning has three fundamental elements: strategy, organization, and message. On these three elements, Barack Obama ran a perfect campaign. His focused strategy and message, contrasted with John McCain’s lack of discipline and wavering message, showed that campaigns can make a difference to election outcomes. Obama’s campaign presented a clear vision to voters about the failing economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the opportunity to end the policies and partisan deadlock of the Bush presidency, all key issues in the 2008 campaign. The presidential election of 2008 was a “change election,” and the change campaign theme was used very effectively by Obama. After the historic crowds who gathered to witness Obama’s inauguration, the high approval ratings he has received during his first weeks in office, and the outpourings of support from around the world, it is easy to forget that the outcome of this election was not a foregone conclusion in early summer 2008. Some election analysts have suggested that the widespread disapproval for Republicans’ handling of the economy, the midsummer Wall Street meltdown, and the dismal approval ratings of the incumbent president predetermined the outcome of the 2008 election.1 However, we think it would be a mistake to underestimate the effects of both candidates’ campaigns on the outcome of this election, especially as Obama was the first African American to obtain the Democratic nomination,

100

Alicia Kolar Prevost and James A. Thurber

and race has historically been such a strong factor in American politics.2 The effect that Obama’s race might have on the election, given that the United States had never even nominated an African American to a national party ticket and that Obama was the only African American in the entire 100-member U.S. Senate, was uncertain. It is true that President Bush suffered historically low approval ratings, and it is also common for voters to embrace a change in party control of the White House after two consecutive terms of the same party,3 but John McCain had been seen as a “maverick” in the Republican Party. McCain was almost a bipartisan figure, so much so that John Kerry even explored the idea of choosing McCain as a running mate in 2004. McCain ran a heated campaign against Bush for the 2000 Republican nomination, so he may have been the best-positioned Republican to challenge the Bush legacy. In June 2008 McCain led 48 percent to 36 percent with the up-for-grabs voters, who were crucial to the outcome of the election.4 Obama strategists viewed McCain as the one Republican with the potential to steal the “anti-Washington” message that had been used effectively by Obama during the Democratic primaries. But instead of embracing his centrist potential, McCain lurched to the right by picking for his vice president Sarah Palin, who appealed to the Republican base. His choice of Palin made him less of a maverick, at least in terms of appearing to be independent of the Republican Party. Anita Dunn, a key Obama strategist, said, “What we knew at the start of the campaign was that the notion of John McCain as a change agent and independent voice did not exist anywhere outside the Beltway.”5 On the economy, McCain could have positioned himself solidly against Bush. Although McCain voted in 2006 to extend the Bush tax cuts, he opposed Bush’s plan in 2001 and 2003, saying in a statement on the Senate f loor, “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief.”6 The McCain campaign could have used his stance against the Bush tax cuts as evidence that McCain’s economic plan and principles would be different from those of the last eight years. But the McCain campaign did not find a salient economic argument until late in the campaign, when he seized on Obama’s “spread the wealth” comment, referring to Obama’s willingness to raise taxes. This seemed to begin to crystallize the Republican fiscal conservative base, but it was too little, too late. McCain’s earlier wavering on his economic message, with no clear leadership offered during the Senate’s consideration of the bailout package, was too much to overcome. In the end, voters who were

A Perfect Campaign

101

“very worried” about the economic crisis chose Obama over McCain, 60 percent to 36 percent.7 Campaigns matter because they provide voters information about the candidates. Samuel Popkin’s inf luential study of campaign effects found that “campaign communications do affect choice, and that they generally make voters more, not less, accurate in their perception of candidates and issues.”8 Therefore, paying close attention to campaign fundamentals is essential for winning a campaign.9 The most important components of a campaign are its strategy, theme, and message. The rest of the campaign—raising money, setting the candidate’s schedule, doing opposition research, linking resources to campaign tactics, preparing for debates, advertising on television and radio, and mobilizing supporters to vote—all follow from the campaign’s strategy, theme, and message. In a well-run campaign, the message will be evident in nearly every communication with voters: the television and radio ads, the direct mail campaign, and so on. Campaign Strategy and Message: “Change We Can Believe In” versus “Country First” Obama’s campaign rarely wavered from its theme and message, “Change We Can Believe In.” Time and again when the Obama campaign faced challenges, such as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright story during the primaries and Obama’s “spread the wealth” statement to Joe the Plumber, Obama returned to the central theme and message: change. During the long primary campaign, when Hillary Clinton was winning big states such as California, Texas, and Ohio, some campaigns might have wavered from the change message in favor of adopting a message of experience, in an attempt to sway Clinton voters and lock up the nomination or with an eye to the general election campaign (since McCain was already the Republican nominee, a candidate who was perceived to have experience). The Obama campaign could not have known it at the time, but when the financial crisis hit in midsummer, their message of change was the most attractive to voters, and they were well served by sticking to it. The McCain campaign, on the other hand, was not served well by its theme, “Country First.” Several times McCain did try to put his country before his campaign, but without results. Before the Republican convention, with a hurricane imminent (which never materialized to its predicted strength), McCain almost canceled the convention. (They did cancel two days of planned speeches and

102


programming.) With the first night canceled, McCain was able to get away from President Bush appearing at the Republican convention, and even with the truncated convention scheduled he still received the traditional “bump” in the polls. However, McCain’s willingness to “put country first,” in front of his campaign, did not go over as well when he decided to suspend his campaign two days before the first scheduled presidential debate. This was not the steady leadership in a time of crisis that voters were looking for; instead, these erratic decisions to suspend, postpone, and then restart revealed a lack of leadership at the highest levels of the campaign. Obama’s strategy also encompassed a commitment to the fundamentals of campaigning, a clear strategy, theme, and message linked to appropriate tactics.10 Running a campaign is a complex and dynamic venture. It involves a variety of functions, including scheduling and advance work, press arrangements, issue research and debate preparation, speech writing, polling and focus group analysis, voter targeting and mobilization, print and electronic media advertising and placement, finance, legal analysis, and party and interest group action. To accomplish all of these interdependent tasks, a highly disciplined campaign organization is necessary.11 One of the fundamental rules and most important jobs is to know how many votes a campaign needs to win and where these votes will come from. This sounds simple, but its importance was underscored during the long Democratic primary campaign. Many pundits thought Obama would not make it past Super Tuesday, but the Obama campaign’s focus on the delegate count—the votes it would take to win the Democratic nomination—put them in caucus states that the Clinton campaign ignored. The Obama campaign used to its advantage the Democratic Party’s system of proportionally allocating delegates. The Democratic primaries are unique in the U.S. election system for their use of proportional representation. Most elections in the United States are determined by winner-takes-all, first-past-the-post, singlemember districts. The Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses, which are governed by the rules of the Democratic National Committee, award delegates on the basis of the votes a candidate receives statewide and by congressional district. National convention delegates choose the party’s nominee, so delegates equal votes, and the goal for a presidential candidate should be to reach 50 percent plus one delegate. By methodically focusing on the delegate count, no matter how small the state or how complex the caucus procedures, the Obama campaign was able to overtake the Clinton campaign in the delegate race and ultimately

A Perfect Campaign

103

win the nomination. The Clinton campaign was criticized for ignoring caucus states that were smaller and had fewer delegates. In the general election, the Obama campaign renewed its commitment not to take a single vote for granted. Obama also ran a perfect campaign in terms of message discipline and quick response to criticism or attack.12 The campaign policy was never to let a news cycle go by without responding, many times within hours or minutes. The campaign strategy and message were driven by the poor state of the economy, the low popularity of President Bush, and the unpopularity of the war in Iraq. It could be argued that scandals such as the controversies surrounding Reverend Wright or Bill Ayers could have done more damage to Obama if his campaign had been less disciplined in bringing the discussion back to economic and policy issues. David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, and David Plouffe, the campaign manager, had an obsessive focus on the message of change that could be summarized in the word “Bush.” Obama was the clear alternative to Bush; McCain was not. Axelrod often said that America was looking for anyone but Bush, for “the remedy, not the replica.” It worked in the primaries as well as in the general election. “That allowed Obama to finesse the perpetual problem of presidential politics: having one message to win over a party’s ardent supporters and another when trying to capture independents and the up-for-grabs, the voters who decide the general election.”13 At the November 2008 postelection campaign managers’ conference at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard (held every four years since 1972), Axelrod argued that the election was decided between September 15, the date that Lehman Brothers collapsed, and September 26, the date of the first presidential debate, two days after McCain “suspended” his campaign to address the financial crisis.14 Obama’s public statements during that period, and his solid performance in the debate, allowed voters to see that he was a “safe change” candidate, even though he was an inexperienced public official on the national scene. Campaign Finance: Solicitation and Strategic Use of Money Much has been written about the fundraising prowess of the Obama campaign and how he became the first “billion-dollar candidate.”15 In many ways, Obama has changed the way that money will be raised in

104


future campaigns. It is likely that no serious campaign for federal office will be successful without having an online fundraising component. It is also likely that future presidential candidates will not participate in the public financing system, at least under the current system that limits the amount of money that can be raised and spent. Under the current campaign finance system, a presidential candidate from either of the two major parties can get a grant from the federal government to cover campaign expenses, provided the candidate does not spend more than the amount of the grant and does not accept any additional private contributions. In 2008, the amount available to each candidate was $84 million. For McCain and Obama, the decision to accept or decline public financing was a bit of a gamble: accepting it ensured that the campaign would have $84 million, more than Bush and Kerry had in 2004 (when the amount available under public financing was $75 million); declining it meant that the campaign might fail to reach the $84-million mark on its own or might raise more. Obama bet that he could raise more, and it turned out that he raised much more. Whereas McCain was limited to $84 million during the entire general election (which formally begins during each party’s national convention), Obama raised more than $150 million in September alone. During the entire course of the campaign, Obama raised a record $742 million (which includes money raised during both the primary and general elections). The decision to forgo public financing allowed Obama to outspend McCain by more than five to one. In some states, the margin was even greater: in Indiana, Obama’s spending advantage was seven to one.16 Obama’s total is more than all of the candidates combined received in donations in the 2004 presidential race. For the general election campaign, Obama raised around $300 million, compared with the $84 million that McCain was allotted under public financing. From October 16 to October 24, Obama spent more than $136 million, whereas McCain spent just $26.5 million during the same time period. The Republican National Committee spent $31 million on advertising on behalf of McCain during this time, not quite enough to make up the deficit with Obama’s air time. It is true that campaigns need a lot of money, but how the money is spent is just as important as how much money is raised. Figure 5.1 shows the amounts raised and spent by the Obama and McCain campaigns and their allies at the Democratic and Republican national committees. Although the Obama campaign was criticized by some public advocacy groups for not participating in the public finance system (which

A Perfect Campaign Obama + DNC

1200

Dollar Millions

1000

105

997

McCain + RNC

961 784

800

619

600 400 200 0 Raised

Figure 5.1

Spent

Money raised and spent by candidates and national party committees

Source: Center for Responsive Politics at http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.php

these groups view as important for reining in the inf luence of a small number of wealthy donors), others pointed out that the large number of small donors to his campaign made it similar to a publicly financed campaign, in the sense that so many members of the public were voluntarily contributing. The Obama campaign reported that they had close to 4 million individual contributors.17 It is difficult to measure the number of small donors who actually contributed to the Obama campaign, if only because of the way the records are kept. The Federal Elections Commission does not require the reporting of personal information for donors who contribute less than $200. Michael Malbin of the Campaign Finance Institute found that many donors who contributed $200 or less did so multiple times, in effect making them larger donors.18 For example, if a person contributed $100 on five separate occasions, the fact that the individual contributions were under $200 would mean that the Obama campaign did not have to report details about this donor to the federal commission (although the campaign collects this information for its own use, for legal vetting, future solicitations, and mobilization messages). The significance of this reporting loophole should be kept in perspective. Even though many small donors contributed multiple times, more than half of Obama’s money (57 percent) came from contributions that were

106


350,000

322,284

Obama

McCain

Number of Donors

300,000 250,000 200,000 150,000

135,534

100,000 57,501 50,000

34,070 11,252

0

$200 + donors

$2300 + donors

6,777

$4600 donors

Amount of Contribution Figure 5.2

Candidate donors, by amount of contribution


$200 or less, and only 35 percent of McCain’s money came from these small donors.19 Figure 5.2 shows the number of donors at each level of contribution, and figure 5.3 shows how much these donor levels represented as a percentage of the total money raised by each campaign. What did this financial difference mean? In the final two months, the Campaign Media Analysis Group reports that the Obama campaign spent $170 million on TV ads and the McCain campaign spent $61 million.20 This means that more voters in more states saw Obama ads. It also means that the Obama campaign had tighter control over what the voters saw. The huge Obama advertising budget reduced the inf luence of outside allied organizations (called “527s” after their place in the federal tax code). This is another difference from the 2004 campaign. Even though these 527 organizations have the same end goal as the party they are allied with—including Democratic allies America Coming Together and Move On in the 2004 campaign—by law they are not allowed to coordinate with the campaign on matters of strategy. This complicated efforts for the Kerry campaign in 2004 because the campaign was not able to keep tight control over the theme or message of advertising campaigns by its allied groups. In 2008, the Obama campaign reduced

A Perfect Campaign Share of Total Contributions (percent)

60

107

57 Obama

McCain

49

50 40 35 30

27

20

16

10

8

0 % from 200 or less

% from 2300 +

% from 4600

Amount of Contribution Figure 5.3

Contribution size as share of total contributions


the inf luence of interest groups and 527s by asking contributors to give to the campaign instead of outside organizations. This strategy was possible because Obama was not subject to the fundraising limits that Kerry was subject to in 2004. The limitations of the public financing system meant that Kerry was not able to raise or spend beyond the $75 million federal grant, so donors who wanted to contribute to the campaign sent their contributions to allied organizations, including the party committees and the 527s. One awkward result of this legal arrangement was that when America Coming Together sent canvassers into swing states to mobilize support for Kerry, they were not allowed to say Kerry’s name. Instead, they were instructed to encourage voters to “vote Democratic.” Television ads from the liberal organization Move On focused on the war in Iraq, which might not have been the best message for Kerry (given that in 2004 Bush was still seen as a strong commander in chief ). But because the Kerry campaign did not control the money, they could not control Move On’s message. The Obama campaign controlled all the money that it needed in 2008, and as a result it was able to control all of the message and mobilization on the Democratic side.

108

Alicia Kolar Prevost and James A. Thurber Campaign Organization

Obama’s money advantage allowed him to dominate in all forms of the media “air war”: television, cable, radio, direct mail, and even advertising in video games.21 He also dominated in the “ground war,” including the organization of field staff and offices. Obama had more staff and offices in more states than McCain. Table 5.1 shows Obama’s advantage in terms of the number of field offices in selected battleground states. Obama’s staff (paid and volunteer) advantage allowed him to get his message out to more people and to organize more supporters than the McCain campaign. These campaign staff work in local campaign offices that serve as gathering places for local volunteers and supporters. Some campaign offices operate phone banks, some serve as the gathering point for volunteer door-to-door canvassers, and many serve as storefronts where locals can get campaign literature, buttons, and stickers. The campaign’s field staff (who typically make up the bulk of a campaign’s in-state operation) are responsible for identifying and contacting potential voters—first to identify them as supporters or to persuade them to become supporters and then to get them to vote. To accomplish these goals, the field staff recruit volunteers to make phone calls and knock on the doors of potential voters’ homes. The Obama campaign organization at the national level was made up of experienced people who had, for the most part, never worked with each other but who had great discipline and acted as if they knew each other well. They had internal organizational discipline, which meant that there was “No Drama with Obama.” The message discipline of the campaign was directly linked to the candidate and a group of welltested professionals. The chief strategist, David Axelrod, and campaign Table 5.1 Number of campaign offices in selected battleground states State Florida Minnesota Montana Ohio Pennsylvania Virginia

Obama

McCain

58 27 19 81 78 71

75 11 5 52 30 20

Source: Obama and McCain campaign websites as of October 27, 2008. Includes coordinated campaign offices.

A Perfect Campaign

109

adviser Valerie Jarrett knew Obama well. They came from Chicago and had worked on earlier races with him. Axelrod’s partner, David Plouffe, had national campaign and Washington experience, having worked for former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt. Steve Hildebrand, who had worked for Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, was the deputy campaign manager who oversaw the field organization. Robert Gibbs, the campaign’s communications director, who came from Obama’s Senate office, had national experience working for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. The online organizing tools that had been honed during the 2004 campaign, by both Howard Dean in the primary and John Kerry and George Bush in the general election, were put to full use by Obama in 2008 and allowed him to recruit volunteers even before paid staff arrived in a state. The Obama campaign advanced the use of technology and used new forums to communicate his message and to recruit volunteers. Obama’s Web site served as a recruiting tool for volunteers and donors, and the campaign was constantly reaching out to supporters through its email list and social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace, and BlackPlanet. These techniques helped to turn out volunteers, and also crowds at his rallies. It was reported that in the closing weeks of his campaign, “crowds of fifty, sixty, and seventy thousand people greeted Obama at every stop . . . almost as if there were pent-up demand to see him.”22 Campaign staff and volunteers positioned themselves at these events to get names of supporters and to recruit them to volunteer. As much as the Obama campaign exceeded expectations for raising money, it exceeded expectations for organizing volunteers. Zack Exley, an adviser to Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential bid, commented that “the Dean campaign had internet gurus; the Obama campaign has community organizing gurus.”23 Obama’s own community organizing experience as a young man in Chicago likely had a strong inf luence on his campaign’s early efforts to train volunteers in the fundamentals of organizing and mobilizing voters. Community organizing veteran Marshall Ganz, a Harvard professor who organized farm workers with César Chávez, was one of the architects of the Obama campaign’s organizing model. By late summer 2007, more than one thousand volunteers had been trained through Obama’s organizing school, called “Camp Obama.” The volunteers at Camp Obama were trained in how to organize canvasses and phone banks, how to recruit volunteers, and how to develop a local organization. They were also schooled on the campaign’s message, according to Jocelyn Woodards, the director of Camp Obama.24 Anita Dunn, Obama senior campaign adviser and

110


partner in Squire, Knapp, Dunn Communications, reported that the volunteer turnout in the battleground states was on average 130 percent, compared with 70 percent in past campaigns. Obama’s online operation served as a conduit for two of the most important factors in this campaign: money and organization. Online organizing allowed the campaign to collect an estimated 13 million email addresses, and 7,000 messages were sent over the course of the campaign to raise money, recruit volunteers, and get more people to sign up online. About 1 million supporters signed up for text message alerts, which the campaign used to organize attendance at local events and to recruit volunteers. The Obama campaign outperformed the McCain campaign in voter contact. Studies of voter contact efforts in the United States have indicated that mobilization works. Randomized field experiments have shown that door-to-door canvassing increases the likelihood that an individual will turn out to vote by 8–10 percent.25 Professional phone banks have been shown to be much less effective than canvassing, but receiving a personal phone call from a peer could be as effective as canvassing. The technical skill and efficiency of the Obama campaign allowed it to expand on traditional voter contact techniques such as phone banking. Instead of relying only on the traditional campaign phone bank, which might operate out of a union hall or law firm conference room, the Obama campaign hosted parties where supporters brought their cell phones and were given lists of voters to call. The campaign used supporters in non-battleground states to call voters in targeted states, including nearly 400,000 volunteers in California alone. The McCain campaign’s rate of voter contact fell below that of George Bush’s campaign in 2004, according to exit polls. The exit poll asks voters, “Did anyone call you or talk to you in person on behalf of either major presidential campaign about coming out to vote?” Figure 5.4 shows the differences in voter contact by the Republican and Democratic campaigns in 2004 and 2008. In 2008, 19 percent of voters reported being contacted by the McCain campaign, but in 2004, 24 percent reported being contacted by the Bush campaign. Table 5.2 shows the differences in contact rates between the Obama and McCain campaigns in selected states where this question was asked in the state version of the national exit poll. Nationwide, Obama’s advantage in voter contact was eight points. Obama’s contact rate was seventeen points higher in Colorado and twenty-one points higher in Nevada, two states that Obama f lipped from red to blue (meaning that these states were Republican in 2004 and turned Democratic in 2008).

A Perfect Campaign

111

30 26 25

26

24

Percent

20

19

15 10 5 0 Bush

Kerry

McCain

2004

Figure 5.4

Obama 2008

Voters contacted in 2004 and 2008

Source: Brian F. Schaffner, “Obama’s Ground Game Advantage in Key States.” http://www.pollster.com/ blogs/brian-schaffner/2008/12/07-week/

Table 5.2

Voter contact by 2008 presidential campaigns

Nationwide Ohio Florida North Carolina Iowa Virginia Indiana Colorado Nevada

Contacted by Obama Campaign?

Contacted by McCain Campaign?

26 43 29 34 42 50 37 51 50

18 36 21 26 30 38 22 34 29

Obama advantage

+8 +7 +8 +8 +12 +12 +15 +17 +21

Source: National Exit Poll and State Exit Poll data are from CBS news, available at http://election.cbsnews. com/election2008, November 20, 2008.

Measuring the Organizers’ Performance: Voter Turnout Numbers Over 61 percent of eligible voters, or more than 132 million, cast ballots nationwide.26 Turnout was slightly higher in battleground states, with a combined rate of 65.9 percent in Colorado, Florida, Indiana,

112


Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.27 Around 30 percent of all votes were cast early.28 According to exit polls, 26 percent of voters said they had been contacted by Obama’s campaign, compared with only 19 percent who said they had been contacted by the McCain campaign. Although the historic turnout that some predicted did not materialize, some groups of voters did see increases, including young voters. According to CIRCLE, an organization that tracks turnout among voters aged eighteen to twentynine, there was a 4–5 percentage point increase in this age group, or about 3.4 million more than voted in 2004. According to exit polls, 66 percent of these voters chose Obama, compared with only 54 percent who chose Kerry in 2004. Table 5.3 shows voter turnout among key demographic groups according to national exit poll figures. Instead of a seventy-two-hour project like the “Get out the vote” (GOTV) campaign Republicans had become famous for in 2000 and 2004, which focused on contacting supporters in the last seventy-two hours before election day, the Obama campaign ran a three-month project. Obama’s campaign was well organized, with paid field staff Table 5.3 Turnout by group

Women Men African American Hispanic Asian White 18–29 30–44 45–64* 65+** College graduate No college degree Liberal Moderate Conservative First time voter *

Obama

McCain

2008 % of electorate

Kerry

Bush

2004 % of electorate

56 49 95 67 62 43 66 52 50 45 53 53 89 60 20 69

43 48 4 31 35 55 32 46 49 53 45 46 10 39 78 30

53 47 13 9 2 74 18 29 37 16 44 56 22 44 34 11

51 44 88 53 56 41 54 46 48 46 49 47 85 54 15 53

48 55 11 44 44 58 45 53 51 54 49 53 13 45 84 46

54 46 11 8 2 77 17 29 30 24 42 58 21 45 34 11

In 2004, this category included 45–59 year olds. In 2004, this category included voters age 60 and older. Source: National Exit Poll results, available at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/ and http://www. cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/, November 20, 2008.

**

A Perfect Campaign

113

and extensive volunteer networks in every battleground state and even states that were not presidential battlegrounds. The extended battle for the Democratic nomination gave Obama the opportunity to organize in traditional battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, and it also gave him the opportunity to organize early in states such as Indiana and Virginia, which have never been battleground states and which few could have predicted would switch from red to blue in 2008. As John Gans argues in chapter 1, the long Democratic primary battle gave Obama the opportunity to organize in more states than ever before. It also gave him experience of a competitive battle that toughened him and his organization for the general election campaign. Conclusion Campaigns are dynamic, and this was evident in the 2008 election. They do not happen in a vacuum, and they are not predetermined by economic or political circumstances. Successful campaigns must develop a clear message that is focused on groups of voters who will help the candidate win, that is, the party loyalists (“the base”) and the swing voters (often moderate and ideologically in the middle). Candidate Obama understood this. He had the organization, strategy, and money to run a perfect campaign. The political environment undoubtedly benefited the Obama campaign, with a historically unpopular president, two ongoing wars, and a damaged economy all being tied to Republicans and their president. But the Obama campaign overcame a massive historical hurdle in American politics, of electing the first African American president. Obama’s unwavering message discipline and outstanding organization innovated and used technological advances to target and mobilize voters on the ground and inspired voters through the air war using Obama’s extraordinarily charismatic communication skills. All of this combined to elect the first African American president of the United States. It was the best-run campaign in modern history, and students of campaign management will study its strategy and tactics for years to come. Notes 1. Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Charles Tien, “Race Blunts the Economic Effects? The 2008 Obama Forecast,” PS: Political Science & Politics 42, no. 1 (2009): 21; James E. Campbell, “The 2008 Campaign and the Forecasts Derailed,” PS: Political Science & Politics 42, no. 1 (2009): 19; Alan I. Ambramowitz, “Time-for-Change Model Again Right on the Money in 2008,” PS: Political Science & Politics 42, no. 1 (2009): 22.

114


2. Lewis-Beck and Tien, “Race Blunts the Economic Effects?” 22. 3. Since the Second World War, every two-term president’s party has lost control of the White House in the next election, with the single exception of George H. W. Bush being elected after two terms of Ronald Reagan. 4. Ryan Lizza, “Battle Plans: How Obama Won,” The New Yorker, November 17, 2008, 46–55. 5. Ibid. 6. Congressional Record, May 26, 2001, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi? dbname=2001_record&page=S5789&position=all. 7. http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p5. 8. Samuel Popkin, The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 9. James Thurber and Candice J. Nelson, Campaign Warriors: Political Consultants in Elections (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2000); Stephen K. Medvic, “Understanding Campaign Strategy: ‘Deliberate Priming’ and the Role of Professional Political Consultants,” Journal of Political Marketing 5 (2006): 11–32. 10. Thurber and Nelson, Campaign Warriors. 11. James Thurber and Candice J. Nelson, eds., Campaigns and Elections American Style (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004). 12. James Thurber, Candice J. Nelson, and David A. Dulio, eds., Crowded Airwaves: Campaign Advertising in Elections (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2000). 13. Lizza, “Battle Plans.” 14. Michael Scherer, “A Campaign Postmortem at Harvard,” Time, December 12, 2008, www. time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1866093,00.html. 15. The total amount raised by the Obama finance team will be close to $1 billion when sums from the campaign, convention, transition, and inauguration are included. 16. Karl Rove, “Obama’s Money Advantage,” Polling News and Notes, December 11, 2008. 17. Michael Luo, “Obama Hauls in Record $750 Million for Campaign,” New York Times, December 5, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/politics/05donate.html. 18. Malbin 2008, http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=216. 19. Center for Responsive Politics, 2008, http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.php? cycle=2008&type=CD. 20. The Campaign Media Analysis Group can be found at http://www.tnsmi-cmag.com/. 21. The Obama campaign was the first to advertise in a video game. The advertisements consisted primarily of billboards and other signage posted with online sporting events, including the American football video game “Madden ’09.” Devlin Barrett, “Video Games Feature Ads for Obama’s Campaign,” Associated Press, October 14, 2008, www.mlive.com/ entertainment/index.ssf/2008/10/video_games_feature_ads_for_ob.html. 22. Lizza, “Battle Plans.” 23. Zack Exley, “Obama Field Organizers Plot a Miracle,” Huffington Post, August 27, 2007, www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/obama-field-organizers-pl_b_61918.html. 24. David Schaper, “Camp Obama’ Trains Campaign Volunteers,” National Public Radio, June 12, 2007, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11012254. 25. Donald Gerber, Donald and Alan Green (2000). “The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment,” The American Political Science Review 94, no. 3 (2000): 653–63 26. Michael McDonald, “The Return of the Voter: Voter Turnout in the 2008 Presidential Election,” Forum 6, no. 4 (2009): article 4, www.bepress.com/forum/vol6/iss4/art4. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid.

CH A P T E R

SI X

The Conventions and Debates A ndrew Wroe

The 2008 party conventions and presidential debates were among the most eagerly anticipated in U.S. electoral history. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fought tooth and nail in the closest primary race in memory, setting the stage for a tense, emotional, and potentially selfdestructive Democratic convention in late August. The rival candidates’ undoubted star power and Obama’s oratorical gifts added luster to an already intriguing event. On the other side, Republicans were less enthused by John McCain, but Sarah Palin energized the ticket and electrified the convention with her keynote speech. Adding further spice to the mix, Hurricane Gustav threatened Katrina-scale destruction on both a physical and psychological level, reminding voters of the party’s and its leaders’ inadequate response to the wreckage in New Orleans. Over eleven days between the start of the Democrats’ convention and end of the Republicans’, Obama and McCain traded insults and leads in the opinion polls. The contest appeared too close to call, but McCain’s fortunes declined as the economic crisis intensified during the three-week period separating the conventions and debates. The debates offered McCain three opportunities to close the small and by no means insurmountable lead enjoyed by his opponent. In addition, the Sarah Palin–Joe Biden vice presidential debate generated more interest and press coverage than any before it, in part because of Palin’s explosive and polarizing arrival on the national stage but also because of the contest’s continuing closeness.

116

Andrew Wroe

Conventions and debates generally don’t determine election outcomes, but they had the potential to do so in 2008. The Conventions The nominating conventions for the Democratic and Republican parties mark the start of the national presidential campaign in the United States. They are an indelible landmark on the U.S. electoral map, but it was not always this way. In the early years of the republic, members of Congress chose presidential candidates without recourse to a partywide convention. But dissatisfaction with the process—because it violated the separation-of-powers principle, was undemocratic, and regularly produced outcomes that even caucus members found unpalatable—led to the introduction of national nominating conventions in the 1830s. The modern conventions that we see on television developed only slowly thereafter. Emmett Buell divides the history of the convention into three eras: 1836–1908, 1912–68, and 1972 to the present day.1 In the first era, delegates, largely under the control of party leaders, or “bosses” as they were known, came together from across the country every four years to discuss, dissect, and even physically fight over rival candidates before selecting a nominee. Corruption and a perception that the selection process remained undemocratic encouraged progressive reformers in the early twentieth century to reduce the power of the bosses by allowing ordinary voters to select some convention delegates via intraparty primary election contests. More than half the states introduced primaries initially, but high costs, low turnout, and tepid support from bosses reduced the postwar number to about sixteen. Candidates continued in the main to be chosen at and by the convention in this second era. While a good primary performance sometimes helped a candidate win the nomination—for example, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy in 1952 and 1960, respectively—conventions regularly nominated presidential candidates who had not entered or had done poorly in the primaries. Indeed, at the Democrats’ 1968 Chicago convention, party bosses selected a candidate who had not bothered to enter the primaries: the pro–Vietnam war incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey. Supporters of the antiestablishment, antiwar Eugene McCarthy were furious and orchestrated a grassroots revolt that led to a convention resolution to widen participation and reduce the inf luence of the party establishment in candidate choice.

The Conventions and Debates

117

The McGovern–Fraser commission introduced rules and procedures to implement the resolution, resulting in a significant increase in the number of delegates selected by primaries in 1972 onwards. The result has been a progressive transfer of power from the party leadership to the wider electorate. Despite a series of subsequent reforms to reassert the voting power of the party establishment in response to a series of hotly contested and vituperative primary contests and presidential election defeats, it is all but impossible today for a prospective presidential candidate to win the Democratic Party’s nomination without winning a plurality of its primary voters. The job of the modern convention is to ratify rather than choose the presidential nominee. The Republican Party followed suit and democratized its selection procedures in 1976, although to a lesser extent than its rival.2 Although the convention no longer chooses presidential candidates, it performs several important functions and remains a key staging post in the election process. As Buell notes, “The most important function . . . is to project symbols that revive party loyalty, mobilize party workers, arouse independents, and, hardly least, impress a cynical press corps. . . . [T]hese messages are meant for a national audience rather than the assembled delegates.”3 Conventions allow each party to present to the nation its presidential and vice presidential candidates in an extravagant, exuberant made-for-TV pageant. Everything about the convention—from the setup of the hall and stage to the order of business to the words of the speakers—is carefully designed for the television cameras; delegates and even important party grandees are merely extras to the nominee’s starring role. The aim is to give the candidate a “bounce” in the polls. History (1964– 2004) suggests that the median convention bounce is five percentage points and the mean six points, but the relative size of the bounce and its persistence matter more. George W. Bush’s two-point bounce in 2004 looks meager, but it was a positive triumph compared with John Kerry’s one-point decline in popularity. Sometimes the advantage is ephemeral; other times, real and sustained. George H. W. Bush’s fivepoint 1992 bounce quickly evaporated, but the successful Democratic convention gave Clinton a sixteen-point bounce and a lead that lasted to election day.4 Some commentators have compared conventions to royal coronations, but they lack regal reserve and dignity. They are spectacular but also carefully stage-managed, scripted, and rehearsed. Real debate is nowadays kept to a minimum, and speeches are carefully vetted to ensure they promote the party and presidential nominee in the best possible light, especially after Patrick Buchanan’s prime-time “culture

118

Andrew Wroe

war” speech frightened wavering and moderate voters and undermined President Bush’s 1992 reelection effort. The first televised conventions, in 1952, gripped America and were reported in their entirety by the major networks, but the modern sanitized versions attract less interest. The absence of division, intrigue, policy debate, and power over candidate selection help explain why TV coverage of and public interest in conventions have declined, yet tens of millions of viewers still tune in to the candidates’ keynote speeches, and the 2008 conventions were some of the most dramatic in recent memory. The Democratic Party held its 2008 convention in the Pepsi Center, Denver, Colorado, on August 25–28. The party’s early primaries did not lead, as most observers and party insiders had expected, to the anointment of Hillary Clinton as nominee. Barack Obama’s Iowa victory and tight second place to Clinton in New Hampshire set up the closest primary contest in memory. Obama consistently enjoyed a small lead in the delegate count, but Clinton refused to give in. She said she would take the contest all the way to Denver, where she hoped the “superdelegates”—unpledged delegates drawn from the party establishment and constituting about 20 percent of all delegates—would cast decisive votes in her favor. The two campaign teams worked ceaselessly to win over the superdelegates, with some uncommitted ones receiving personal attention from the candidates themselves. Moreover, Clinton’s lawyers sought to reseat Florida’s and Michigan’s delegates, who had been excluded because the states breached party rules by moving forward their primaries. John McCain secured the Republican nomination in early March, but the indefatigable Clinton conceded the Democratic nomination only on June 7, 2008, after Obama had amassed a mathematically unassailable lead among delegates and declared superdelegates. Democratic strategists worried that McCain was enjoying a free ride while Obama and Clinton were damaging each other and the party’s chances in November. Indeed, the McCain team began to air Clinton’s criticisms of Obama in its campaign ads. Heading into the convention, relations between the two Democratic candidates and campaigns remained strained after the rancorous primary season. Polls suggested that many Clinton supporters would not vote for Obama in the November 4 general election. The Democrats’ 2004 convention had been criticized for treating the incumbent president, George W. Bush, with kid gloves. Determined not to make the same mistake again, speakers on the first day of the 2008 convention attacked McCain’s judgment and competence and


119

linked him closely to the unpopular President Bush, while eulogizing the Democratic candidate and his family. Senator Edward Kennedy and Michelle Obama provided the evening’s prime-time contributions. A clearly ill Kennedy, suffering from brain cancer, was received emotionally by the convention audience and responded with a poignant and powerful speech in which he sought to portray Obama as the embodiment of his famous family’s political legacy. Obama’s wife focused less on politics and more on weaving together a narrative around family, patriotism, and the American dream—although she pointedly praised Hillary Clinton in an effort to ease tensions between the two camps before Clinton’s keynote speech the following day. Hillary Clinton, despite real and obvious tensions and despite suggestions in the press that she could wreck Obama’s candidacy and kick-start an intraparty civil war, had nothing to gain from extending hostilities. It was necessary to her future presidential ambitions and party legacy to demonstrate unwavering loyalty to the Obama ticket and not do anything that could undermine his electoral prospects. She did so in what some observers declared her best-ever speech, urging her supporters and Obama’s to put aside their differences and “unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines. This is a fight for the future. . . . No way. No how. No McCain. Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our president.”5 Bill Clinton’s own convention speech the next day reiterated his wife’s call for unity, set out his support for Obama, and attacked President Bush and McCain ferociously. Both Clintons, wily politicians making calculations about future power, swallowed their pride after a sometimes-bitter primary contest because there was no feasible alternative to supporting the nominee-elect. In an act of great political theatre, New York state terminated the roll call, the official declaration by state delegations of their candidate choice, early when the state senator, Hillary Clinton, proposed “in the spirit of unity” to suspend the procedural rules and nominate Barack Obama by “acclamation.” The convention agreed amid scenes of high emotion. The most eagerly awaited moment and the highlight of the convention was Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on August 28. The excitement created by his candidacy and the accompanying clamor to hear him speak—he had regularly attracted tens of thousands of people to primary campaign events—led the Democratic Party to switch the venue from the Pepsi Center to the Invesco Field football stadium. He showed no nerves before a crowd of 80,000 and a television audience

120

Andrew Wroe

of 38 million. On the forty-fifth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Obama became the first African American to take the presidential nomination of a major party. Yet, keen not to make it an unnecessary issue in the campaign for fear of stirring up prejudice, Obama did not mention race once or King by name. Instead Obama promoted his patriotism (“Patriotism has no party. . . . We all put our country first”). He attacked McCain’s temperament, judgment, and connection to ordinary Americans (“It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care. It’s because John McCain doesn’t get it”). He critiqued Bush’s “failed policies” and “the broken politics of Washington.” He tied McCain to Bush (“John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time?”). And he promised to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while restoring the United States’ moral standing in the world. The speech finished with fireworks lighting up the Colorado sky. John McCain even released a TV ad congratulating Senator Obama: “Tomorrow we’ll be back at it, but tonight, senator, job well done.” Although some commentators mocked the Grecian stage set and fake Doric columns and argued the speech was too long and hubristic,6 most observers were generally complimentary. The speech specifically, and the convention generally, were widely regarded as successes. Surprisingly, then, Obama’s convention bounce, estimated by Gallup at four points,7 was relatively modest. He went in to the convention tied with McCain on 45 percent support but finished 49–43 ahead. Whereas the main threat to the success of the Democratic convention was the internal, internecine strife between the key players, the Republican convention at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 1–4 was from the start buffeted by events outside the control of the principals and their spin doctors. The first problem faced by strategists was the looming Hurricane Gustav. President George W. Bush’s poll ratings slipped and never recovered after his administration badly bungled the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. McCain desperately did not want to reinforce the perception that Republican leaders were incompetent and, perhaps worse, did not care about people in dire straits. First-day speeches by President Bush and Vice President Cheney were scrapped—a not entirely unpalatable consequence given their unpopularity—and Mrs. Bush and Mrs. McCain instead spoke, focusing on the storm and the relief effort. Lobbyists’ cocktail parties were quickly relabeled storm-relief fundraisers.


121

The second problem was the announcement on the first day of the convention by McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, that her unmarried teenage daughter was pregnant. McCain’s selection of the little-known governor of Alaska, announced on August 29, stunned political observers and Republicans alike. As the convention approached, McCain faced increasingly hostile questioning about his pick’s lack of experience and knowledge and suggestions that his team had not vetted her properly. But with her commitment to traditional values, especially a hard-line pro-life position, a large tight-knit family, including a newborn baby with Down syndrome, Washington-outsider status, and, not least, telegenic looks and folksy personality, the self-described “average hockey mom” quickly became the new favorite of conservative rank-and-file Republicans. The news of her daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy initially threatened to undermine the Palin narrative and bandwagon, but ultimately it did not. Indeed, it made her look more ordinary, more human, while offering a further opportunity to live the conservative life. Her daughter, it was announced, planned to keep the baby and marry the father: “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”8 Palin addressed the conference on September 3, and her speech was widely regarded as a triumph. The New York Times said it “electrified” the convention audience by eulogizing her family, reinforcing her outsider status, and tearing into Obama’s political inexperience and alleged sneering attitude toward working people: “I might add that in small towns we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.”9 McCain’s speech was much less rapturously received. He is a relatively poor orator who never connected viscerally with the Republican faithful, but his job was made more difficult by the necessity of appealing to multiple audiences when the Republican brand was in decline. It was important to stoke up the convention crowd and energize usually loyal Republicans to campaign and vote, but at the same time he had to appeal to wavering independents and moderates, who usually decide close elections. This already difficult task was made more problematic because the GOP was the incumbent party at a time of economic discontent at home and unpopular wars abroad. McCain settled on a narrative that emphasized his bipartisanship in Washington and promised to reform the broken Washington system (to

122

Andrew Wroe

appeal to independents) while eulogizing his love of country and military service (to appeal to conservatives), but he had little to say on the issue of greatest concern to voters, the economy, and failed to launch a swingeing attack on his Democratic opponent. He received the obligatory standing ovation, but the convention crowd was left uninspired. The speech was not a failure—in the sense that it did McCain no harm—but the momentum and excitement created by Palin’s address the previous day dissipated in a sea of poorly delivered platitudes and inchoate messages. However, according to Gallup,10 McCain did enjoy a bounce of six points, and so the Republican candidate ended his convention leading Obama 49–44 points, having trailed 43–49 at its start. But would he be able to sustain it to and through the debates? The Debates Once the dust has settled from the national conventions, the next major events on the electoral calendar are the presidential and vice presidential debates. Again, it was not always so. Indeed, the debates—at least in their televised form—are a much more recent innovation than the conventions. The first televised debate took place in 1960, when Kennedy and Nixon clashed. After a sixteen-year hiatus because at least one of the candidates in each election perceived the risk unnecessary or too great, they returned in 1976 and have become a regular part of the political landscape. The potential pitfalls for candidates remain evident. Political commentators still reminisce about Ford’s 1976 debate gaffe that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe,” Reagan’s “there you go again” riposte to Carter’s attacks in 1980, George H. W. Bush checking his watch in 1992, and, perhaps most famously, Lloyd Bentsen’s zinger in 1988 after incumbent vice president Dan Quayle compared himself to JFK: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” The importance of such gaffes should not be overestimated. Like conventions, presidential debates rarely determine the election outcome. Al Gore’s poor showing—at least relative to expectations—in his 2000 debates with George W. Bush could have been decisive, as could Kennedy’s impressive display against Nixon in 1960, but so could many other factors in such close contests. Nonetheless, like conventions, presidential debates offer high-profile political theatre with the potential to inf luence election outcomes, especially in a tight race such as 2008, and are therefore taken very seriously by the candidates, who


123

spend days prepping. Debates are among the very few times during a campaign when the two candidates share a platform. They allow voters to compare and contrast the candidates’ knowledge, policy positions, skills, and charisma and allow the candidates to speak directly to the American people for an extended time unmediated by reporters, commentators, and election analysts. Under certain debate formats candidates can also interact extensively, questioning, probing, and most usually attacking each other. Debates attract large television audiences but have been criticized because they reward telegenic candidates comfortable delivering shallow sound-bites over less physically attractive candidates who insist on engaging with the detail of difficult policy issues. Such criticisms may be well founded. They fit a wider discontent that the American electoral system privileges great or even obdurate campaigners over competent governors, but it is also true that modern American presidents will not prosper unless they can communicate effectively with the public and fellow politicians.11 In this sense the debates offer a good guide to at least some of the skills necessary to be leader of the world’s most powerful nation. Given Obama’s noted eloquence and apparently nerveless disposition, demonstrated well in his 2004 and 2008 convention speeches, most Americans expected him to deliver polished debate performances. His oratorical skills are not necessarily suited to such occasions, however.12 He was rarely poor but also rarely shone in more than twenty Democratic primary debates, often giving long-winded, overly intellectual answers lacking emotion, wit, or character. Fortunately for Obama, McCain is no natural debater either. He too suffers from verbosity, and he appears to find it difficult to keep his temper under control. Nonetheless, the debates offered pitfalls and opportunities for both candidates—to land a killer punch, but more subtly to mobilize one’s base and win over wavering voters, especially independents. The bipartisan, nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates organized a full complement of debates in 2008, to include three presidential and one vice presidential encounter. The first debate, scheduled for September 26 at the University of Mississippi, almost did not go ahead. The unfolding economic crisis was particularly uncomfortable for McCain. He was unsure of himself on financial questions, and polls showed more Americans trusted Obama to manage the economy effectively. As national security issues faded in importance, McCain’s postconvention advantage in Gallup’s opinion polls disappeared after he reiterated his belief that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong”

124

Andrew Wroe

on September 15, the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.13 In response, the self-proclaimed “maverick” dramatically and riskily suspended his campaign on September 24, halting his TV ads and withdrawing from the presidential debates until Congress passed a Wall Street bailout package. Then, in a further attempt to show leadership and reclaim control of the agenda, he returned to Washington to lobby fellow members of Congress in favor of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700-billion plan to buy up so-called toxic loans to restore confidence and liquidity to the financial markets. Obama rejected McCain’s proposal to postpone the first debate but also returned to Washington on September 25 for a high-level summit with President Bush, McCain, and congressional and administration leaders to settle on a plan, sell it to a hostile public, and push it through a reluctant Congress. The summit ended in disarray, divided and with no joint statement of intent. Congress remained unpersuaded by the presence of both presidential candidates, and the Paulson plan continued to languish, largely because a majority of House Republicans opposed it. Several involved in the process blamed McCain for hijacking the negotiations for personal gain, politicizing and destabilizing them in the process, and trying to wriggle out of the televised debate. McCain finally backtracked on his pledge to suspend politics and agreed to attend the debate less than ten hours before its start time. His ploy had failed either to get a plan through Congress or to invigorate his campaign. Indeed, it may have hurt his campaign, as evidenced by polls showing that Obama reversed his deficit and began to lead McCain in the second half of September, entering the debate with a 49–44 advantage. The First Debate Chaired by PBS’s Jim Lehrer and ostensibly about national security and foreign policy, the first debate yielded no clear winner. Broadly speaking, Obama was more eloquent and persuasive on economic questions, but McCain had the advantage on security. However, McCain was not afraid to rail against corporate corruption and greed, and Obama appeared reluctant to discuss details of the $700-billion bailout plan—although he tried to pin the causes of the crisis on Bush’s deregulation policies, which he said McCain supported. Obama spoke forcefully on confronting terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan and what he called the disastrous and unnecessary invasion of Iraq. McCain sought repeatedly to question his opponent’s experience, knowledge,


125

and qualifications for the top job, calling him “naïve” and claiming repeatedly that the “senator does not understand.” Obama refused to be riled by McCain’s criticisms, remaining calm, serious, and, he hoped, presidential as he spoke to camera, but he struggled to inject passion into his overly technical responses. The tone of the first debate was less abrasive and vituperative than the wider campaign. Both candidates were ostensibly civil, but there was no warmth and little humor between them. McCain was curt with Obama and rarely looked at or referred to his opponent by name. Neither landed a knock-out punch or even a memorable line in the debate proper or via the postdebate spin. Indeed, each campaign’s spin focused on words the other had not said: “middle-class” in McCain’s case and “victory” in relation to Iraq in Obama’s. Gallup’s next-day polling suggested a narrow debate win for Obama—46 percent thought he did the best job, and 34 percent said McCain, with independents breaking 43–33 in Obama’s favor—but its tracking polls provide no evidence that Obama extended his lead. Nevertheless, the obvious physical differences in color, size, and age presented an interesting contrast and suggested the election offered real choice between two distinct candidates, even if their words did not always do so. The Vice Presidential Debate Before the candidates clashed again on October 7, their two running mates met for a town-hall-style debate on October 2 at Washington University. Chaired by PBS’s Gwen Ifill, the vice presidential debate was held just four days after the House of Representatives voted down Paulson’s bailout 228–205, with two-thirds of Republicans in opposition and a majority of Democrats in favor. Democratic spin doctors tried to play up Palin’s town-hall skills, arguing before the contest that she was a “terrific debater” and “skilled speaker.”14 Such observations looked hyperbolic given the ridicule Palin suffered—especially on Saturday Night Live—after her inept interview with CBS’s Katie Couric broadcast in late September, in which she waff led alarmingly about the bailout and wider financial crisis, was unable to name the newspapers she read or Supreme Court rulings she objected to, and promised to get back to Couric with examples of John McCain’s senatorial leadership on financial oversight and regulation. Although the Democrats tried to raise the bar for Palin’s performance, expectations among most media commentators and Americans remained very low. She would have to perform very inadequately indeed for it to be considered a disaster.

126

Andrew Wroe

Indeed, Palin’s apparent f laws, her undeniable appeal to conservative voters, McCain’s age, and the magnitude of events preceding the contest made it the most eagerly anticipated debate between vice presidential candidates in American history. Similar to the first presidential debate, neither vice presidential nominee emerged the obvious winner, with no significant gaffes or memorable attacks. Biden avoided critiquing Palin directly, for fear of appearing condescending and bullying, instead concentrating his fire on McCain and Bush and linking them at every opportunity. Biden reined in his natural verbosity and sounded experienced and knowledgeable. Palin, better informed and more eloquent than in the disastrous Couric interview, did not implode as many had feared or hoped she would. She consistently reinforced her ticket’s “maverick,” antiestablishment qualities, while promoting Obama and Biden as tax-raising Washington insiders. Perhaps most notable was Palin’s relaxed conversational style and body language. She asked Senator Biden whether she could call him Joe, blew a kiss toward the audience, sent a “shoutout” to some third-grade children, winked repeatedly at the camera, played up her hockey-mom, small-town identity, smiled throughout the ninety-minute encounter, and peppered her answers with downto-earth phrases such as “doggone it,” “darn right,” “I’ll betcha,” and “say it ain’t so, Joe.” Although postdebate polls showed no significant change in support for the two teams and commentators generally thought Palin helped neutralize criticisms that she was an unviable running mate, only the most partisan suggested that she clearly won the debate. She more than met expectations, but again the bar was set extraordinarily low. The day after the vice presidential debate and two weeks after Paulson’s initial request, Congress passed and President Bush signed a version of the $700-billion subprime bailout plan that the House had rejected earlier in the week. If McCain hoped it would stop the turmoil in the markets and refocus the presidential race on noneconomic issues, he was let down by events. The Dow Jones Industrial Index on the New York Stock Exchange suffered a further large fall, there were no signs of the credit crunch easing, and there was even a rise in unemployment. Democrats blamed the crisis on Republicans’ light-touch regulation and Wall Street’s greed. The Second Presidential Debate McCain tried to jump on the populist bandwagon, blaming the crisis on Wall Street corruption and incompetence, but it appeared to do him


127

little good. On the eve of the second presidential debate, moderated by NBC’s Tom Brokow on October 7 at Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee, McCain trailed Obama 51–42 in Gallup’s tracking poll,15 but the debate offered McCain an opportunity to fight back and reestablish momentum as the race entered its last month. Palin suggested that McCain would “take the gloves off ” in the second debate, a town-hall meeting format supposedly favored by her running mate, and Obama’s aides tried to downplay their charge’s chances, claiming they would be “thrilled [if ] we can just escape relatively unscathed.”16 Palin herself relentlessly attacked Obama before the debate, accusing him of “palling around with terrorists,” a reference to his alleged relationship with 1960s radical/terrorist William Ayers. Certainly McCain was more aggressive than in the first debate, but he generally refrained from personal attacks on his rival’s character and connections—in particular his relationships with Ayers and former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In an attempt to win back wavering moderate voters, McCain promoted his own bipartisanship while portraying Obama as liberal, partisan, and inexperienced. He unveiled a new proposal to curtail property repossessions, but otherwise neither candidate offered a compelling analysis of and solution to the economic turmoil beyond platitudes and well-worn partisan critiques. Neither suggested that the federal government should recapitalize banks by taking an equity stake, an idea introduced in the United Kingdom and continental Europe— and which Paulson would adopt on October 10, despite believing such intervention to be “objectionable.” Although neither candidate was comfortable on economic details, Obama was best positioned politically and appeared most able personally to feel Americans’ pain at a time of economic and foreign turmoil. He again cited McCain’s support for Bush’s deregulation of financial markets as a key cause of the meltdown. There were few fireworks, except during a foreign policy exchange when McCain again pinpointed Obama’s inexperience (“In his short career, he does not understand our national security challenges. We don’t have time for on-the-job training”). Obama fired back that it was McCain who had made the wrong judgment calls (“It’s true, there are some things I don’t understand. I don’t understand how we ended up invading a country [Iraq] that had nothing to do with 9/11 while Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us. That was Senator McCain’s judgment, and it was the wrong judgment”). The junior senator more than held his ground across a wide range of policy areas and did not look unpresidential or lacking in knowledge, which given his lead in the

128

Andrew Wroe

polls was all he needed to avoid. Indeed, a next-day Gallup poll found that 56 percent thought Obama did the better job, 23 percent said McCain, and 15 percent called it a draw,17 although this apparent victory did not translate into an extension of Obama’s large single-digit poll lead. The Third Presidential Debate With the economy and his poll numbers refusing to rebound after the second debate, many commentators argued that with only three weeks to polling, the third and final debate on October 15, chaired by CBS’s Bob Schieffer at Hofstra University, New York, offered McCain one of his last chances to turn the race in his favor. Following their advice, McCain was at his most combative, criticizing his opponent for his relationship with Ayers, for failing to repudiate a supporter who compared McCain to segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace, for opposing a ban on partial-birth abortion, for rejecting legislation that would provide health care to children born after failed abortion operations, for breaking his promise to take public funding and cap his election spending, for spending “more money on negative ads than any political campaign in history,” and for being a tax-and-spend liberal who would raise taxes on America’s middle class. On the tax-and-spend point, McCain invoked and obsessed about Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio plumber whose taped encounter with Obama a few days earlier on the campaign trail had caused a stir on the Internet and latterly among conservative columnists. Wurzelbacher criticized Obama’s tax plans, which he claimed would lead to his paying more tax if he a bought a new plumbing business. “What you want to do to Joe the Plumber and millions more like him is have their taxes increased and not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business.” McCain melodramatically accused Obama of “class warfare” for wanting, as Obama had previously said to Joe, to “spread the wealth around”—despite Obama’s claim that he would increase taxes only on incomes over $250,000 and actually cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. Despite the strength of the attacks, Obama had ready a full, measured answer to each and remained calm and statesmanlike in response. He constantly tried to turn the focus to the economic crisis and to link McCain to Bush, much to the former’s annoyance (“Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago”). Although he was more positive


129

and energized than in the previous two debates, McCain’s famous temper appeared to be bubbling just under the surface. Obama was, in contrast, a study in composure and easily parried McCain’s attacks. Moreover, McCain did not seem comfortable with his critique of Obama’s character, having suffered ugly attacks by George W. Bush’s supporters during the 2000 Republican primaries and promised not to indulge in them himself, and he moved on quickly. According to a Washington Post/ABC poll, Obama’s strategy to promote a presidential image to offset doubts about his experience and judgment appeared to be working. A majority of Americans now thought he had the requisite experience to be president, more cited him than McCain as the stronger leader, and more thought McCain was a riskier pick than Obama for the top job.18 Aftermath The day after the last debate, Obama felt it necessary to warn supporters against overconfidence, referring to his New Hampshire primary loss to Senator Clinton: “I’ve been in these positions before when we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked.”19 McCain, meanwhile, rekindled what he thought was a game-changing invention in the presidential race—“I thought I did pretty well [in the debate, but] the real winner last night was Joe the Plumber. Joe’s the man. He won, and small business won across America. . . . The American people are not going to let Senator Obama raise their taxes”20 —but the press hysteria surrounding Joe meant McCain lost control of the narrative. The press besieged the Ohio plumber. Stories emerged that he did not own a plumbing license and owed more than $1,000 in state taxes, and he was also forced to acknowledge that Obama’s plan would result in a personal tax reduction given his current income. Next-day polling by Gallup showed that although McCain thought he had done the better job, the American people did not. Only 30 percent gave him the third debate, and 56 percent said Obama won it. Moreover, a net 22 percent felt more favorable toward Obama, and McCain’s overall favorability rating fell by eight points. 21 Obama had good reason to caution against postdebate hubris, however. His apparent triumph in the third debate, as in the previous two, did not engender a significant fillip in the opinion polls. Gallup’s tracking poll estimated his lead on October 17 at eight points among registered voters, roughly where it had been all month, but among likely voters the margin was

130

Andrew Wroe

only four or two points, depending on the measure. Moreover, over many years Gallup’s postdebate polling had regularly awarded victory to Democratic candidates whereas voters in November frequently favored Republicans. Yet, over the course of the debates, it was clear that the political environment was against McCain, in part because of continuing problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, but largely because of the economic crisis. Republicans in 2008, as in 1932, did not have the economic toolkit and the political language to convince voters that they had the solution to the deepening crisis. McCain’s poll ratings declined steadily through September and October, in the main because of economic factors outside the control of his campaign. The debates offered him three opportunities to get back in the game, but he failed to deliver a killer punch or even a memorable line. He made Joe the Plumber famous, but Joe, a middle-class everyman, could not restore McCain’s fortunes. In contrast, Obama did not need to knock McCain out. The debates instead offered the opportunity to sideline questions over his experience and judgment, an opportunity he took almost effortlessly. He lived up to his nickname, “No Drama Obama,” and delivered steady, composed, presidential performances. Notes 1. Emmett H. Buell Jr., “The National Nominating Convention,” in Enduring Controversies in Presidential Nominating Politics, ed. Emmett H. Buell Jr. and William G. Mayer (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004). 2. Buell, “The National Nominating Convention”; Robert E. DiClerico, “Evolution of the Presidential Nominating Process,” in Choosing Our Choices: Debating the Presidential Nominating Process, ed. Robert E. DiClerico and James W. Davis (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). 3. Buell, “The National Nominating Convention,” 105. 4. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Conventions Typically Result in Five-Point Bounce,” Gallup.com, August 20, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/109702/Conventions-Typically-Result-FivePointBounce.aspx. 5. http://www.demconvention.com/hillary-rodham-clinton/. 6. William Safire, “The Audacity of Hype,” New York Times, August 31, 2008. http://www. nytimes.com/2008/08/31/opinion/31safire.html 7. “Gallup Daily: Obama Maintains 6-Point Lead, 49% to 43%,” Gallup.com, September 1, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/109954/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Maintains-6Point-Lead-49-43. aspx. 8. Monica Davey, “Palin Daughter’s Pregnancy Interrupts GOP Convention Script,” New York Times, September 2, 2008. 9. Elisabeth Bumiller and Michael Cooper, “Palin Assails Critics and Electrifies Party,” New York Times, September 4, 2008.


131

10. “Gallup Daily: McCain’s Bounce Gives Him 5-Point Lead,” Gallup.com, September 8, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/110110/Gallup-Daily-McCains-Bounce-Gives-Him-5PointLead.aspx. 11. Samuel Kernell, Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1993); Richard Rose, The Postmodern President: George Bush Meets the World (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1991). 12. John Broder, “Obama Carries Uneven Record as Debater to First Contest with McCain,” New York Times, September 23, 2008. 13. Lydia Saad, Jeffrey M. Jones, and Frank Newport, “Obama’s Road to the White House: A Gallup Review,” Gallup.com, November 5, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/111742/ObamasRoad-White-House-Gallup-Review.aspx. 14. Mike Allen, “Obama Campaign Calls Palin a ‘Terrific Debater,’ ” Politico.com, September 27, 2008, www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/14014.html. 15. “Gallup Daily: 9-Point Obama Lead Ties Campaign High,” Gallup.com, October 7, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/111004/Gallup-Daily-9Point-Obama-Lead-Ties-Campaign-High. aspx. 16. Jim Rutenberg, “The Next Day, a New Debate on Who Won,” New York Times, September 28, 2008. 17. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Obama Rated as Winner of Second Presidential Debate,” Gallup. com, October 9, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/111058/Obama-Rated-Winner-SecondPresidential-Debate.aspx. 18. Dan Balz, “Aggressive Underdog vs. Cool Counterpuncher,” Washington Post, October 16, 2008. 19. Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray, “As McCain’s Road Gets Steeper, Obama Warns of Overconfidence,” Washington Post, October 17, 2008. 20. Ibid. 21. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Obama Viewed as Winner of Third Debate,” Gallup.com, October 17, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/111256/Obama-Viewed-Winner-Third-Debate.aspx.


AC T

3

And the Winner Is . . .


CH A P T E R

SE V E N

The Victory of Barack Obama M i c ha e l E. Sh in

The victory of Barack Obama and the 2008 U.S. presidential election were events of historic proportions for several reasons. First, the election of an African American to the highest office in the United States was unprecedented, and never before have the Republicans or Democrats nominated an African American for president or vice president. Second, the 2008 election marked only the second time that a woman has appeared on a party’s presidential ticket. The Republican Party’s unexpected nomination of Alaska governor Sarah Palin for vice president followed New York senator Hillary Clinton’s competitive but unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in the spring. Third, as discussed in chapter 5, the amount of money that the Obama campaign raised and spent on the 2008 election was extraordinary. Obama raised and spent twice as much money— $742 million—as his Republican competitor, Arizona state senator John McCain. This dramatically altered the campaigns for both candidates and will undoubtedly inf luence the future of campaigns and campaign finance in America. Fourth, the environment in which the campaign and election took place was unusual in many ways. In particular, a global financial crisis rapidly unfolded in the weeks preceding the election, the United States was engaged in unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the approval ratings for the incumbent U.S. president, George W. Bush, had never been lower for his administration than during this period. Barack Obama’s victory can thus be attributed to a combination of factors and circumstances. Several political analysts and pundits on both

136

Michael E. Shin

the left and right not only predicted a big win for Obama but, given the unpopularity of the Bush administration and the rapidly deteriorating economy, went so far as to say that any Democratic candidate would have won. It is impossible to determine whether any Democrat would have won, but, in retrospect, the inability of the McCain campaign to separate itself from the Bush administration and status quo proved to be important to many voters. Whether any single issue can catapult a presidential candidate to victory is also debatable, but conventional wisdom suggests that the financial crisis and faltering U.S. economy contributed greatly to Barack Obama securing 53 percent of the popular vote to John McCain’s 46 percent, and, ultimately, the presidency of the United States. Notwithstanding the circumstances that surrounded the 2008 election, the results also provide insights into several lingering questions about American politics. For instance, questions about the role of race in the 2008 outcome immediately come to mind. Clearly, the 2008 victory of Barack Obama marks a significant departure from every previous U.S. presidential election, but what is less clear is whether, and, if so, precisely how, race will matter in the future for the Democrats, Republicans, and American politics at large. Another, more general question concerns political polarization, and more specifically whether America is becoming more or less polarized or politically divided.1 Since the 2000 election, political discourse in America has centered on the notion that America is culturally divided between red states (Republican) and blue states (Democratic). In the eyes of some, the outcome of the 2008 election perhaps exacerbated such political-cultural differences; for others, it may have brought the country together. After reviewing and explaining what happened on November 4, 2008, I address these questions pertaining to American politics in an attempt to situate the election within a broader sociohistorical context. The Magic Number: 270 The president of the United States is elected not directly by popular vote but by the electoral college. Each of the fifty states is allocated electoral college votes on the basis of the total number of seats the state holds in the House of Representatives and the Senate. With the exception of the states of Nebraska and Maine, electoral college votes from each state are then given to the presidential candidate who obtains most popular support in the state, in a winner-takes-all fashion. In Nebraska

The Victory of Barack Obama

137

and Maine, electoral college votes are awarded to the popular vote winner in each state’s individual congressional districts, and the statewide popular vote winner is awarded two additional electoral college votes. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, 538 electoral college votes were available, and 270 was the magic number—the majority of electoral college votes necessary to secure victory and the office of U.S. president. Before and after each presidential election in the United States, the electoral college system is scrutinized, criticized, and defended. Introduced by the Founding Fathers as a compromise between the selection of the president by Congress and election by popular vote, the system has withstood landslide victories, razor-thin outcomes, and, perhaps most important, the test of time. Recent critics of the system often cite the 2000 U.S. presidential outcome, where Al Gore “lost” the election despite having received a greater share of the popular vote than George W. Bush, as an example of how the electoral college is f lawed.2 Proponents of the electoral college argue that the system is effective because, in many respects, every state counts. That is, each state matters to the outcome of the election, so candidates must engage in truly national campaigns and not focus only on the most populous cities and states. Although it is often argued that small states are given a disproportionate amount of inf luence in the selection of the president, this can also be considered one of the system’s greatest strengths, because presidential candidates need to recognize and respect this fact. Given the long-standing history of the electoral college, the rules of the game are well known and established, and disputes about presidential election outcomes such as occurred in 2000 are relatively rare. Insights into the results from any U.S. presidential election begin with examining the math behind obtaining 270 electoral votes. Although there are 538 total votes available to the candidates from the two parties, in reality the electoral college votes from several states are virtually guaranteed for one or the other party’s candidate. For instance, in recent elections the Democratic presidential candidate could rely upon the fifty-five electoral votes from California, just as the Republican candidate could count on the thirty-four electoral college votes from Texas. Modern campaign strategies ref lect this electoral geography of the United States, and presidential elections tend to revolve around those states where the popular support for both parties is close and f luid. These are the so-called battleground, contested, or swing states where the fight for undecided voters was the focus of both campaigns. Despite its name, Barack Obama’s much heralded “50-State” strategy illustrates clearly how U.S. presidential campaigns are organized

138

Michael E. Shin

and fought.3 The starting point for both the Obama and McCain campaigns was the result of the 2004 U.S. presidential election. The Obama campaign sought to maintain all of the states that John Kerry had won in the previous presidential contest, just as McCain hoped to hold on to all of the states that had supported George W. Bush. States where the 2004 election had been most competitive would clearly receive greater attention, with the majority of campaign resources directed to battleground states such as Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Each campaign mapped out several paths to the critical number of 270, but as the campaign unfolded the overwhelming financial advantage that the Obama campaign had over the McCain camp proved critical. For instance, in addition to fighting for voters in the traditional swing states of Ohio and Florida, the Obama campaign was able to maintain a presence in Republican strongholds such as Utah, where he had little chance of winning. The McCain campaign was forced to allocate its comparatively limited resources to defending such states. The withdrawal of McCain’s campaign staff and resources from Michigan one month before the election and from Colorado only two weeks later can be considered a consequence of Obama’s strategy and resource advantage, which in turn constrained McCain’s mathematical path to 270 and ultimately led to the victory of Barack Obama. As predicted by the average of national polls in the days immediately preceding the election, Barack Obama won the 2008 U.S. presidential election by obtaining approximately 53 percent of the popular vote to John McCain’s 46 percent.4 In terms of electoral college votes, Obama won a total of 365 votes to McCain’s 173 votes, a result that is numerically similar to the victories that Bill Clinton enjoyed in 1992 and 1996. Although the outcome is considered a big win for Obama and the Democrats, especially when compared with the 2004 election, where the Democratic candidate John Kerry received a total of 252 electoral college votes, it falls considerably short of a landslide such as Ronald Reagan’s 1984 victory, when he won nearly 59 percent of the popular vote and 525 electoral college votes. A simple visual comparison of the electoral maps from the 2008 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections provides some preliminary insights into Barack Obama’s victory (figure 7.1). First, as articulated in the “50-State” strategy, the Obama campaign was indeed able to hold on to all of the states that Kerry had won in 2004. Second, Obama was able to win three battleground states in the west: Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. What made these victories in the west impressive were the relatively large margins of victory, particularly in Colorado,

WA ME

MT OR

ND MN

ID

VT NH WI

SD

PA

IA

NE

NV

UT

CA

CO

AZ

KS

OH

IN

IL MO

WV KY

NJ DC

VA NC

SC

AR MS

TX

MA CT

MD DE

TN

OK

NM

NY

MI

WY

AL

GA

LA FL

AK McCain, 173

2008

Obama, 365

Obama (Democrat)

Total Electoral College Votes

McCain (Republican)

WA ME

MT OR

ND MN

ID

VT NH WI

SD WY NV CA

PA

IA

NE UT CO

AZ

OH

IN

IL KS

MO

KY

NJ

VA

DC

NC SC

AR MS

TX

MA CT

DE WV

TN

OK

NM

NY

MI

AL

GA

LA FL

AK HI Bush, 286 Total Electoral College Votes

Figure 7.1

Electoral outcomes in 2004 and 2008

Kerry, 252

2004 Kerry (Democrat) Bush (Republican)

140

Michael E. Shin

a state where the Republicans have performed quite well historically. Third, Obama was able to extend support along the Atlantic coast with close victories in North Carolina and Florida, in addition to a strong performance in Virginia. Fourth, and perhaps most important, Obama was able to consolidate support across the Midwest, in the traditional battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and he also narrowly won Indiana, a state that has not supported a Democratic candidate since 1964. Finally, and despite these impressive achievements, Obama was unable to penetrate much of the South, and in states including Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, support for McCain in 2008 was actually greater than support for President George W. Bush in 2004. State-by-state results from the 2008 U.S. presidential election, as well as the number of electoral college votes allocated to each state and the percentage electoral swing between 2004 and 2008, are reported in table 7.1. Note that the table is also divided into three sections representing the preelection status of each state according to previous election results and polling information. States are categorized as either “safe for Obama,” “safe for McCain,” or “battleground,” and the percentages for the winning candidate are highlighted in boldface. Within the “battleground” category, there were only six states where the 2008 margin of victory was less than 5 percent: Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, and Ohio. It is interesting to note that despite the emphasis and importance placed upon such states by the media and the campaigns, Barack Obama could still have won without several of these key battleground states (including Florida and Ohio). If we look at state-level changes since the 2004 election, the mean level of swing in favor of Obama was 5.1 percent, with a standard deviation of 3.7 percent. Removing the extreme case of Hawaii, Barack Obama’s home state, where the swing to the Democratic candidate was more than 18 percent, returns a national swing of 4.8 percent, with a standard deviation of 3.2 percent. This indicates that after the swing to Obama is taken into consideration, 2008 levels of support from a large majority of the states were within approximately 3 percent of their 2004 levels.5 In comparison with the 2004 Kerry campaign, Obama was able to shift support in his favor in all but five states: Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Tennessee. This swing to Obama is best understood if we separate out those states that voted Democratic from those that voted Republican. If we exclude the extreme swing value from Hawaii, the mean level of swing

Table 7.1 State-by-state results in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections States Safe for Obama

California (CA) Connecticut (CT) Delaware (DE) Hawaii (HI) Illinois (IL) Maine (ME) Maryland (MD) Massachusetts (MA) Michigan (MI) New Jersey (NJ) New York (NY) Oregon (OR) Rhode Island (RI) Vermont (VT) Washington (WA) Washington, DC (DC) Battleground States

Colorado (CO)

Florida (FL) Georgia (GA) Indiana (IN) Iowa (IA) Minnesota (MN) Missouri (MO) Montana (MT) Nevada (NV) New Hampshire (NH) New Mexico (NM) North Carolina (NC) North Dakota (ND) Ohio (OH) Pennsylvania (PA) Virginia (VA) West Virginia (WV) Wisconsin (WI)

Electoral College Votes

Obama %

McCain %

55 7 3 4 21 4 10 12 17 15 31 7 4 3 11 3

61.0 61.0 62.0 72.0 62.0 58.0 62.0 62.0 57.0 57.0 62.0 57.0 63.0 68.0 57.0 93.0

37.0 38.0 37.0 27.0 37.0 41.0 37.0 36.0 41.0 42.0 37.0 41.0 35.0 31.0 41.0 7.0


Obama %

McCain %

9 27 15 11 7 10 11 3 5 4 5 15 3 20 21 13 5 10

54.0 51.0 47.0 50.0 54.0 54.0 49.0 47.0 55.0 54.0 57.0 50.0 45.0 51.0 55.0 53.0 43.0 56.0

45.0 48.0 52.0 49.0 45.0 44.0 49.0 50.0 43.0 45.0 42.0 50.0 53.0 47.0 44.0 46.0 56.0 42.0

2008/4 Swing* % 7.0 6.0 8.7 18.3 7.4 4.2 6.2 0.3 6.5 4.4 4.2 6.1 3.5 8.4 5.0 NA 2008/4 Swing* % 6.8 3.9 5.7 10.9 5.1 3.4 3.5 9.1 7.5 4.1 8.0 6.4 9.4 3.3 3.9 7.3 –0.1 6.8 Continued

142

Michael E. Shin

Table 7.1

Continued

States Safe for McCain

Alabama (AL)

Alaska (AK) Arizona (AZ) Arkansas (AK) Idaho (ID) Kansas (KS) Kentucky (KY) Louisiana (LA) Mississippi (MS) Nebraska (NE) Oklahoma (OK) S. Carolina (SC) S. Dakota (SD) Tennessee (TN) Texas (TX) Utah (UT) Wyoming (WY) *


Obama %

McCain %

9 3 10 6 4 6 8 9 6 5 7 8 3 11 34 5 3

39.0 38.0 45.0 39.0 36.0 41.0 41.0 40.0 43.0 42.0 34.0 45.0 45.0 42.0 44.0 35.0 33.0

60.0 60.0 54.0 59.0 62.0 57.0 57.0 59.0 56.0 57.0 66.0 54.0 53.0 57.0 56.0 62.0 65.0

2008/4 Swing* % 2.0 2.0 1.0 –5.1 6.4 5.2 1.8 –2.1 3.3 9.7 –0.1 4.1 6.5 –0.4 5.6 8.7

3.8

2008/4 Swing is calculated as the average of: a) the percentage decline in Republican vote; and, b) the percentage increase in the Democratic vote since 2004. This is referred to as the conventional or Butler swing. See D. Butler and D. Stokes (1968) Political Change in Britain. London: Macmillan.

in the states won by Barack Obama was 5.8 percent, with a standard deviation of only 2.2 percent. In states won by McCain, and as anticipated, the mean level of swing was less than that for Obama, at 3.6 percent, with a standard deviation of 3.9 percent. Differences in the mean and dispersion of the swing in each state grouping are statistically significant6 and individual states that exhibit particularly high or low levels of swing stand out. Such differences and variations in swing may be related to voter turnout and are discussed in greater detail in the next section. Whether the approximately 5 percent swing in favor of Obama in 2008 can be considered a truly uniform national swing or even a uniform partisan swing is open to discussion.7 Moreover, and notwithstanding criticisms of realignment theory,8 it is also unlikely that the 2008 election will be considered a realigning or critical election, because the swings were relatively moderate and the electoral map was not dramatically altered. Although the result of the 2008 U.S.


143

presidential election was predicted by both political polls and pundits, questions about why Barack Obama was elected and who voted for him remain and are the focus of the next section. Why Obama Won Just as the outcome of the 2008 U.S. presidential election was unprecedented, the broader context in which the campaign took place was remarkable. As mentioned earlier, the rapid deterioration of the U.S. and global financial markets not only figured prominently in the last two months of the campaign but contributed greatly to and arguably determined the result. For instance, only one in ten voters named either the war in Iraq or terrorism as the most important issue facing the United States, but six in ten voters cited the economy as the most pressing issue.9 Furthermore, as the economic crisis unfolded, the reactions and responses to it from the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain provided voters, and in particular the coveted undecided voters, glimpses into the problem-solving and leadership styles of each candidate. Although it is impossible to determine precisely how much Barack Obama’s leadership style or John McCain’s public response to the financial crisis swayed the electorate, it is both useful and constructive to situate the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign within the broader context of the crisis to explain the outcome of the election. The rapid unfolding of the economic crisis in September 2008 had three significant consequences for the presidential campaign, all of which affected the McCain campaign negatively. First, the crisis tempered both the spectacle and favorable bump in the polls that John McCain enjoyed after selecting Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Immediately after the announcement and nomination of Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate, McCain surpassed Obama in several opinion polls. This advantage was short-lived: Obama regained the lead in the polls for good shortly after the failure of Lehman Brothers in mid-September.10 Second, the financial crisis underscored the claim made by Obama that a vote for McCain was a vote to continue the “failed policies” of the Bush administration. As economic conditions deteriorated and as the financial markets unraveled, McCain had difficulties convincing voters that he fully grasped the nature of the crisis and distancing himself from the Bush administration. This is not to say that Obama and his campaign provided any clarity or specifics on how to address or mitigate the financial crisis, but, running as the candidate

144

Michael E. Shin

of change, Obama had comparatively little political baggage to overcome and discard. Third, McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign and to forgo participation in the first presidential debate to assist with the bailout plan that was already moving through Congress was met with surprise, skepticism, and criticism. As a political and campaign maneuver, McCain’s decision certainly brought him attention and publicity, but much of this attention turned out to be critical of his judgment and ref lected poorly on McCain and his campaign. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain gained or lost much ground from their respective performances in the October presidential debates. Yet record-breaking campaign contributions meant that Barack Obama was able to buy time on several television networks and show a thirty-minute campaign commercial just one week before the election. Barack Obama thus went into the November election as the favorite to win, with some polls reporting that the senator from Illinois possessed a double-digit advantage.11 With questions about the state and future of the U.S. economy in the forefront of the minds of many voters, Barack Obama was elected the forty-fourth president of the United States. As predicted by the average of national polls, Barack Obama won 53 percent of the popular vote to John McCain’s 46 percent. Approximately 61.6 percent of eligible voters turned out, the highest level of turnout in more than forty years. Although many anticipated record-breaking levels of electoral participation in 2008, turnout increased by only 1.5 percent over 2004 levels.12 Of the several factors contributing to Barack Obama’s victory, the turnout of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and young voters was perhaps the most important. If we consider the impact of race first, levels of turnout among African Americans were high across America, as was expected by many. African Americans constitute approximately 13 percent of the U.S. electorate, and according to exit polls 95 percent backed Barack Obama in 2008, the highest level of support earned by any Democratic nominee in recent history. The largest increases in voter turnout were reported in states with high African American populations, including South Carolina (+6 percent), Washington DC (+7 percent), North Carolina (+8 percent), and Virginia (+7 percent). It is precisely such increases in turnout, and in particular African American turnout, that led Obama to victory in North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida. Exit polls indicated that Hispanic American voters supported Obama by a two-to-one margin over John McCain. Compared with the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Hispanic American turnout increased


145

by approximately 25 percent, and Hispanic American support shifted dramatically to the Democrats and Barack Obama.13 In particular, Obama’s victories in New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada can be attributed to Hispanic American turnout, with Obama receiving 69, 61, and 76 percent of the Hispanic American vote in each state, respectively. This shift away from the Republicans by Hispanic Americans was also evident in Florida and, in addition to the African American vote, contributed to Obama winning the state by 2.4 percent. These results and the fact that immigration was not a major campaign theme in 2008 speak to the efficacy of Obama’s strategy and his overall appeal, as well as to the depth and extent of the economic crisis, which superseded all other issues in the election. A comparison of the turnout results with the electoral swings reported in table 7.1 also highlights a key detail about race and who voted for Barack Obama. Unlike the states identified above that registered the largest changes in turnout since 2004, states where the swing to Obama was greatest (North Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Utah, Vermont, New Mexico, and Nevada) have very small African American populations. African Americans represent approximately 12 percent of the total U.S. population, but in the states listed above that swung heavily in Obama’s favor, this figure averages only 2.1 percent.14 Therefore, the notable gains that Obama made in these states were largely among white voters, regardless of Republican increases or decreases in turnout. Conversely, in the only five states where the swing was away from Obama (West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee), on average African Americans make up 14.9 percent of the population. This result is perhaps more a ref lection of how Republican white voters in these Southern states are finding themselves on the margins of a changing American electorate than a failure of the Obama campaign to mobilize African Americans in the South. Another key to Obama’s electoral success was youth turnout and participation. Approximately 23 million young voters (aged eighteen to twenty-nine) turned out in 2008, an increase of 3.4 million over the 2004 election.15 This figure represents the highest level of youth turnout since 1972. Young voters constituted 18 percent of all voters in 2008, and, more important, exit polls indicated that Obama enjoyed a two-to-one advantage over John McCain among voters under thirty. It is likely that Obama’s message of hope and change resonated loudly with young voters, the majority of whom came of voting age shortly before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, changed America and the world, and most of whom have known only the increasingly

146

Michael E. Shin

unpopular Bush administration. The Obama campaign’s innovative, if not revolutionary use of information and mobile technology certainly appealed to this younger segment of the electorate and was arguably the best way to mobilize these voters. Moreover, by encouraging small campaign contributions, the Obama campaign reinforced the notion that it depended upon grassroots efforts. In this respect, the Obama campaign not only mobilized young voters but may have successfully socialized, cultivated, and engaged politically an entire generation. Despite the advantages that Barack Obama had, John McCain managed to obtain 46 percent of the popular vote. On average, McCain supporters were more likely to live in the South and in rural areas, were more religious, and were older, whiter, and wealthier than those who voted for Obama. McCain’s performance can be considered respectable, especially in light of the economic crisis, his comparatively limited campaign funds, and the weight of the Bush administration’s political baggage, among other things. According to exit polls, Republicans who supported McCain differed little from those who have supported Republican candidates in the recent past.16 For instance, evangelical voters, who form nearly 25 percent of the electorate and who are also the electoral base of the Republican Party, supported McCain over Obama by a three-to-one margin. Furthermore, McCain voters overwhelmingly approved of the war in Iraq by a nine-to-one margin over Obama supporters. Although poor voters (family income less than $15,000) favored Obama by a three-to-one margin, this advantage was erased at family income levels above $50,000. Except for the rather dramatic changes in African American, Latino, and youth turnout discussed here, responses to exit polls in 2008 were more or less consistent with those obtained in 2004 and earlier presidential election years. Put another way, voter behavior may not have changed much between 2004 and 2008, but there were probably notable changes in who voted. Ultimately, as the financial chaos and economic turmoil engulfed America and the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, there was little if anything that the McCain campaign could do to counter Obama’s platform of change and to avoid defeat. A Renewal of American Democracy? Several aspects of the 2008 U.S. presidential election were remarkable. The election of America’s first African American president, Barack Obama, will remain a defining moment for American democracy.


147

Similarly, with campaign contributions to and expenditures by both the McCain and Obama camps exceeding $1 billion, the 2008 U.S. presidential contest was by far the most expensive election in U.S. history. Voter turnout also increased to a level not seen in forty years, with electoral participation reaching 61.6 percent. Other features of the 2008 election, however, did not depart much from previous elections. The economy remained primus inter pares insofar as campaign issues were concerned, and negative campaigning, in large part by John McCain, made its return in 2008. Whether negative campaigning was part of McCain’s original strategy or was used in desperation mattered little to voters, because polls indicated that it diminished, rather than enhanced, his appeal.17 Just as negative campaigning seeks to accentuate, exacerbate, and capitalize upon differences between candidates, its use also suggests that there are fundamental and sharp divisions within the American electorate. The extent to which America is politically divided, or polarized, remains a topic of much interest and debate.18 One question that emerges from the 2008 election is whether the United States is more or less polarized politically than in previous elections. With Barack Obama winning on a platform that emphasized unity and a willingness to work closely with Republicans, it is not unreasonable to expect a decrease in political polarization. Despite differences and debates surrounding the definition and measurement of polarization, and in an effort to provide a timely and succinct snapshot of polarization in America, figure 7.2 shows the unweighted standard deviation of the winning candidate’s state performances for each presidential election since 1968 as a proxy for political polarization (when weighted by popular vote, the results are not significantly different). As an indicator of dispersion around the mean, higher standard deviations suggest greater differences in support for the winning candidate among states in an election year, and thus higher degrees of political polarization. Using this rather elementary measure of political polarization, figure 7.2 illustrates the changing nature of political polarization in America since 1968. After decreasing from 1968 to 1984, political polarization has increased in all but one election. Moreover, contrary to initial expectations, not only has political polarization increased since 2004, but the only time it was higher was in 1968, when Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey. This result is somewhat surprising, because George W. Bush is often considered to be the most polarizing president and political figure in recent memory.19 Although this particular measure of political polarization has its limitations, the general trend toward

148

Michael E. Shin

10 9.5 9

Polarization

8.5 8 7.5 7 6.5 6 5.5 5 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 Year Figure 7.2

Political polarization in the United States

political divergence over the past twenty years is unmistakable. This may represent an opportunity for Barack Obama to unify the country, but it can also be considered a challenge that the Republican Party desperately needs to overcome because, as the 2008 results indicate, much of this polarization is anchored in the South. Although the greatest levels of support for John McCain were found across the South, the South is no longer a cohesive voting bloc and is far less critical to victory than in the past.20 As noted earlier, support for McCain in 2008 exceeded support for Bush in 2004 in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Tennessee, but ongoing economic and demographic shifts across the South, and especially in Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina, are reshaping the Southern electorate. Hence, it is likely that the Republican Party will need to revisit its strategy of appealing to Southern white voters on issues of race in an effort to expand its appeal. What this process will entail and its effect on political polarization remain to be seen. The 2008 U.S. presidential election may mark the end of the Republican South, but it also marks an important beginning for American democracy. Lingering questions about race in America were not only confronted but answered with the election of Barack Obama. America was ready to elect an African American to be president. This


149

is not to say that race no longer matters in American politics; rather, the 2008 outcome is likely to highlight how race still matters in some ways and in some places, and how it does not in others. Moreover, it remains to be seen whether history will ref lect favorably upon the Obama presidency, especially given the two wars he inherited along with the worst global economic crisis in a century. Notwithstanding these outstanding questions and challenges, the outcome of the 2008 U.S. presidential election will always be considered unprecedented. Notes 1. Philip A. Klinkner and Ann Hapanowicz, “Red and Blue Déjà Vu: Measuring Political Polarization in the 2004 Presidential Election,” Forum 3, no. 2 (2005), www.bepress.com/ forum/vol3/iss2/art2; Morris P. Fiorina, Samuel J. Abrams, and Jeremy C. Pope, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (New York: Pearson Longman, 2005); Andrew Gelman, “Election 2008: What Really Happened,” Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State blog, http://redbluerichpoor.com/blog/2008/11/election-2008-what-really-happened. 2. “Editorial: Flunking the Electoral College,” New York Times, November 19, 2008, www. nytimes.com/2008/11/20/opinion/20thu1.html. 3. Kyle Trygstad, “Obama’s 50 State Strategy,” June 26, 2008, Real Clear Politics, www. realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/obamas_50_state_strategy.html. 4. “General Election: McCain vs. Obama,” 2008, www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/ president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html. 5. Gelman, “Election 2008: What Really Happened.” 6. The tests for significance can be summarized as follows: t = 2.3, p < 0.05; f = 0.3, p < 0.01. 7. Andrew Gelman, “What Does Non-uniform Partisan Swing Look Like?” Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science blog, November 6, 2008, www.stat. columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2008/11/what_does_nonun.html; David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain (London: Macmillan, 1968); R. J. Johnston and A. M. Hay, “On the Parameters of Uniform Swing in Single-Member Constituency Electoral Systems,” Environment and Planning A 14 (1982): 61–74. 8. David Mayhew, Electoral Realignments: A Critique of an American Genre (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004). 9. “How They Voted: Exit Poll Full Results,” ABC News, 2008, http://abcnews.go.com/ PollingUnit/ExitPolls2008#Pres_All. 10. “General Election: McCain vs. Obama.” 11. Ibid. 12. Michael McDonald, “Voter Turnout,” United States Elections Project, 2008, http:// elections.gmu.edu/Turnout.html. 13. Julia Preston, “In Big Shift, Latino Vote Was Heavily for Obama,” New York Times, November 7, 2008, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E0DC1638F93 4A35752C1A96E9C8B63&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. 14. U.S. Census Bureau, “The American Community—Blacks, 2004,” Washington, DC, February 2007, http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/acs-04.pdf. 15. Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), “Youth Turnout Rates Rises to At Least 52%,” 2008, www.civicyouth.org/?p=323. 16. “Election Results 2008: Exit Polls,” New York Times, November 5, 2008, http://elections. nytimes.com/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html

150

Michael E. Shin

17. Michael Cooper and Megan Thee, “Poll Says McCain Is Hurting His Bid by Using Attacks,” New York Times, October 14, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/ 15poll.html?scp=1&sq=Cooper%20and%20Thee%20Negative%20campaigning%20by% 20McCain&st=cse. 18. Fiorina et al. Culture War?; Morris P. Fiorina and Samuel J. Abrams, “Political Polarization in the American Public,” Annual Review of Political Science 11 (2008): 563–88; Andrew Gelman, David Park, Boris Shor, Joseph Bafumi, and Jeronimo Cortina, Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). 19. Gary C. Jacobsen, A Divider, Not a Uniter: George W. Bush and the American People; The 2006 Election and Beyond (New York: Pearson Longman, 2008). 20. Adam Nossiter, “For South, a Waning Hold on National Politics,” New York Times, November 10, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/us/politics/11south.html.

CH A P T E R

EIGH T

The Other Elections: Congress and the States B. Guy Pete r s

The presidential election of 2008 captured most of the media attention leading up to November 4, and for good reason, but there were thousands of other elections in the United States that same day. At the same time that the president was being elected, the entire House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate, eleven state governors, and all or part of state legislatures in most of the states were being elected. Whereas the relative simplicity of unitary, parliamentary governments in most of Europe means that a single election can determine the outcome for governing, the extreme complexity of American government means that these other elections do have some impact on the policy choices that will be made. The elections for Congress were the most important of the “other elections” in 2008. A president, even one with a clear mandate for change and a charismatic political style, cannot rule alone and requires the cooperation of Congress. Further, given that Congress has become a divided and factious organization, gaining that cooperation is often more difficult than it was in the past. Therefore, the ultimate success of the Obama presidency might well depend on the outcomes of the congressional elections. Much of the time since the Second World War there have been “divided governments” in Washington,1 with at least one house of Congress controlled by the party other than the party of the president. In office President Obama will have the advantage of Democratic control of both houses and therefore probably will have greater cooperation from Congress. A unified government is no guarantee for success, but it can remove some impediments to achieving goals.

152

B. Guy Peters

The elections for state governors and state legislatures can appear rather removed from the high politics of the presidency, and it would be easy to underestimate their importance in American politics. In the first place, many public programs designed and funded at the federal level are implemented through the state and local levels. Therefore, controlling that level of government can be crucial for producing the desired policy outcomes. In addition, there is a great deal of symbolic value for a political party in winning at this level and in controlling government in the states. Finally, state legislatures will be responsible for reapportioning congressional seats after the 2010 census, and some of the legislatures elected in 2008 will be involved in that crucial political process.2 Setting the Scene The elections for the Senate and House are to some extent miniatures of the presidential election. In all but a few instances the elections were head-to-head contests between Democrats and Republicans or an incumbent was running unopposed. Only in two elections did a third-party candidate have any significant vote-getting capacity or any significant impact on the election. In one—the Senate race in Minnesota 3 —a third-party candidate took enough votes to produce a highly contested recount. In the other—a Senate race in Georgia—the Libertarian Party candidate took enough votes from the Republican candidate, Saxbee Chambless, to force a run-off election.4 Chambless won the run-off easily, as the national Republican Party pulled out all the stops to prevent the Democrats having a filibuster-proof Senate, and the African American turnout was reduced significantly from the general election.5 In understanding American elections it is also important to understand that the party leadership cannot select their own candidates for the elections but must accept the outcomes of primaries or party caucuses. Therefore, most candidates had not been running for office as long as the presidential candidates, but they had been running for more than the period between Labor Day and November 4. This local character of nominations and elections also means that the party leadership will have less control over the elected members of Congress than is the case in most other party systems. Just as in the presidential campaign, money was crucial in Senate and House elections and in the campaigns for state offices. Almost from

The Other Elections: Congress and the States

153

the time they take office, members of Congress must begin to raise money for the next campaign. Their challengers will rarely have had as much time to raise campaign money, nor do they have the advantage of incumbency in raising the money, but still they find ways to raise millions of dollars to run. Preliminary figures from the 2008 elections are that the average candidate for the Senate spent more than $6 million, and the average candidate for the House of Representatives spent just over $1 million. The need for money not only provides private interests with substantial inf luence over the members but is one of the relatively few levers that the national parties have over the candidates for office in their name. The two parties in Congress have funds to support congressional races but have discretion in who receives how much support from those funds. These funds are especially important for challengers to incumbents, who might otherwise have real difficulties in mounting an effective campaign. These funds are also scarce, so the party has to decide where it can most usefully use its funds to win seats. The Outcomes in Congress Being a Republican candidate for public office in 2008 was not an easy task. The Bush presidency had reached historic lows in public approval even before the financial crisis revealed the extent to which the deregulation of the economy encouraged by the administration had helped undermine many financial institutions.6 The Iraq war, domestic policy failures such as the poor response to Hurricane Katrina, and financial problems combined to make running as a Republican in that election an almost insurmountable task. In 2008, even moderate Republicans who had not been in lock-step with the president on important policy issues were expected to encounter the same difficulties in the election simply because of their party label. In addition, a charismatic figure at the top of the Democratic ticket could be expected to have substantial “coattails” and to help elect Democrats at all levels of government. American elections often involve electing everything from president to minor officials at the same time and on the same ballot. In some states it is possible to vote a “straight ticket” (for example, all Democrats) simply by pulling one lever or making one “X.” Therefore, having a strong candidate for president tends to help other candidates of the same party. The generally negative expectations of the Republicans, and the positive expectations of the Democrats, were largely fulfilled in the

154

B. Guy Peters

elections. Four incumbent Republican senators lost their seats in the election and three more Democrats were elected to seats in which the Republican incumbent had decided not to run. One more Republican Senate seat (Minnesota) took a long time to decide as was won very narrowly by the Democratic candidate, Al Franken. No incumbent Democratic senators who ran lost their seats, although Mary Landrieu was threatened in usually Republican Louisiana. Several Democrats, including Max Baucus in Montana and Mark Pryor in Arkansas, retained their seats with ease in largely Republican states. On the House side the Democrats had a net gain of twenty-one seats. This outcome was the result of winning twenty-six formerly Republican seats and losing only five former Democratic seats. The Republican losses included a number of long-serving and well-known members of the party, even in predominantly Republican states such as Kansas and Louisiana. In addition, several normally safe Republican seats were affected by scandals and by extremely bitter primary campaigns that brought the party into some disrepute.7 The net results of the elections are, therefore, that the Democrats have clear control of both houses of Congress, with 57 seats (of 100) in the Senate and 257 seats (of 435) in the House of Representatives. In addition, two independent senators tend to vote with the Democrats, giving them in effect at least fifty-nine seats, and one Republican senator (Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter) switched sides early in the new Congress. Specter’s defection gave the Democrats a tenuous hold over the sixty seats in the Senate needed to be able to prevent a filibuster, but it is still no guarantee of effective control unless all sixty can be convinced to vote together. If nothing else, the Democrats can continue to organize both houses of Congress, giving them control over committees and subcommittees, where much of the real legislative work of Congress is conducted. In the U.S. Congress the chairs of committees have a great deal of power, controlling the agenda of their committees, the work of the staff, and the scheduling of hearings. Although partisan considerations were important in the 2008 congressional elections, all politics is to some extent local, and some of the outcomes were inf luenced by local issues and by campaigning. For example, one of the most important Senate gains for the Democrats— defeating the incumbent Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina—was inf luenced heavily by two factors in the campaign. One was that Mrs. Dole, in apparent desperation toward the end of the campaign, ran a television advertisement that accused her opponent (an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church) of being “godless.” This seemingly absurd


155

claim, and the revelation that Senator Dole was ranked ninety-seventh in terms of effectiveness as a senator, helped to seal the election for the Democratic challenger. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, a state that is very Republican, faced the particularly difficult problem of having been convicted of seven federal crimes a few days before the election and lost in a close race in which he could hold on to the coattails of the popular governor, Sarah Palin, who was also the Republican vice presidential candidate. Despite the appeal of Sarah Palin, turnout in Alaska declined from 2004 to 2008, perhaps further undermining Senator Stevens’s chances. Not all the individual issues in the campaigns went in favor of Democratic candidates. For example, Representative Mark Foley in Florida admitted publicly to a series of extramarital affairs and was defeated overwhelmingly. Likewise, in Pennsylvania long-time Democratic incumbent John Murtha won with a much reduced majority after saying that many of his constituents were “racist”8: and hence Barack Obama would have a difficult time in winning his area of western Pennsylvania and hence perhaps also the entire state. These are but a few examples of the many local and personal issues that may have inf luenced voters at least as much as grand debates about the future of government in the United States. That said, there were instances in which party labels were important and perhaps determinant. One of the more important of these was the case of Christopher Shays in Connecticut.9 Shays was the last Republican member of the House in New England, representing the fourth district of Connecticut. He was also one of the more moderate Republicans in the House, voting with President Bush and the party leadership rather infrequently and running away from them as hard as possible during his campaign. Despite that moderate record in Congress, Shays was still a target for Democrats during the campaign and lost in a close election. There are still two moderate Republicans in the Senate from Maine, but otherwise the northeast is totally blue. The losses that the Republicans encountered when an incumbent ran for reelection were not that exceptional. However, if those losses are added to the number of incumbents who chose not to run again and whose seats were won by Democrats, they appear more significant. Four Republican senators chose not to run again in 2008, and three of these were replaced by Democrats. Some of these senators were rather advanced in age, but some also appear to have decided that their possibilities of reelection were limited and they would, as has become the convention, “spend more time with their family.” Much

156

B. Guy Peters

the same occurred in the House of Representatives, with twenty-five Republicans choosing not to run for reelection. The significant losses that the Republicans experienced in both the Senate and the House must be understood in the context of the probabilities of incumbents being reelected. In a normal year members of Congress have roughly a 97 percent probability of being reelected if they choose to run.10 In this election 38 percent of the Republican incumbents in the Senate and 16 percent of the Republican incumbents in the House were defeated. The Republicans had not done well in the 2006 midterm elections, when the Democrats seized control of both houses of Congress, and their losses mounted in the 2008 election. We need to understand how important incumbency can be when running for Congress. Having to face an incumbent is likely to deter opposition candidates from entering the race. Not only does already being a member provide some name recognition for the incumbent but members have the opportunity to provide services to their constituents. These services may be personal—helping constituents with their problems with the bureaucracy, for example—but there is also the “pork barrel.” Members of Congress can direct federal money to their districts through earmarked expenditures.11 They can also claim credit for federal spending that would have come to their district regardless of who the incumbent was. This was one of the foundations of Ted Stevens’s success in Alaska, but he is only one of a number of members of Congress who have built careers on pork-barrel spending. The evidence is that when members of Congress advocate policy they tend to create some enemies, but when they provide services to their constituency they only make friends.12 The outcomes in the congressional races also point to the shift in political allegiances in the west. Several of the states in the mountain west, including Colorado, Nevada, and even John McCain’s Arizona, now have congressional delegations that are majority Democratic—and in the case of New Mexico entirely Democratic. Even Utah (63 percent) and Idaho (62 percent), which voted overwhelmingly for John McCain, now have one Democratic member of the House. These states stand in marked contrast to others in the Great Plains region at the center of the United States that are dominated by the Republicans. What is not yet clear, however, is whether this is a short-term change resulting from the failures of the Bush administration and the appeal of Senator Obama or a longer-term change in the politics of these states. The outcomes of the 2008 elections also raised questions of selection and of elections as a means of filling senatorial positions. Both Barack


157

Obama and Joseph Biden were sitting senators, and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s acceptance of the position of secretary of state means she will have to resign her position as senator from New York.13 In most states, the governor can appoint the replacement for an empty Senate seat, with an election typically occurring at the next general election. The appointment of a senatorial successor for President Obama has been sullied by the apparent attempts of the Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, to use the appointment as an opportunity to raise campaign funds. The opening in New York gained national attention because of the possible appointment of Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy.14 The Outcomes in the States The elections for governorships and state legislatures were not as overwhelmingly dismal for the Republicans as were the federal elections. The Democrats certainly made some gains, but not to the extent that they had in the House and Senate. This was in part because only eleven governors were up for election this year, and five of those posts were already held by Democrats. Before the election of 2008 the Republicans held twenty-three gubernatorial positions; after the elections they held twenty-one. This is not a significant change, and the Republicans are still relatively strong in the state houses across the country. The Republicans added another governorship soon after the elections. Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, a democrat, was nominated to be secretary of homeland security and was replaced by republican Janice K. Brewer because, as Arizona secretary of state, Brewer was the official next in line for the position. Again, although there was certainly a partisan dimension to the elections, there were also a number of more local issues that inf luenced the outcomes. State government elections should be even more affected by these local issues than national elections, and the thousands of races across the country represented a number of extremely local concerns as well as the national clash between the parties. These local issues ranged from the indiscretions of incumbent candidates, to indiscretions by political parties in state legislatures, to significant policy issues (especially those surrounding responses to the current economic problems). The other apparent outcome from elections at the state level is that the political tendencies in the states seem to have been reinforced. States that tended to be red became perhaps more so, even with some

158

B. Guy Peters

gains for the Democrats in the more competitive states. For example, in Oklahoma the Republicans seized both houses of the state legislature for the first time in decades, and they also gained control of both houses in Tennessee. On the other side, the Democrats gained control over legislatures in New York, Delaware, and Wisconsin—generally red states. The American public have been interested in more cooperation between the parties, but in many ways the lines between the parties, at least the geographic lines, have to some extent hardened. The American states, unlike the federal government, can legislate through direct democracy, and there were a number of important referenda and initiatives on ballots across the country.15 The most contentious of these referenda concerned various aspects of reproductive freedom and rights for homosexuals. The most widely publicized of these referenda was Proposition 8 in California, which overturned earlier court decisions permitting same-sex marriages. Similar referenda were passed in Florida and in Arizona. Attempts to place stronger limits on abortions were defeated in California, Colorado, and South Dakota. A number of tax issues were also on state ballots, although there was no clear pattern: some increases won and some lost, depending very much on local issues. All of these simultaneous elections are indicative of the populist tradition in American politics. That tradition tends to place a great deal of faith in the people to control their governments and their policies more directly than in most countries.16 The discussion here does not begin to cover all the elections of state officers, such as public service commissioners, state regents for education, judges, and a host of other positions. The level of turnout in elections is much lower in the United States than in many other countries, but those voters who do show up at the polls are faced with heavy demands. The level of voting falls off for minor offices and in referenda, but the legitimacy created by public involvement is important. The Consequences To some extent the consequences of these elections are obvious, but in some cases they may not be. It is clear from these outcomes that the Democratic Party will be in a powerful position in the federal government and will have a strong capacity to shape policy. Initially, the Democrats did not have the filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that had been one of the targets—if always a highly optimistic one—of the


159

election, but with the defection of one of the few moderate Republicans remaining, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, they should be able to transform the policy directions of the federal government. That said, winning places the Democrats in the position of having to drink from the poisoned chalice presented by the current policy problems of the United States at home and overseas. There is some question of any government being able to solve these problems in one presidential term, much less within the two-year time horizon with which members of the House of Representatives must work. The Democratic Party may therefore have set itself up for major losses in the 2010 elections. The party of the incumbent president tends to lose congressional seats in non-presidential-year elections, but the threat seems particularly acute when there is such an immense policy agenda facing the current Congress. Furthermore, when a number of new members of Congress have come to office riding on the coattails of the presidential nominee, they may be vulnerable in an election in which they do not have the presidential leadership on the ticket. For example, twentyseven Republicans elected in 1980, running with Ronald Reagan, lost their seats in the House in 1982. Parties always face an organizational challenge when they are as successful as the Democrats have been over the past two elections. They begin to believe, as the Republicans did in the late 1990s and early twenty-first century, that they have got “it” right and that they could become the dominant political party for decades to follow. That triumphalist tendency in political parties is often their downfall, as they become wedded to a particular set of ideas and approaches to policy. Unfortunately for political parties, the issues confronting government and public opinion about policy (and leaders) tend to change, and if the parties become too self-congratulatory they will be left behind. In addition to the potential for overconfidence that extreme majorities can produce among political parties, having large majorities makes it less costly for members of that majority to pursue their own goals and to oppose their own party. This opposition may be over personal political goals, and it may be over the need to protect constituency interests.17 For example, even before the new Congress was seated, Democratic members from the upper Midwest began to break with the leadership over proposed support for the Big Three automakers, who were facing bankruptcy. Although politicians will all have to protect constituency interests at some time, a large majority makes it easier to do so while still maintaining control over the policy agenda of the House.

160

B. Guy Peters

Although there will be a strong Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, some sixty of those representatives come from states that are generally red and were elected because of the general swing against the Republicans. These seats are therefore more vulnerable, and the incumbents will have to be careful in how closely they agree with the policy proposals of President Obama and speaker Nancy Pelosi. Furthermore, these Democrats from the red states tend to be somewhat more conservative than the majority of their colleagues and so might not be the natural allies of the president and speaker on many issues.18 Thus, the large majority in the House will not necessarily be reliable on a range of policy issues, including some of the economic issues that will be crucial in the success or failure of this administration. Any tendency toward triumphalism and pushing their own policy agenda too energetically will be mitigated by the memories of being in the minority that many Democratic members of Congress share. Those years of Republican domination of the House and Senate were most unpleasant for many current members, and they would want to avoid losing control even more fervently than they might have done in the past when there was no such experience. Although that might be their fervent desire, the economic and security challenges the country faces may make retaining power all the more difficult. In addition to the impact on policy, the domination of the Senate by the Democratic Party may have a significant impact on the federal courts. The Constitution requires that the Senate approve appointments to the federal judiciary, and there were several major battles over these appointments during the Bush administration. Five of the current Supreme Court justices are more than seventy years old, and some might be expected to leave the Court during the next few years. Although there is not a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the large majority should enable President Obama to have substantial latitude in selecting justices. Having promised during the campaign to select justices who are sensitive to the needs of the less-advantaged segments of society, the new president may be able to transform the courts—with the agreement of the Senate. The outcomes of this election for the internal functioning of Congress may not be as positive as the initial elation in certain circles might make one think. One consequence of the election is that the Republican Party remaining in Congress is substantially further to the right than the party had been prior to the election, although some critics of the party might not think that possible. A number of the more moderate


161

Republican members of Congress, such as Shays from Connecticut and Senator John Warner of Virginia, are now out of Congress, and primarily more conservative and ideological members remain. This means that the ideological distance between the parties will be greater, and finding common ground will be more difficult. That said, there are still a few moderates in the Republican congressional delegation who should be able to cooperate with the Democrats on specific pieces of legislation. As well as posing challenges to the Democrats in control of Congress, the 2008 elections have posed significant challenges to the Republican Party. Although the Democrats are certainly not guaranteed dominance for years to come, the Republicans must figure out how to change their electoral fortunes. On November 4 the Republicans seemed to be primarily a regional party of the South and the Great Plains, having been virtually banished from the northeast and having suffered major losses in the west. The appeal in the former areas continues to be in part on social issues, but as younger generations replace the older, these appeals on homosexuality, abortion, and the like have decreasing resonance even in those areas. The state governors have been handed the same poisoned chalice as has the president. They must confront the economic downturns and large losses in state revenues, but with fewer resources than President Obama will have. Just as winning the election in 2008 may prove to be a challenge to future political success for the president and the Congress, the majority Democratic governors will have the same political challenges. They will have to attempt to maintain their political popularity and credibility when they mostly will have only bad news—higher taxes and lower spending—to deliver to their constituents. Conclusion The presidential election in the United States receives by far the majority of the publicity during the election season, and this was especially true for the 2008 election. There were thousands of other elections in the United States in that year, and these too will have some impact on the manner in which the country is governed. To some extent these elections followed the general pattern established in the presidential election, with the label “Republican” being a burden for any candidate in 2008. That said, each of these elections had some particular local inf luences that added to the common partisan patterns.

162

B. Guy Peters

These elections may not have the impact on governing that the presidential election will have, but the effects will nonetheless be significant. The importance of Congress was made very clear, even before the new Congress was seated, when Republicans in the old Congress blocked an attempt to bail out the automobile industry, forcing the president to do this on his own. The economic crisis is also pointing to the crucial role that elections to state governments can play in developing recovery programs independent of federal programs or in working with Washington on those recovery options. Notes 1. David R. Mayhew, Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking and Investigations 1946– 1990 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991). 2. In many countries, legislative seats are reallocated by apolitical commissions or the courts to ref lect population changes, but in the United States reallocation is a highly politicized activity. 3. Susan Saulny, “Economic Crisis Shapes the Senate Contest in Minnesota,” New York Times, October 25, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/us/politics/26minnesota.html. 4. This election emphasized the fact that each state sets its own election laws. Georgia’s laws require a majority for election, further reinforcing the two-party nature of U.S. politics. 5. The rules of the Senate permit a debate to continue indefinitely unless a vote of 60 senators (cloture) cuts it off. A filibuster is the use of the unlimited debate rules to prevent the Senate acting on a bill with which the minority disagrees. 6. Jo Becker, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and Stephen Labaton, “White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire,” New York Times, December 21, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/ business/21admin.html. 7. Historically, the Democratic Party has been more beset by internal conf lict than the Republicans, but in this election ideological differences and decisions about whether to ally closely with President Bush produced internal dissent among Republicans. 8. Ed Blazina, “Murtha Says Obama Will Win Pennsylvania Despite Racism” Pittsburgh Post Gazette October 16, 2008. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08290/920355-470.stm. 9. Peter Applebome, “Our Towns; With G.O.P. Congressman’s Loss, a Moderate Tradition Ends in New England,” New York Times, November 6, 2008, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/ fullpage.html?res=9404E3DF113EF935A35752C1A96E9C8B63. 10. S. Ansolabehere and J. M. Snyder Jr., “The Incumbency Advantage in U.S. Elections: An Analysis of State and Federal Offices, 1942–2000,” Election Law Journal 1 (2002): 315–38. 11. Gail Russell Chaddock, “Despite Earmark Reforms, ‘Pork’ Spending Rises,” Christian Science Monitor, April 3, 2008. 12. Morris P. Fiorina, Congress: The Keystone of the Washington Establishment, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989). That said, public resistance to earmarks has been increasing. That resistance seems to be largely abstract, whereas benefits created for people’s own area seem to be regarded more positively. 13. The U.S. Constitution forbids anyone holding positions in both the legislative and the executive branches simultaneously. 14. This appointment, as well as the potential appointment of Vice President Biden’s son to fill his Delaware seat, has raised the issue of the increasingly hereditary nature of political office in the United States. For a somewhat satirical view, see Gail Collins, “Send in the

The Other Elections: Congress and the States 15.

16. 17. 18.

163

Celebrities,” New York Times, December 17, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/opinion/ 18collins.html. Initiatives provide citizens the opportunity to put issues on the ballot; referenda are propositions put to the public by state legislatures. In most states, constitutional amendments require a referendum. Switzerland is the obvious exception to this generalization. Morris P. Fiorina, “Parties and Partisanship: A 40 Year Retrospective,” Political Behavior 24 (2002): 93–115. For example, the Blue Dog Coalition of more centrist and conservative Democrats has since 1995 provided an alternative position to the mainstream of the Democrats in the House, especially on taxing and spending. When the major stimulus package came up in early 2009 there was some dissension among this group of Democrats.


CH A P T E R

N I N E

The New Administration Fabri zi o Bucc i

Only seventy-seven days separate victory at the ballot box from the arrival of the new president of the United States at the White House. It is a time during which “people become presidents”1 and the new chief of the executive branch can begin to turn the program with which he defeated his rival into action. Above all, it is the moment when the electoral machine becomes an administrative apparatus and the new president starts to realize that campaigning and governing are different. It is necessary to draw this distinction to avoid mistakes, but this distinction is also important if the strongest elements of the electoral campaign are to be used for the benefit of future action, leaving behind those that were essential for winning but might not be so useful in government. This is even more important when expectations are not only particularly high but demand immediate realization. This is certainly the case for Barack Hussein Obama, whose formidable electoral campaign, winning message “Change, yes we can,” and personal charisma of a sort not seen since Kennedy have made him the forty-fourth president of the United States. The first moves of the newly elected are the most revealing. Obama has chosen to stress the changing of the guard, thereby giving the impression that he already has a clear list of priorities in mind: “The goal [to build the new administration] is to move ‘quickly, but not hastily.’ ”2 The swift appointment of a new team poised to implement the government agenda, rapid action, carefully deliberated but purposeful

166

Fabrizio Bucci

decision making, measured words, and the absence of triumphalism— welcome to a whole new presidential style. From Campaigning to Governing The transition from one administration to the next is often fraught. Confusion and delay can hamper the ability of a new president to kickstart the administrative machinery. Of course, much depends on the personality of the new president, his organizational ability, and the efficiency and adaptability of the electoral machine in transforming into an effective instrument of government. Obama’s conversion from candidate to president required his most trusted colleagues to be in the right places before the year was out; legislative and executive priorities needed to be not only clear but ready for presentation to the nation and Congress in the earliest months of the presidency.3 Alongside Obama’s projection of efficiency and sheer ability, this is precisely the kind of presidency electors hope for in the next four years. Any delay or detachment on the part of the new administration in the assumption of its responsibilities not only damages its image but slows the whole process of getting the wheels of the machine turning. Nevertheless, the brusque Clinton–Bush changeover in 2001 sounded a different note of caution. In that case, the Supreme Court legal battle between Bush and Gore that finally sealed the former’s victory on December 12, 2000, halved the normal transitional period necessary for the formation of a new presidential team. This limited timeframe hampered the new Bush administration’s ability to select key appointees equipped with well-defined objectives, much to its detriment. The national commission investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks went so far as to say that it was also for this reason that America was so unprepared to deal with a terrorist attack.4 Although the partial and hurried transition of 2001 admittedly had less to do with Clinton than with the belated proclamation of Bush’s victory, the near-chaos that marred Clinton’s own passage to power in 1992 still fuels a certain “Clinton curse” myth. The verdict is unanimous: the Clinton transition in 1992 was properly dubbed the worst,5 as the president-elect made no appointments or immediate action plans for either his cabinet or the White House for at least six weeks after the elections. In fact, Clinton nominated a good number of his staff only on January 15, and key cabinet members were selected a mere five days before inauguration, before even the White House lineup

The New Administration

167

was finalized, precious time having been lost in the pursuit of a racial, ethnic, and gender balance. Further chaos ensued in the establishment of a timeline of initial objectives for the first months of Clinton’s mandate. The president finally settled on the revocation of the ban on homosexuals in the U.S. army as his top priority. Granted the issue had been central in his election campaign, but it should have been of secondary importance at a moment when the country’s principal concern was with the economy (“It’s the economy, stupid!”). The error proved costly.6 Had Clinton’s priorities been better organized, “he might have avoided the rocky start of his administration which, instead, got sidetracked by the ‘gays in the military’ issue.” 7 If there is one thing newly elected presidents are destined to learn fast, it is that, truly, governing is not campaigning. Toward a New Executive: The Presidential Transition Coordinating Council A certain air of vulnerability always lingers over the transition between administrations. It is the moment in which the executive reorganizes and the administrative machine must necessarily slow. Nevertheless, historical circumstances can also heighten or attenuate this perception of weakness. From this perspective, the circumstances accompanying the last period of the Bush presidency were not particularly fortuitous. Financial meltdown and economic crisis, alongside two wars that keep the security of the country at the forefront of popular concern, clearly contributed to a perception of vulnerability. It is perhaps for this reason that the closing, transitional months of the Bush presidency saw such energetic efforts to smooth the way for the transfer of power.8 As early as October 2008, the president signed Executive Order 13476 for the establishment of a Presidential Transition Coordinating Council, with the aim of easing the transition between the two presidencies. Chaired by the chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, and comprising senior officials, including the attorney general (Michael Mukasey), the director of national intelligence (Mike McConnell), the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (Clay Johnson), and the director of the Office of Management and Budget ( Jim Nussle), the Presidential Transition Coordinating Council had one fundamental objective, to assist and support the transition teams for the “major party candidates” and the president-elect. This was done by providing as much relevant information on the personnel aspects of a presidential transition as

168

Fabrizio Bucci

possible and by seeking the advice of individuals with significant expertise in the matter. This unreserved offer of assistance by the Bush administration in the transitional months came with little precedent in American history.9 On the eve of Obama’s victory, President Bush announced, “Over the next 75 days, all of us must ensure that the next President and his team can hit the ground running. For more than a year now, departments and agencies throughout the federal government have been preparing for a smooth transition. . . . In the coming weeks, we will ask administration officials to brief the Obama team on ongoing policy issues, ranging from the financial markets to the war in Iraq. I look forward to discussing those issues with the President-Elect.”10 The outgoing administration may have left the incoming one with a series of difficult problems and challenges, but there is no doubt that “Bush deserves a gold star for the way he [left] office.”11 The Transition Team The counterpart of the Presidential Transition Coordinating Council was the president-elect’s own transition team, charged with ensuring that the transfer of power from the old administration to the new was smooth and that the continuity of leadership was preserved. But where the Presidential Transition Coordinating Council worked with an eye to the establishment of a positive Bush legacy, Obama’s transition team looked only to the future. In the past, transition teams have been subject to a variety of modifications that, little by little, have transformed their methods and objectives. The most important of these have been the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 for the orderly transfer of executive power in connection with the expiration of the term of office of a president and the inauguration of a new president; the Presidential Transition Act of 2000, which amended the former, allowing for the General Services Administration to develop and deliver orientation activities for key prospective appointees and requiring the administration, in consultation with the National Archives and Records Administration, to develop a transition directory; and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act of 2004, following 9/11, which introduced regulations for granting security clearances to prospective transition team members who need access to classified information. Against the backdrop of these rather general legislative provisions, transition teams have also undergone considerable practical refinement,


169

the last of which was the fruit of eight years’ labor on the part of John Podesta, Clinton’s chief of staff between October 1998 and January 2001. Although he could not have foreseen it at the time, Podesta was among the first to benefit from his own efforts in securing the central role of transition teams, as he was appointed team leader by Obama on the eve of his election.12 It is important to note that the exhaustive and meticulous selection process for Obama’s governing and countless secondary positions was underway by the close of the Denver convention, well before Podesta’s formal appointment. With a budget of $12 million ($5.2 million has been approved by Congress, the rest raised through individual donations under $5,000) and a staff of some 450 people scattered between Washington and Chicago, the transition team is organized into groups corresponding to each of the key government priorities (the economy, education, energy and the environment, health care, immigration, national security, technology, innovation, and government reform13) that work not only to select officials but to formulate and refine future policy. The First Step: Finding the Best People Fast (and Lots of Them) Obama’s transition team has one fundamental mission: the selection of the future members of the administration. It is through these nominations that the new president makes his first mark on the executive. This is, in truth, a challenge facing all newly elected presidents: how to select the right people for key tasks, and to do so quickly. The period between election and inauguration is crucial to laying the foundations of the new administration by selecting those individuals who will soon be called on to do the president’s bidding. The honeymoon period between the electorate and the president-elect does not last forever, especially when expectations, and problems, weigh as heavily as they do for the Obama administration. This is precisely why the president needs to have the right people in the right places from day one, poised to implement the new legislative agenda and bring forward executive action.14 Time is of the essence. In the first instance, it is vital to start off on the right foot in tackling the country’s problems and fulfilling campaign promises, especially when expectations are so high. Second, nominees must go through careful security screening by the FBI (acting on a congressional mandate) and be approved by the Senate.15 Both these processes are time consuming, especially now, as the notoriously

170

Fabrizio Bucci

slow approval process must contend with record numbers of high-level political nominations. Choosing close advisers is more complex than it might at first appear. Newly elected presidents tend to fill the White House with their comrades in arms from the election campaign, who are not necessarily the right people for the particular tasks they are then set. One of Clinton’s first mistakes was to insist that his close friend Mack McLarty be his chief of staff despite his complete lack of experience in Washington, let alone in such a role.16 Selecting the right people quickly has become even more important in view of the size of modern administrations. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in in March 1933, the White House staff numbered less than fifty. In little more than seventy years dozens have become thousands spread across more than 125 different offices; members of the Executive Office17 have jumped from zero to more than a thousand.18 Today, forming an administration involves choosing the president’s cabinet (composed of the vice president, White House chief of staff, and the secretaries of the fifteen executive departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs); the Executive Office (including, among others, the Council of Economic Advisers, National Security Council, Office of Administration, Office of Management and Budget, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and the United States trade representative); and the White House Office. All in all, more than three thousand people need to be spirited into place if the presidential machine is to start running promptly. This administrative inf lation has no doubt been facilitated by the absence of detail regarding the formation of the presidential cabinet in the American Constitution.19 The Constitution only emphasizes that the cabinet functions both as the executive authority and as the head of the administration (the various offices through which the executive itself is structured serve only as organizational tools in the hands of the president). But this growth is above all a result of evolution: over the course of the twentieth century the role of the United States in the world changed dramatically. The United States went from being an important actor at the margins of geopolitics to global superpower; a “peripheral” country became the largest industrial economy and the center of the financial world; a primarily rural society loosely administered over an immense territory was urbanized in terms of both its


171

socioeconomic and cultural structures. It was during the twentieth century that America transformed into a typically complex Western polity, as it acted on the need for more regulation, management, and the provision of services in response to rapid growth in all quarters. This is how and why the modern federal administration was born and the competences and functions of the government in Washington grew. This evolution of American society and politics has had another important consequence: the gradual shift of the center of power from Congress to the presidency. The modern presidency has moved toward creating all policy at the White House, overseeing the operations of government from the White House, and using White House staff to operate programs of high presidential priority.20 The exponential growth of the White House staff—in particular the Executive Office of the president and the White House Office—and the consequent urgency in choosing the closest advisers to the Oval Office can also be explained in these terms. The White House In Charge Obama’s overture has clearly demonstrated his intention to keep both decision making and administrative operation in the White House. Exercising his prerogative as chief manager of the executive branch, Obama has given the highest priority to the selection of his closest advisers in the White House Office (chief of staff, press secretary, speechwriters, personal advisers, congressional relations chief, and so on), alongside the organization of those other structures directly dependent on the president (for example, the Council of Economic Advisers and the National Security Council) and the nomination of various secretaries in descending order according to the presidential agenda (starting with the economy and national security). Most important, he has presided over the creation of new structures within the White House Office, including those for economic recovery, health reform, and urban and energy policy.21 In sum, Obama has sought to create a governmental structure that he can directly control, concentrating decision-making power on the most important issues in the White House. In the words of David Axelrod, an old friend of the president’s and chief strategist (together with David Plouffe) during the campaign, “Obama wants a high-powered staff in the White House to help him do that.”22 This confirms the recent trend to treat the White House Office as the principal engine of the

172

Fabrizio Bucci

administration, delegating only operational responsibilities to its various departments: it seems the forty-fourth president is just as keen to exercise full control over the means to confront the country’s problems. Internal Priorities Of all the sufferings of the past ten years, the current situation in the United States is the most difficult. This is the country that originated the global financial meltdown and now finds itself in recession; the county whose public debt has reached $9 trillion, the equivalent of 64 percent of GDP, double the same ratio in the 1950s and 1970s; the country embroiled in two wars, one of which—Iraq—costs $10 billion per month; the country that has not invested in its own infrastructure for twenty years (the Association of American Engineers estimated that at least $2,300 billion would be required to bring the United States back to a minimum level of efficiency);23 the country where both the education system (half of all high school students in the fifty major cities in the United States never graduate) and health care (47 million Americans have no health insurance) require serious reform; and, finally, the country whose oil bill reaches $700 billion a year, and which means and needs to diversify its energy resources. During a CNN interview on the eve of the elections, Obama outlined his immediate objectives: taxes, health care, education, energy policy, and immigration. All of which, however, follow the resolution of the immediate emergency: the economy and its workings (“That’s priority number one: making sure the plumbing works”).24 Economic recovery is indeed the priority. Finding a solution to the financial meltdown, stabilizing financial markets by introducing new regulations necessary for its recovery, adopting urgent measures for stabilization and growth, and protecting the middle class—this is the general framework within which Obama’s economic plan must unfold. Despite the need to reform the financial system by empowering the Treasury to do what is necessary to stabilize the system while protecting taxpayers, Democratic economic policy has not lost sight of the real economy. With unemployment estimated at between 7 and 8 percent at the end of 2008 following the loss of some 2.6 million jobs in the same year, the new administration’s goal is to kick-start the economy with a plan that will not only create jobs in the short term but spur economic growth and competitiveness in the long term. President Obama’s comprehensive package will focus mainly on providing assistance to


173

low- and middle-income Americans, strengthening the nation’s infrastructure, and investing in states that are struggling with falling revenues, with the goal of creating or preserving at least 3 million jobs over the next two years.25 Alongside these “traditional” measures, the Obama long-term plan also foresees (and relies on) the development of a “new type” of economy based on sustainable development and high technology, hence the emphasis on investment in renewable energy resources (and the hoped-for creation of 5 million new “green” jobs) and technology research and development that (following a doubling of state funding) aims to preserve the competitive advantage of the American system. As far as the other top priorities go (health care, energy) they are, for the moment, being considered strictly in terms of job creation, that is, as a way to ease mounting pressure on the middle class. It is for this reason as well that the new administration views health care reform in a broader context, seeking not only to provide insurance for all Americans but to modernize the system and in so doing divert valuable resources to the economic recovery effort. A similar plan is envisaged for energy, binding the quest for energy independence to economic development—a theme on which Obama placed great emphasis during the election campaign and on which he still does: “There is not a contradiction between economic growth and sound environmental practices . . . the future of innovation and technology is going to be what drives our economy into the future.”26 Last on the priority list are education and immigration. The president’s vision for a modern public school system is based on two fundamental concepts: reform and responsibility. “The ideal of a public education has always been at the heart of the American promise. It’s why we are committed to fixing and improving our public schools instead of abandoning them. . . . Because in America, it’s the promise of a good education for all that makes it possible for any child to transcend the barriers of race or class or background and achieve their God-given potential. That’s how America works.”27 On immigration,28 the new administration has already established some basic principles: secure borders and the need to amend immigration legislation, to dissuade illegal immigration, to punish more harshly those Americans who profit from illegal immigration, to integrate clandestine immigrants (to “Bring People Out of the Shadows”), and, finally, to cooperate more effectively with Mexico in reducing the f low of illegal immigration.29 Immigration remains a sensitive subject, not only because of its implications for the economy, health care,

174

Fabrizio Bucci

and education but because to the average American it has become the very symbol of “broken government.” Immigration is an important and symbolic test case for the new administration, touching as it does on the fundamental ideals on which America was founded: “Fixing our broken immigration system [means] reconciling our values and principles as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.”30 What about Foreign Policy? The challenge confronting Obama in foreign policy is no less daunting. If there is no doubt that charting a wise course for U.S. foreign policy in the twenty-first century must begin with a sophisticated understanding of the nature of the modern world,31 it is just as clear that the world the Bush presidency has bequeathed the new administration is very different from that which Bush himself inherited at the start of his mandate. At that time, Europe was proceeding slowly with enlargement and the consolidation of the community architecture, China remained relatively hidden from view on the world stage, Japan was still reeling from its decade-long recession, Russia had not yet regained its footing after the collapse of the Soviet Union, India was known simply as the most populous democracy in the world, and no one doubted oil was the principal energy resource. A lot has changed in just eight years, and not only since 9/11. The United States is planning the route by which it will shortly leave Iraq, though it remains heavily entrenched in Afghanistan; it must deal with Iran, bent on the acquisition of a nuclear weapon, and nuclear Pakistan as it lives through a period of profound instability. The growth of China and India must also be “managed”; a new balance with a more assertive Russia must be sought; the aspirations of Brazil and South Africa, emerging as powerful regional players, must not be ignored. Furthermore, the United States intends to take the lead in defining “global governance” as it emerges as a complex of new actors, including banks, multinationals, foundations, and even private individuals. Finally, the United States must assume its central role in tackling crosscutting issues such as the fight against climate change. Obama has already demonstrated a sophisticated grasp of the real world. In a speech in Chicago introducing his national security team, the president-elect elucidated the situation awaiting the new administration: “The national security challenges we face are just as grave— and just as urgent—as our economic crisis. We are fighting two wars. Old conf licts remain unresolved, and newly assertive powers have put


175

strains on the international system. The spread of nuclear weapons raises the peril that the world’s deadliest technology could fall into dangerous hands. Our dependence on foreign oil empowers authoritarian governments and endangers our planet.”32 America’s new foreign policy priorities clearly emerge from this picture, such as preventing Iran and North Korea from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, finding a solution to the Israel–Palestine conf lict, reinforcing international institutions, ending America’s massive military presence in Iraq in favor of a rapid transfer of responsibility to the Iraqi government, continuing the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan (“It’s where the war on terror began, and it is where it must end”)33 and Pakistan. But Obama’s analysis does not just trace the course of his foreign policy. He has already given important signals as to his method: a return to robust multilateralism and a heavy dose of pragmatism. The new president wants to champion an approach that emphasizes dialogue and collaboration with friendly states and allies in the knowledge that in “the 21st century, our destiny is shared with the world’s. From our markets to our security; from our public health to our climate—we must act with the understanding that, now more than ever, we have a stake in what happens across the globe.”34 This is the “theoretical” basis of Obama’s multilateralism: the new administration is conscious of the fact that global problems such as security, climate change, and the fight against poverty necessitate a global response. This is Obama’s point of departure for a reinvigorated international collaboration. Multilateralism and pragmatism will be expressed through an intelligent and nuanced use of both “soft power” (dialogue, culture, values, ideas, etc.) and “hard power” (force). This approach inevitably requires the preservation of adequate military capabilities but also large “investments” in the various forms of soft power through which cooperation with other actors can be deepened and cemented.35 Even in foreign policy, Obama reveals himself to be less an idealist than a realist who would advance American interests by diplomacy, by working to improve the country’s image abroad, and by using military force prudently and cautiously.36 It seems that pragmatism will be the uniting theme of this presidency. The Challenge within the Challenge: Uniting the Country Though perhaps less obvious, the challenge of uniting the country is no less essential for the new president. On the eve of the 2008 election,

176

Fabrizio Bucci

the United States seemed a deeply polarized nation, divided by ethnicity, race, religion, geography, and ideology. This polarization has deepened over the past decade as a result of profound social and economic changes and, above all, growing inequality in the distribution of wealth.37 Acting as both cause and effect, this inequality accompanies other factors at the heart of these divisions: the need to attain higher levels of education to obtain better jobs and the declining strength of trade unions; the negative effects of globalization on labor-intensive jobs and the growing detachment of the financial from the real economy (and the subsequent skyrocketing of salaries and profits in the financial sector); the decline of the traditional family as divorces increase and the marriage rate falls or as a result of both husband and wife working to make ends meet and massive immigration (legal and illegal) since the 1960s.38 The result is a country increasingly divided on social (rich against poor, educated against illiterate), ideological (abortion, death penalty, gay marriage, weapons), religious (conservative against progressive, pro-life against pro-choice), and above all political lines. Although unexpected, the sum of these divisions is plainly ref lected in politics by the strong polarization between two camps: conservative and liberal have become almost synonymous with Republican and Democrat, the better placed in society naturally inclined to identify with the former and the lower strata with the latter—that is if they vote at all. Consequently, Obama has made the “reunification” of the country, which assumed a quasi-philosophical status during the election campaign, one of his principal objectives. In a speech at the end of December 2007, on the eve of the primaries, the then Democratic candidate warned that this political fracture in American society could constitute an insurmountable obstacle to the realization of the country’s aims of economic, social, but also a certain moral recovery: “I believed that the size of these challenges had outgrown the capacity of our broken and divided politics to solve them. . . . We can change the electoral math that’s been all about division and make it about addition—about building a coalition for change and progress that stretches through Blue States and Red States.”39 It is worth remembering that the unity of the country is a theme on which Obama has insisted for years, ever since his famous speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004, at a time when his subsequent nomination and election to the presidency were still unthinkable. The argument is no doubt personally important to Obama; he himself is a living example of cultural and racial fusion, an individual suspended between


177

diverse and distant worlds. As a young senator being sworn in before Congress in 2005, Obama’s thoughts once again turned to the “divided country”: after a memorable day on Capitol Hill “after the family and friends went home, after the reception ended . . . what would linger over the city was the certainty of a single, seemingly inalterable fact: the country was divided, and so Washington was divided, more divided politically at any time since before World War II.” 40 Yet again, on the night of his election, Obama’s speech centered on the need to unite America: “We have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America. . . . In this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people. Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.” 41 It remains to be seen whether the new president will succeed in his task. In the meantime, his election itself is an important step away from lingering racism. The election of the first African American president is a historic event and a powerful symbol of the desire for and the possibility of change. To this must be added the consideration of the present situation and the problems the new administration has inherited, from the financial meltdown to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which also demand a united nation capable of overcoming its differences and working for the common good. This is more than just political rhetoric, as “America needs a uniter, not just a decider, before it’s too late. . . . [I]f the nation remains as divided as it is today, the new President, regardless of his personal courage, intelligence or charisma, will face the specter of national decline.” 42 The Obama Team: The Criteria for Selection Reuniting the country, overcoming the recession, redesigning the nation’s financial architecture, reducing the deficit and public debt, reforming the health and education systems, promoting alternative energy resources, investing in infrastructure, reaffirming the leading role of the United States in the world—to realize such great ambitions the new president has had to assemble a high-caliber team in the briefest possible time to be ready from day one. The first observation about Obama’s selection process must be its speed. The new administration was ready in less than seven weeks. This is a record and, considering the sluggish formation of the first Clinton and Bush administrations, should, according to many observers, serve as

178

Fabrizio Bucci

a model in the future.43 As Rahm Emanuel, nominated chief of staff just days after polling stations closed, put it: “You don’t have time to waste. This is the worst economic situation since the Great Depression and the largest commitment of troops overseas since Richard Nixon. . . . We don’t have a moment to waste.” 44 It was precisely this sense of urgency, amidst the deteriorating economic situation, frantic salvaging attempts (the infamous bailouts for the banks, financial institutions, and insurance and automobile companies), and more bad news from Afghanistan, that accelerated the formation of the new team. Second, Obama’s emphasis on competence should be stressed. Unlike Clinton’s first cabinet, which was designed above all to “look like America,” Obama’s principal criterion was quite simply professional competence.45 Who was best qualified for the job trumped all considerations of race, political affiliation, and the like. The formation of Obama’s team provides another illustration of his fundamental philosophy of government: pragmatism (he chose those he though best able to deliver, without ideological prejudice); moderation (in the knowledge that in the most delicate situations the range of options is often limited—see Obama’s gradual shift from a fixed sixteen-month exit strategy in Iraq during the election campaign to rather vaguer estimations as president-elect); and the sharing of the responsibility of government with the Republicans (as shown by keeping Robert Gates in the post of secretary of defense). This is, in a certain sense, a “defeat of ideology”: by surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues, the former senator of Illinois can use their professional abilities to further his agenda, even at the cost of diluting the superficial appearance of “change” (by choosing, for example, so many former members of the Clinton administration) and disappointing some of his more liberal supporters by nominating Republicans or those too moderate by their standards. For Obama, results are more important than methods; he is, then, the first truly “postideological” president, a new kind of politician who is able to transcend traditional political categories. Another important characteristic of the new team has been highlighted by Obama himself: “I’m going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.” 46 Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and the new national security adviser, Jim Jones, are all strong personalities with strong opinions and independent ideas. This is exactly why they have been chosen: Obama has sought to surround himself with authoritative people who are not afraid to contradict the president— just what the Bush administration lacked.47 No, then, to group thinking, and yes to a diversity of opinions that will serve to enrich and


179

temper presidential decision making. Nevertheless, the consequences of having such a determined team with so much political and technical experience could be otherwise: “They’re smart, they’re well-educated, they’re the upper crust, but the question is, do the parts make a whole or is the whole less than the sum of the parts?”48 For Obama, the risk is well worth running. The New Administration But what kind of team has Obama put together? The view that the new lineup is generous in its moderation, astonishing for its continuity, and startling for its stability is widely shared.49 A dream team of the highest level was chosen on the basis of individual strengths, professional background, and experience. On the whole, Obama’s cabinet is ethnically diverse, politically moderate, and extremely varied. Among the twenty most important appointments, eleven are white (nine men and three women: Hillary Clinton, Kathleen Sebelius, and Janet Napolitano), three Asian (Eric Shinseki, veterans’ secretary; Gary Locke, commerce secretary; and Steven Chu, energy secretary), two Hispanic (Ken Salazar, home secretary, and Hilda Solis, employment secretary), and four African American (Eric Holder, Susan Rice, Ron Kirk and the Environmental Protection Agency chief, Lisa Jackson). In terms of geographic provenance, whereas Bush’s administration hailed mostly from Texas, only three members of Obama’s administration come from his own state, Illinois: the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel; Ray LaHood, transportation secretary; and Arne Duncan, education secretary. Obama has chosen three members of Congress, two senators and a former senator, three governors and two former governors, and one former mayor. There are two Republicans (Gates and LaHood), and some of his adversaries from the primaries: in addition to Clinton and Biden, Iowa’s former governor and new secretary for agriculture Tom Vilsack. The Obama team is above all an Ivy league team: out of his administration’s thirtyfive members, twenty-two are either Ivy League graduates50 or graduates from Stanford University, MIT, Chicago University, or one of the United Kingdom’s top schools. Competence has remained the guiding principle in the new president’s choices. The team chosen to tackle the sensitive subject of energy and environment is a case in point: Steven Chu, energy secretary; Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Nancy

180

Fabrizio Bucci

Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality; and Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change. The star of the energy dream team is without a doubt Steve Chu. At sixty years of age, he is one of the greatest scholars in the field of renewable energy and global warming. Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Nobel Prize winner for physics in 1997, Chu is one of the most prominent supporters of a scientific solution to the dual problem of global warming and the need for alternative, renewable sources of energy. Other members of the team, such as Lisa Jackson (Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and an expert on hydro issues), Nancy Sutley (deputy mayor responsible for Los Angeles’ energy and environment policy and adviser to the EPA’s chief during the Clinton administration, among many appointments), and Carol Browner (administrator of the EPA for eight years and staff director for Senator Al Gore), can boast equal experience in this field. With a team such as this, Obama will be well equipped to develop an energy plan that strikes a balance between the needs of the environment and economic growth. Other key appointments include the choice of Colorado senator Ken Salazar for the Department of the Interior and former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack for the Department of Agriculture. Salazar was Colorado’s attorney general and executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Tom Vilsack will have to deal with an armful of hot potatoes, from the implementation of a farm bill to the decision on the future policy on ethanol. General Eric Shinseki was swiftly nominated secretary of veterans affairs (he was previously army chief of staff in Bush’s administration, but he was quickly removed from this post by the president after he declared in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee a month before the invasion of Iraq that the occupation would require many hundreds of thousands of troops, contradicting the position of then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who favored “light” intervention). Arne Duncan is education secretary (previously managing director of Chicago’s public schools, Duncan built a solid reputation for having successfully improved school performance and teaching quality), and Shaun Donovan has been selected as secretary for housing and urban development (he was formerly head of the Building Development Department in the city of New York, and this nomination returns him to his old post during the Clinton administration). Finally, Hilda Solis has been given the delicate post of labor secretary (the daughter of immigrants herself, elected as Congress representative for South


181

California, and very close to the House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Solis has always been a strong advocate of low-paid workers’ rights and is perceived as being close to trade unions). At the White House Office, Robert Gibbs was selected Obama’s press secretary (a veteran of many presidential campaigns and au fait with the mechanisms of Congress, Gibbs had previously worked with Obama in the Senate), and Phil Schiliro now holds the crucial position of president’s assistant for legislative affairs (he is considered one of the sharpest legal minds in Washington, having spent twenty-seven years on Capitol Hill). Schiliro faces the delicate task, alongside the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and vice president Biden, of providing the link between the administration and Congress. The Economic Team The economy and foreign policy were the jumping-off points for the formation of the Obama administration. Testament to his sense of urgency, only twenty days after his election Obama finalized the composition of his economic team—a stellar cast of leading professionals and economists who, with a market-oriented approach, mean to take bold, clear, decisive steps to deal with the economic crisis:51 Timothy Geithner at the Treasury, Larry Summers as director of the National Economic Council, Christina Romer as chair of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, Melody Barnes as director of the Domestic Policy Council, Peter Orszag as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and finally Paul Volcker as chairman of the newly formed Economic Recovery Advisory Board.52 As undersecretary at the Treasury under Clinton, Geithner successfully tackled the Asian financial crisis and, as head of the New York Fed, had given an astute warning about the systemic risk within the functioning of the international financial system. Summers was Clinton’s Treasury secretary and had already worked with Geithner tackling the crises of that decade—Asian, Mexican and Russian. Both men have great talent and unquestionable technical expertise, although some blame them in part for the current financial crisis.53 Volcker was chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987 under presidents Carter and Reagan and the chief architect of the American economic recovery after the 1970s stagf lation. More than anyone else, he represents Obama’s attempt to assemble a group of first-rate minds to resolve the current crisis.54 Romer, one of Obama’s most interesting

182

Fabrizio Bucci

and brilliant choices,55 is one of the most important world economic historians; her studies on the Great Depression will certainly be very useful in tackling the current crisis. Barnes was senior domestic policy adviser for Obama’s electoral campaign and worked previously with Senator Ted Kennedy, and Orszag was director of the Congressional Budget Office, the federal control body for public spending. The economic team was completed with the late appointment of Gary Locke as commerce secretary after New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and New Hampshire Republican senator Judd Gregg turned the post down56 and Ron Kirk, previously mayor of Dallas, as U.S. trade representative. By appointing Kirk, Obama has chosen a liberal Democrat in the economic field and a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, which he was able to exploit in his position as mayor to boost the trade f low between Texas and Mexico. Locke’s appeal to the White House was threefold: he built a solid record as governor—including overseeing the rapid growth of the Washington economy; he is well known as a strait-laced politician who has never been weighed down with ethical baggage; and he furthers Obama’s commitment to diversity as the third Asian American in the cabinet.57 The National Security Team “In this uncertain world, the time has come for a new beginning— a new dawn of the American leadership to overcome the challenges of the 21st century. . . . To succeed, we must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power. . . . The team that we have assembled here today is uniquely suited to do just that.” With these words the new president introduced his national security team in Chicago at the beginning of December 2008:58 Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Robert Gates staying on as secretary of defense, Eric Holder as attorney general, Arizona’s governor Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary, Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations,59 and General Jim Jones as national security adviser—a heavyweight team for U.S. security policy. There’s nothing new to add about Clinton, on the public scene for forty years as attorney, first lady, senator and presidential candidate. “I will give this assignment, your administration and my country my all,” declared Clinton at her nomination by Obama. New York’s former senator has a strong character, too strong according to some,


183

to the point that it raises doubts about the ability of the new couple, president and secretary of state, to hold together. But there are also those, such as Henry Kissinger, who play it down: “Both Obama . . . and Senator Clinton must have concluded that the country and their commitment to public service require their cooperation.”60 Leaving Gates at the Department of Defense allowed the new president to achieve several objectives at the same time: reassuring those who worried that the election of a Democratic candidate would bring drastic changes to the “new course” in Iraq operations, after the surge and buildup strategy in Afghanistan; reassuring the military by reappointing a defense secretary held in high esteem; reinforcing the soft approach, aimed at guaranteeing continuity in the government of the country by reappointing a moderate to one of the administration’s key positions; and, finally, showing that he was serious in his appeals for unity in the face of political and party divisions. Previously deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, Eric Holder has been a litigation partner in the Washington office of the law firm Covington and Burling L.L.P., handling, among other matters, complex civil and criminal cases, domestic and international advisory matters, and internal corporate investigations. He was an Obama campaign supporter and a leader of Obama’s vice presidential search committee.61 Holder has been described by supporters as someone capable of engineering the swift and significant course corrections that Obama has pledged to make at the Justice Department, beset in recent years by one political controversy after another. The new attorney general will also have to deal with the closure of detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, put an end to the use of extreme interrogation techniques, and rein in the use of wiretapping. At Homeland Security, Arizona governor Janet Napolitano brings a wealth of experience in law enforcement and domestic security. Napolitano played a leading role in the investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing; she worked to break-up the organized gangs responsible for smuggling illegal immigrants across Arizona’s border with Mexico; and she was an innovator in the state-level response to international terrorism. Susan Rice joins the United Nations having played a pivotal role in the Obama campaign as a senior foreign policy advisor. Prior to that, she was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she concentrated on its Global Economy and Development programs. No stranger to government, Rice served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs during the second Clinton administration and special assistant to

184

Fabrizio Bucci

the president and senior director for African affairs and as director for international organizations and peacekeeping on the National Security Council during the first. The appointment of retired Marines Corps general Jim Jones, previously supreme NATO commander in Europe and more recently President Bush’s special envoy for the Israel–Palestine conf lict, adds another moderate, in addition to Gates, to Obama’s national security team. Jones also provides a bridge between the military and the administration and a point of mediation for the other members of Obama’s foreign policy team.62 Jones’ recent experience in the Middle East may be of particular use here: if he can manage to get Israelis and Palestinians to talk to each other, he has at least a fair chance of holding together the Obama foreign policy team.63 Laying the foundations: The appointments of Podesta and Emanuel It would not have been possible to put together a first-class cabinet without two critical appointments: John Podesta as head of the transition team and Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. Together with David Axelrod, Obama worked with these two men more than anyone in putting the new team together in the months before inauguration. By picking Podesta and Emanuel, Obama chose two of the best and most trusted veterans of Clinton’s administration—known and respected for their deep inside knowledge of Washington and for their pragmatic, nonideological approach to politics—to hold positions absolutely crucial for a rapid and effective start to the new presidency. If the man responsible for the transition team is a head-hunter assisting the president-elect in his choice of members of the new administration, the chief of staff is the president’s closest collaborator, the person who translates the president’s suggestions into executive inputs, the “official link” with Congress, and, finally, the person with his hands on the president’s daily agenda.64 As well as being a veteran of the Oval Office, Podesta is the founder and president of the Center for American Progress (a liberal research group that he started in 2003 with help from George Soros and other financiers) and visiting professor of law on the faculty of the Georgetown University Law Center, a position he also held from January 1995 to 1997. Podesta is an old hand in Washington, having worked for many years in the Senate with the Democratic leader Thomas Daschle and Vermont senator Patrick Leahy. Having played his cards close to his vest


185

for most of the primaries, Podesta’s eventual move to the Obama camp was unproblematic, and he quickly earned the new president’s respect through his meticulous work in getting the new team together behind the scenes. Alongside two of Obama’s longtime friends, Valerie Jarrett65 and Peter Rouse,66 Podesta managed to select the new team in record time compared with every other presidency in modern times (the economic team was ready in two weeks, national security in three). Even more important was the selection of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. As Obama himself put it, “I announce this appointment . . . because the Chief of Staff is central to the ability of a President and Administration to accomplish an agenda. And no one I know is better at getting things done than Rahm Emanuel.” He added that “during his seven years in the Clinton White House, Rahm . . . has risen to leadership, helping to craft myriad important pieces of legislation and guide them to passage.”67 Emanuel and David Axelrod are in Obama’s inner circle of friends. Under pressure during the primaries to support Hillary Clinton out of loyalty to her husband, Emanuel managed to stay neutral for a long time, not breaking faith with Bill Clinton and still coming out in favor of Obama in the closing stretch.68 Emanuel combines experience as a top adviser to Bill Clinton with a clear knowledge of the inner workings of Congress. As the numberfour Democrat in Congress and the architect of the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill, he certainly knows all the ins and outs. During the Clinton administration Emanuel was aggressive and at times irreverent, but he was also essential in setting out the guiding principles for delicate legislative interventions on health care, welfare, and commerce. Earning the nickname Rahmbo for his determination and “take no prisoners” approach, Emanuel leaves no one indifferent—quite the opposite. He will no doubt play a key role in making sure the Obama administration can fulfill its aims, acting as an efficient link between the White House and Congress (collaboration here being essential) and maestro of the presidential staff.69 Relations with Congress What will Obama’s presidency be like? Will it be another “imperial presidency” that keeps Congress relatively subordinated, as Bush did? If it is a theme in American history that the pendulum of power swings between the legislative and the executive, it is certainly the case that

186

Fabrizio Bucci

during the past two mandates the balance of power has progressively shifted from Capitol Hill to the White House. Naturally, the “war on terror” played a large part in this process. (Acts of war, or at least warlike events, always shift the balance in favor of the commander in chief: it was the case for Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Second World War and for Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam war.) Nevertheless, this shift during the Bush administration was also a result of Bush’s own renunciation of Congress in favor of his own prerogatives. In other words, Bush assisted a twofold evolution over the past decade by, on the one hand, reinforcing the presidency and, on the other, as a cause and effect of the former, weakening Congress. “The escalation of the permanent campaign, the collapse of the center in Congress, the growing ideological polarization of the parties, the transformation of intense partisanship into virtually tribal politics and the decline in accountability . . . contributed to a climate on Capitol Hill unsettling and destructive.” 70 This is how the legislative became the “broken branch” of the American political system. This gradual weakening inevitably smoothed the way for the consolidation of Bush’s imperial presidency; Congress became almost indifferent, refusing to exercise its prerogatives, whether in the formulation and execution of terrorism policy such as the decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq or the reform of the intelligence services and the national security apparatus.71 This uneven relationship only worsened after the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections and the formation of a Democratic majority in Congress. Relations between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were hostile from the start. The last two years of the Bush presidency saw the county’s interests held hostage by institutional and personal clashes between the White House and Congress. The result was a dramatic slowdown in legislative activity as bitter conf licts hampered both legislative projects dear to the president and those wanted by the Democratic majority72 and as both sides became locked in a continuous arm wrestle on the subject of nominations and revocations, especially as regards those presidential nominations subject to congressional ratification.73 Finally, confrontation was also manifest on the occasion of budgetary legislation and its slow approval by Congress. Possessing a solid majority on Capitol Hill does not automatically mean that Obama will have complete political discretion or freedom of action. Although it is true that the legislative “abdication” of the past few years has meant that the congressional majority have increasingly


187

acted as foot soldiers in the president’s army, it need not necessarily be so for the 111th Congress. The Carter administration, which enjoyed the same majority on Capitol Hill, might serve as a warning. The relationship between the former governor of Georgia and Congress was characterized by antipathy and incomprehension from the start—Carter’s fault, according to many. Carter assumed that his double majority in both the Senate and the House would mean his every decision would be accepted without question.74 Because he failed to establish a relationship of mutual trust and cooperation with members of Congress it was not long before a split between the two powers became inevitable. Unlike Carter, Obama hails from Congress and knows just how delicate the equilibrium between the White House and Capitol Hill is and how efficient cooperation between the powers is essential to pushing the envelope. He started on the right foot by nominating veteran senator Joe Biden as his vice president75 and Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, both of whom will function as precious liaison officers, facilitating dialogue between the executive and the legislative. And if presidents “sometimes feel things will happen just because they say so . . . [t]hat’s not how it works in Washington. Congress can be a huge barrier.” 76 Obama seems determined not to make the same mistake. Obama keeps the channels of communication with Capitol Hill permanently open (he frequently consults with the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, and the other Illinois senator, Dick Durbin, who was one of his earliest mentors in Congress) and was very astute in choosing his other collaborators, such as Dan Pfeiffer (head of communications for the transition team), Phil Schiliro, and Dan Tarullo (who worked for Senator Ted Kennedy in the past). Obama has put together the most Congress-ready administration in memory, and maybe ever.77 In this way, he has demonstrated his conviction that the reunification of the country will be achieved only if the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are also reunified.78 Conclusion Toward the end of his presidency Lyndon Johnson remarked, “You’ve got to give it all you can the first year. Doesn’t matter what kind of majority you come in with. You’ve got just one year when they treat you right. . . . The third year you lose votes. . . . The fourth year is all

188

Fabrizio Bucci

politics. You can’t put anything through when half of the Congress is thinking how to beat you, so you’ve got one year.”79 So Obama probably has just a year to begin to live up to the country’s expectations. He is aware of this, as the speed with which he has put together his all-star team demonstrates. He is also aware that he cannot tackle everything at once, particularly the paramount problem of the economy. In one of his first radio broadcasts as president-elect, he warned against illusions. The new jobs to be created, he said, “don’t just put people to work in the short term, but . . . in the long-term.”80 He was already facing up to the first of his many challenges, that of cooling expectations and “managing disappointment.” “Change we can believe in” was an election winner, but the hopes it engendered were, and are, a problem when it comes to government, hence the numerous notes of caution sounded during the transition period. What kind of president will Obama be? Will he define a decade as did Reagan and Clinton, or will he be like Carter, enthusiastically welcomed after Nixon but overwhelmed by too many broken promises and a casualty of conf lict with Congress? It is too early to say. Certainly his team, on paper at least, looks formidable. But so was Kennedy’s, described by David Halberstam as “the best and the brightest,” who managed to get America embroiled in Vietnam. For the moment we can say that Obama represents a new pragmatic, postideological, and technologically savvy generation. They are “casual, cool and connected,”81 in tune with new creative language, and at home in the new multimedia world of text messaging, email, YouTube and Facebook. Obama speaks directly to this generation in their own language, bypassing the traditional media and thereby revolutionizing political communication. But, so far, Obama’s new language is just that. It is an instrument, a “deposit.” During the electoral campaign he promised change, but it remains to be seen what the substance will be. The American people are practical and pragmatic; they judge their presidents on their ability to deliver, on whether they achieve concrete objectives. Nothing else counts. A year is not very long to begin changing America. Obama is certainly enjoying a happier honeymoon than did Bush, even perhaps Clinton and Reagan, but only after the next few months might we be able to say, with David Axelrod, whether “the tide of history is on our side.”82


189

Notes 1. Charles O. Jones, Passages to the Presidency (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 1. 2. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/11/05/obama_announces_transition_tea. html. 3. Ibid., 84. 4. The 9/11 Commission Report, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 198–422. 5. Jones, Passages to the Presidency. 6. Stephen Hess, “Transition Memo to the President-Elect,” Washington Post, November 6, 2008, p. A19. 7. Stephen Hess, What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the President-Elect (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), p. 6. 8. “One of the reasons I believe the Bush Administration is doing a remarkable job of making this transition work . . . —a commitment we haven’t seen from an outgoing president before—is that this is a national security and homeland security concern.” Norman Ornstein (American Enterprise Institute) in an interview with Judy Woodruff, Newshour with Jim Lehrer Show, November 6, 2008. 9. David Frum, “George W. Bush the Uniter,” The Week—News & Opinion, December 24, 2008. This is a view shared by many others, including Bill Galston, former member of the Clinton Transition Team, and Stephen Hess. 10. White House Press Conference, November 6, 2008. 11. Norman J. Ornstein, “George W. Bush’s Gentlemanly Goodbye,” International Herald Tribune, January 20, 2009. 12. “[Podesta] could not have known that Obama would be the first president to use the tools he championed, but designed them so that even a former Illinois state senator with four years in national office would benefit.” Paul C. Light, “President-Elect Faces Tough Transition,” Washington Post, November 5, 2008. 13. The Transition Team’s working groups on economy and national security were headed, respectively, by Daniel Tarullo (law professor at Georgetown University and former assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, assistant to the president for international economic policy, and Clinton’s personal representative to the G7/G8) and by James Steinberg (deputy national security adviser to President Clinton, 1996–2000) and Susan Rice (senior foreign policy adviser to Obama during the election campaign and assistant secretary of state for African affairs, 1997–2001). 14. Jones, Passages to the Presidency, 84. 15. Article II, section 2, of the U.S. Constitution states that the president must choose the officials of his administration “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” 16. Only eighteen months later McLarty would be blamed for not having imposed the necessary “discipline on a chronically undisciplined President and chaotic White House Staff.” Hess, “What Do We Do Now?”, 31. 17. Created by Roosevelt in 1939, the Executive Office of the President is made up of White House offices and agencies. These offices, which include the National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget, help develop and implement the policy and programs of the president. 18. Stephen Hess, “Organizing the Presidency”, 3rd ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002), 5. 19. Article II, section 2, “Command of military; Opinions of cabinet secretaries; Pardons,” states that the president “shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United

190

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

Fabrizio Bucci

States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Hess, Organizing the Presidency, 4. For a complete list, see the White House website at the following URL: http://www. whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/. Peter Blake, “Reshaping White House with a Domestic Focus,” New York Times, December 20, 2008, A13. American Society of Civil Engineers, ASCE’s 2005 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/actionplan07.cfm. “Economy Tops Obama’s List of ’09 Priorities,” October 31, 2008, http://edition.cnn.com/ 2008/POLITICS/10/31/obama.blitzer/index.html#cnnSTCText. “Obama’s Stimulus Package,” The Progress Report, Huffington Post, January 5, 2009. Carol E. Lee and Erika Lovley, “Obama Announces Energy Team,” Politico.com, December 15, 2008, www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16606.html. Speech to the National Education Association, Philadelphia, July 5, 2008. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan social research center based in Washington, DC, in March 2008 the number of illegal immigrants in the United States was around 12 million (http://pewhispanic.org). http://change.gov/agenda/immigration_agenda. Obama’s speech to the League of United Latin American Citizens, Washington, DC, July 8, 2008. Henry J. Aaron, James M. Lindsay, and Pietro S. Nivola, eds., Agenda for the Nation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), 8. See Obama’s speech presenting the National Security Team, December 1, 2008, http://www. america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2008/December/20081201165629eaifas0.8166773. html. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. “To succeed, we must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power: our military and diplomacy; our intelligence and law enforcement; our economy and the power of our moral example”. E. J. Dionne, “Obama Foreign Policy Looks Like Bush 41,” November 28, 2008, www. realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/obama_foreign_policy_looks_lik.html. Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, March 2008), 2ff. Ibid., 2 “Immigrants have . . . increased inequality both directly, by occupying the lowest rungs of the economic ladder, and indirectly, through competition with citizens for lowwage jobs.” From the speech “Our Moment Is Now,” given in Des Moines, Iowa, December 27, 2007, http://www.barackobama.com/2007/12/27/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_38.php. Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004), 448. http://www.barackobama.com/2008/11/04/remarks_of_presidentelect_bara.php. David M. Abshire, A Call to Greatness:—Challenging Our Next President (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 5. “The fast start [of Obama] . . . must become a model for his successors.” Jim Hoagland, “Obama’s 77-Day Sprint,” Washington Post, December 7, 2008. Peter Baker and Helene Cooper, “Issues Pressing, Obama Fills Top Posts at a Sprint,” New York Times, December 5, 2008, A27.


191

45. In 1992, Bill Clinton famously promised to appoint a cabinet that “looks like America.” He followed through, tapping women and minorities for high-ranking positions and overseeing an administration more diverse than any that had come before it. It was not long, however, before an overburdened policy agenda began to collide with an understaffed organization and it became apparent that not all those chosen were up to the task. 46. David Jackson, “Obama’s National Security Players Must Manage Hot Spots,” USA Today, December 15, 2008. 47. “Mr. Obama’s Team,” New York Times, December 2, 2008, A28. 48. Peter Wehner, White House director for strategic initiatives in the second Bush administration, cited in Alec MacGillis, “For Obama Cabinet, a Team of Moderates,” Washington Post, December 20, 2008, A1. 49. Michael Gerson, “Closet Centrist,” Washington Post, December 3, 2008, A17. 50. From Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth College. 51. “Barack Obama’s Economic Team—Off to Work They Go,” The Economist, November 27, 2008. 52. The Economic Recovery Advisory Board will be charged with offering independent, nonpartisan information, analysis, and advice to the President as he formulates and implements his plans for economic recovery. 53. “Mr. Obama’s Economic Advisors,” New York Times, November 25, 2008. 54. David Cho and Alec MacGillis, “How Will Obama Harness Powerful Economic Team?” Washington Post, November 27, 2008, A01. 55. Edward Glaser, “Obama’s Most Interesting Pick,” New York Times, December 2, 2008. 56. Richardson stepped aside following allegations of pay-to-play politics involving his administration, and Gregg removed himself from consideration after deciding his ideological differences with the administration were too great to overcome. 57. Chris Cillizza, “Former Wash. Gov. Gary Locke Likely to Commerce,” “The Fix,” Washingtonpost.com’ politics blog, February 23, 2009, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ thefix/white-house/locke-to-commerce.html. 58. “Key Members of Obama-Biden National Security Team Announced,” press release, http:// change.gov/newsroom/entry/key_members_of_obama_biden_national_security_team_ announced. 59. In the U.S. system, the ambassador to the United Nations has the title of secretary (minister) and is a member of the president’s cabinet. 60. Henry Kissinger, “Team of Heavyweights,” Washington Post, December 5, 2008, A25. 61. Information on the other security team members can be found at http://change.gov/ newsroom/entry/key_members_of_obama_biden_national_security_team_announced. 62. Helene Cooper, “National Security Pick: From a Marine to a Mediator,” New York Times, November 28, 2008. 63. David Ignatius, “Facilitator on Board,” Washington Post, December 7, 2008, B7. 64. “The President’s relationship with the White House Chief of Staff constitutes one of those central organizational and personal presidential relationships. . . . Chiefs [of Staff ] have an on-going, almost pathologically intimate relationship with their Presidents.” Terry Sullivan, “Presidential Work during the First Hundred Days,” White House Transition Project report 2009-04, 24. 65. President and chief executive officer of The Habitat Company, Jarrett worked in the office of the mayor of Chicago for eight years; she was also president of the board of the Chicago Stock Exchange, director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and treasurer of Barack Obama’s senatorial campaign in 2004. 66. Chief of staff to Senator Barack Obama, Rouse has performed the same tasks for more than thirty years for different members of Congress, including Tom Daschle and Dick Durbin. He also played an important part in Obama’s decision to run for the presidency.

192

Fabrizio Bucci

67. From a speech given by Obama on November 6, 2008. See “Emanuel to be Obama’s White House Chief of Staff,” November 7, 2008, http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/emanuel_ to_be_obamas_white_house_chief_of_staff. 68. Carl Hulse, “The New Team—Rahm Emanuel,” New York Times, November 6, 2008. 69. “[Rahm Emanuel is] . . . a very serious person, and most serious in the ethics of policy and politics. He is an old-fashioned liberal in the sense that he is afraid neither of the concept of equality nor the reality of military power.” Marty Peretz, The Spine—Reaching for Rahm, New Republic, October 30, 2008 at: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/ archive/2008/10/31/reaching-for-rahm.aspx. 70. Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, The Broken Branch:—How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), x. 71. Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, “When Congress Checks Out,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2006. 72. For example, the Bush administration’s opposition to Democratic plans to extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program. 73. For example, the clash over Congress’s request for access to internal White House documents pertaining to the closest advisers to President Bush. 74. Shirley Anne Warshaw, Powersharing:—White House-Cabinet relations in the Modern Presidency (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), 122. 75. Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972, then the fourth youngest senator ever. He is now the fourth-longest-serving senator on Capitol Hill. 76. Leon Panetta, shortly before being nominated head of the CIA, quoted in Kath Kiely, “Obama Works Quickly to Gain Support in Congress,” USA Today, December 11, 2008. 77. Will Englund, “Will Close Ties with Congress Help Obama?” National Journal Magazine, November 15, 2008. 78. Both the White House and Congress are located on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, which runs northwest to southeast for approximately one kilometer. 79. Hess, “Organizing the Presidency,” 17. 80. Radio address, January 10, 2009. 81. Bill Schneider, political analyst for CNN, quoted in Bob Stuart, “Generation ‘0,’ ” NewsVirginian.com, November 21, 2008, http://www.newsvirginian.com/wnv/news/local/ article/generation_o/31732/. 82. Kenneth, T. Walsh, “Can Obama Truly Deliver?” US News & World Report, November 17, 2008, 22.

AC T

4

The Aftermath


CH A P T E R

T E N

A New Foreign Policy for the United States? M ari o D e l Pe ro

Toward the end of 2007 an article published in the Washington Quarterly declared that the 2008 U.S. presidential election felt “more like a Cold War–era election” than a post–1989 one: “perhaps more than any presidential contest since 1980 or even as far back as 1968, 2008 will be,” the article stated, “a national security election.”1 This assessment was shared by the majority of commentators and experts. With the country involved in two wars and an endless campaign against terrorism, in an unstable and volatile global climate, it seemed obvious that the electoral debate would evolve around themes related to foreign and security policy. However, that did not prove to be the case. The election pivoted on global themes but not on security per se. Of course, for the United States, the separation between foreign affairs and internal affairs, major international themes and domestic matters, is artificial and f lawed in itself. In the global network of interdependence, at the center of which the United States takes its place, any problem that affects the only remaining superpower has repercussions for all the other actors of the system. The economic difficulties, the financial crisis, the explosion of the speculative bubble in the real estate sector, and the contraction of consumption—to name a few quintessentially “domestic” issues—have had inevitable global ramifications. In other words, for the United States there can no longer be any political sphere that is exclusively “internal.”2 Nevertheless, the classic themes of foreign and security policy—the diplomatic choices, the politics of alliances, the military interventions in which the United States is involved,

196

Mario Del Pero

the development of a new “Grand Strategy” to replace the Bush doctrine—were increasingly marginalized in the electoral debates. As a result, America spoke to the world more than of it. Contingent reasons and structural factors might explain why this marginalization occurred. During the course of 2008, the difficulties faced by the American economy and their tangible and immediate effects on the lives of American citizens forced Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama and Republican nominee Senator John McCain to focus mainly on social and economic problems. Indeed, for both candidates it was more necessary (and electorally convenient) to address fiscal policies, bailouts, employment, and support allowances than to redesign the architecture and instruments of a liberal global order apparently inadequate to tackle new challenges. The stabilization in Iraq, whether real or alleged, that was achieved through the surge and General David Petraeus’ decision to change strategy removed a divisive, polarizing theme from the debate. During the midterm elections in 2006, as well as during the presidential primaries in the early months of 2008, the debate centered on Iraq, including the necessary modification of past policies and the timeframe within which American troops should be withdrawn. From June through November 2008, however, Iraq was little discussed—or at least received less attention than one might have expected. It seemed as if the United States could finally find its way out of Iraq. Furthermore, after the excesses of the neoconservative moment, there was a strong reluctance to advance radical and visionary strategies. Instead, the preference is for a cautious and, as far as possible, pragmatic approach, especially when it comes to the Middle East.3 The legacy of President George W. Bush, the changed situation in Iraq, and the economic crisis thus prevented a creative discussion about foreign policy. This discussion remains difficult because the autonomy of any actor in the international system, including even the principal power in that system, is subject to a variety of ties and constraints, and because some instruments of American foreign policy, especially the military ones, have declined in political and diplomatic utility. In this way, the inevitable contradictions of an American superpower have been laid bare.4 Context and contingency gradually silenced the confrontation over foreign policy and carried it onto more conventional tracks, which required the candidates from the two parties to win over the votes of their militants and activists before anything else. However, this relegation of foreign policy to the margins of the electoral contest resulted

A New Foreign Policy for the United States?

197

also from the positions, the convictions, and the philosophies of the two candidates, who had shown significant weaknesses and vulnerabilities precisely on matters of foreign affairs. The Election Campaign The rhetoric of change marked the first phase of Obama’s election campaign. During the primaries, foreign policy issues helped Obama to sustain this rhetoric and to construct for himself a distinct profile from those of Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates (especially John Edwards and Joe Biden). His precocious and almost solitary criticism of the invasion of Iraq offered Obama a source of political capital that he used skillfully and successfully during the primaries. Precisely because of his opposition to the invasion, Obama was able to neutralize one of his major weaknesses, from which both Clinton and McCain were hoping to profit: the alleged inexperience and immaturity of the young senator from Illinois. At the end of 2007, in the full swing of primary campaigning, a solid majority of Americans (between 60 and 70 percent) still considered Iraq the key issue on which the president and the Congress should focus. During those months, only 20 percent of Democratic voters declared themselves in favor of continuing the mission in Iraq and maintaining a relevant number of soldiers in the country.5 The political power of Obama was reinforced by his ability to offer a portion of the Democratic electorate not only a discontinuity with Bush’s policy but also a break with some elements of Bill Clinton’s policy. Indeed, certain assumptions that marked the Zeitgeist of the 1990s were under fire, including the hegemonic economic philosophy of free trade and the presumed crossing points between liberal and humanitarian interventionism.6 By criticizing the invasion of Iraq and the reasoning behind it, Obama was able to satisfy the positions taken by a large majority of the Democratic electorate, generating a coherence that other candidates, and above all Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, lacked. For much of the election year, Obama urged a rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq and condemned the failure of the interventionist politics of Bush and the neoconservatives. During the primaries, this condemnation was extended to the leaders of the Democratic Party, who, according to Obama, not only failed to contest the decisions made by the Bush administration in 2002–3 but de facto facilitated and legitimized them. At the same time, Obama leaned toward a protectionist stance,

198

Mario Del Pero

especially during the first months of 2008, when he criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) more than once and thus implicitly criticized Hillary Clinton’s enthusiasm for free trade.7 During the primaries protectionism and anti-interventionism combined with the reintroduction of certain classic axioms from liberal internationalism that were emphasized as the November election date approached. On more than one occasion, Obama stressed the need to return to a form of cooperation based on multilateral diplomacy. “The United States”—one could read in Obama’s electoral program— “is trapped by the Bush- Cheney approach to diplomacy that refuses to talk to leaders we don’t like. Not talking doesn’t make us look tough—it makes us look arrogant, it denies us opportunities to make progress, and it makes it harder for America to rally international support for our leadership.” Consequently, Obama often proclaimed that the United States should make a bigger effort in major international organizations and various multilateral forums, especially over issues of foreign policy that had been pushed to the margins of the agenda of the last Republican administration, such as control over nuclear proliferation and the environment. He also adopted a position on United Nations reform that, only a few years earlier, would have been very unpopular and electorally inopportune. (To reform the UN and make it more efficient, Obama stated, would require the United States to “resume its commitment to the organization and its mission.”8) Above all, he recovered a traditional element of liberal analysis by offering an economic reading of the causes of Islamic terrorism and explicitly connecting underdevelopment and poverty to political radicalization and extremism. This approach allowed him to accentuate his differences from Bush’s rhetoric and politics of exporting democracy, which emphasized the political matrices of Islamic radicalization. Encapsulated in a slogan proclaiming “the promotion of dignity” as a fundamental (pre)condition for “the promotion of democracy,” this position provided a way to preserve the ethical dimension of post-1989 humanitarian interventionism while tapping into more recent ref lections upon nation building and the protection of human rights.9 The contrasting primary and general election campaigns, which are two distinct phases of American presidential elections, do not help candidates to develop coherent and clear propositions. Oscillations from one phase to the next, and consequent contradictions, are almost inevitable. From this point of view, McCain offered a more precise and less erratic platform than Obama. The problem for the Republican


199

candidate, however, was that coherence is not necessarily a sign of pragmatism. Often, coherence stems from a tendency to view global challenges from an ideological perspective, generating dogmatic and rigid approaches and prescriptions. In 2002–3 McCain supported the foreign and security policy decisions made by President Bush and agreed on the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, legitimizing it as a necessary passage in the long war against terrorism that started after 9/11. It was not until after the problems in Iraq were fully revealed that McCain started to voice his critique, which did not directly address the decision to intervene in Iraq but how the mission had been planned and carried out. McCain criticized the administration’s plan for Iraq for being too timid, alleging that it ref lected the administration’s unwillingness to support the inevitable economic and human costs of a true pacification of Iraq. Unlike Bush, and certainly different from his first secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, McCain integrated the intervention in Iraq into a rhetoric of sacrifice that has deep roots in U.S. public discourse and that McCain has often tapped during his political career. “One of the biggest mistakes made [by the Bush administration],” according to McCain in the summer of 2006, “was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices” that the war in Iraq would require; the overly optimistic talk “has contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking.” In 2007–8, McCain enthusiastically supported Petraeus’ surge strategy by immediately defending its feasibility and magnifying its probability of success in an attempt to obtain as much political and electoral profit as possible.10 Hence, McCain was able to develop his own approach to security matters and to emerge during the primaries as the most independent and unorthodox of the Republican candidates. He also managed to extend this uniqueness to other areas of foreign policy.11 He criticized the somewhat more moderate position that the administration had taken in 2005–6 regarding the North Korean nuclear program even more severely than he criticized the way Bush had handled the invasion of Iraq. McCain condemned Bush’s decision to take the road of dialogue and multilateral negotiation in order to convince Pyongyang to cease its nuclear projects and more than once portrayed any interaction with North Korea as a form of immoral and dangerous appeasement.12 However radical and, in some respects, doctrinal this stance may have been, it nonetheless reinforced McCain’s reputation for independence

200

Mario Del Pero

and coherence. This image was consolidated by the positions he took on other thorny issues, including the management of the war on terrorism and the use of aggressive techniques to interrogate suspected terrorists. Even though McCain gradually softened his criticisms of the administration, he was able to distinguish himself as the Republican candidate who was least affiliated with the positions taken by Bush and his advisers.13 In an election during which the call for discontinuity and change was very loud, this distinction was advantageous for McCain during the primaries as it penalized candidates such as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, who were not able to distance themselves from Bush. During the primaries in New Hampshire and in Michigan, McCain won the votes of approximately one-third of the electorate who opposed the intervention in Iraq; in Iowa and, above all, in New Hampshire, independent voters were critical to the outcome of the primaries, providing McCain with the necessary springboard for the nomination.14 Once the primaries were over, two messages and two propositions regarding foreign policy, both fragile and vulnerable, faced each other. Obama could be criticized for his ambiguity and vagueness, and McCain could be condemned for the Manichaeism of his certainties, which he had already expressed in his election manifesto on foreign policy, published in Foreign Affairs. In that essay, McCain reintroduces, with an overly ideological rhetoric, a number of orthodox tropes on America’s exceptionalism: “our nation was created for a purpose. We are, as Alexander Hamilton said, a people of great destinies. . . . The next president must be prepared to lead America and the world to victory. . . . America needs to revitalize that democratic solidarity which unified the West during the Cold War.”15 McCain’s ideological rigidity intensified during the course of the general election campaign. For his running mate, McCain chose the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, who repeatedly reaffirmed her belief in the exceptionality of America’s history and destiny; he emphasized with firmness his support for a “League of Democracies” capable of integrating and, if necessary, superseding the United Nations in the areas of defense and the global promotion of democracy; and he took a harsh, almost provocative, stance toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This strong stand against Russia had already been announced in Foreign Affairs, when McCain condemned the reduction of “political freedoms” in the country, which he claimed was “dominated by a clique of former intelligence officers” and characterized by “efforts to bully democratic neighbors, such as Georgia, and attempts to manipulate Europe’s


201

dependence on Russian oil and gas.” Against this “revanchist Russia,” McCain called for a new and firmer “Western approach.”16 The obvious occasion for demonstrating this rigor came in the wake of the Georgian crisis in August 2008, when McCain sided without delay with Georgia against Russia. “We are all Georgians,” proclaimed McCain, referring to one of the classic analogical models of American internationalism: the lesson learned in the 1930s and the necessity of avoiding appeasement and facing the actions of aggressors: “the world,” he affirmed, “has learned at great cost the price of allowing aggression against free nations to go unchecked.” According to McCain, the Georgian crisis not only confirmed the wisdom of NATO’s enlargement but, above all, revealed the cost of the hesitation with which this strategy had been implemented. Hence, he claimed, the rapid integration of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was necessary.17 Obama’s reaction to the Georgian crisis was an indication of both his approach to international issues and his overwhelming capacity to adapt his message to the second, postprimary phase of the election. Of course Obama condemned the military action undertaken by Russia and urged the international community to take up its share of the burden; he did not insist, however, that Moscow be severely punished, whereas McCain demanded the suspension of Russia’s participation in the G8 and reiterated his opposition to Russia’s World Trade Organization (WTO) membership. In other words, whereas McCain took a harsh but clear stance, Obama responded vaguely. Obama kept his options open by emphasizing the necessity of managing the crisis in accordance with multilateral standards and through multilateral channels, instead of proposing precise but at the same time radical measures that might prove to be impractical and might aggravate the conf lict with Russia.18 At first sight, a number of polls suggested a clear preference among the American electorate for McCain’s firmness. In a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, 55 percent of respondents proclaimed McCain to be capable of managing Russia’s aggression more effectively than Obama (who polled only 27 percent). McCain’s proposal to limit cooperation with Russia in international organizations could count on more approval and consensus in the United States than in Europe. The Georgian crisis certainly catalyzed renewed public attention to international affairs in the United States, which gave McCain a favorable position in the opinion polls conducted during the last days of the summer.19 The attention paid to the Georgian crisis and the appreciation for McCain’s position were soon toned down. Indeed, Georgia quickly

202

Mario Del Pero

disappeared from the electoral debate as other topics emerged, including the party conventions held at the end of August and the beginning of September, the initial “Palin effect,” and the overwhelming and all-embracing economic crisis. McCain’s radical rigor did not seem to be in tune with the spirit of a nation that was suspicious of the return of neoconservative slogans and propositions and preferred a reduction in America’s international exposure. Obama’s vagueness was starting to be perceived as something different and more attractive: intellectual rigor, an acceptance of complexity, concreteness, and, above all, pragmatism. It is precisely pragmatism that in moments of difficulty and crisis is appreciated by the American public and that during recent years has been portrayed as an antidote to the overly ideological analyses of the neoconservatives and their candidate, John McCain. Obama’s approach, Fareed Zakaria pointed out, was thus “much closer to that of a traditional realist” than to the approach of a “typical liberal”: “at least in the realm of foreign policy,” Zakaria continued, “Obama seems to be the cold conservative and McCain the softheaded idealist.”20 This transformation of Obama from a symbol of genuine and innovative change—although perhaps somewhat naïve and inexperienced— into a champion of realism and rigor was certainly facilitated by the changing context within which the electoral competition unfolded. As America moved from the primaries to the general election campaign, Obama and his staff were exceptionally capable of recalibrating their message and policy positions. This recalibration was made possible by the marginalization of the Iraq issue during the electoral debate, the explosion of the economic crisis, and certain decisions made by the Republicans, including the nomination of Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate, which de facto undermined the credibility of the Republican accusation that Obama was inexperienced. However, throughout the transformation from the “Obama of change” into the “Obama of realism,” a more general change of discourse in the Democratic candidate’s election campaign could be seen. From June through November, Obama was increasingly successful at portraying himself as the inevitable president for the country. This presidential aura, to which the choice of Biden as his running mate contributed, stood in stark contrast to the McCain–Palin ticket, which evoked independence but also suggested unreliability. Especially during the last two months of the election campaign, Obama was able not only to call for change but also to tap into the desire to bring back order, sobriety, and balance and to get rid of the radicalism, confusion, and ideology prevalent for far too long. These


203

traits were clearly illustrated by the way Obama responded to the economic crisis and by his refusal to react polemically to various provocations, both during television debates (such as the confrontation between Biden and Palin) and in public meetings and interventions. For this reason, his moderation and even his conservatism were explicitly praised by many famous commentators and conservative intellectuals.21 Moreover, these elements of pragmatism manifested themselves in Obama’s distinctive approach to foreign and security policy, which was marked by caution, moderation, and, it should be said, increasing conventionality. His quasi-pacifist message, which was omnipresent during the primaries, was gradually softened, not least because it was no longer politically useful or relevant in a discussion in which Iraq was not a central issue. In its place, Obama renewed the emphasis on the conf lict in Afghanistan as the correct focus for the struggle against terrorism, and he insisted that an increased military commitment of both U.S. and NATO troops on Afghan soil was necessary.22 Protectionism was also put aside, and Obama’s initial opposition to NAFTA was scarcely mentioned. Instead, he relaunched a liberal and internationalist discourse combining elements of pragmatism and idealism that was very similar to the hegemonic public discourse in the United States of the 1990s. In the end, Obama silenced many of his critics by stressing the importance of the special Israeli–U.S. relationship and the American commitment to guaranteeing the security of the state of Israel, which he presented as the essential precondition of the peace process in the Middle East. Any initiative in the Middle East on behalf of the United States, as Obama affirmed in Foreign Affairs,23 should stem from the acknowledgment that there should be “a strong and clear commitment” to defend the security of Israel, “the strongest ally” of the United States and “the only democracy in the region.” The “bond between Israel and the United States”—Obama emphasized in June 2008, during a meeting organized by the most inf luential pro-Israeli lobby in the United States, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—“is rooted in more than our shared national interests: it is rooted in the shared values and shared stories of our people.”24 The visual climax of Obama’s transformation from an agent of change into a president-in-waiting had already been reached by the end of July when Obama traveled to the Middle East and Europe. The highlight of the trip came when Obama was welcomed by an ecstatic crowd in Berlin. This episode was later ridiculed by McCain, and to great effect (see chapter 4). Nevertheless, it provided an image of global leadership that served Obama well toward the end of the

204

Mario Del Pero

general election campaign. It also provided an opportunity to give clear emphasis to his world view. In his speech in Berlin, Obama stressed the importance of renewed transatlantic cooperation, rendered all the more necessary by an increasingly interdependent world order and by the “burden of a global citizenship.” “Partnership and cooperation among nations,” Obama affirmed, “is not a choice” but a necessity: “it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.”25 How Will American Foreign Policy Change after the Elections? It is difficult to evaluate to what extent Obama’s stance on foreign policy and international issues inf luenced the choice of the voters. On the basis of the polling data available, we can observe that the issues that played a crucial role during the presidential elections in 2004 and the midterm elections in 2006 exerted only a secondary inf luence on the 2008 election outcome.26 During the last month of the campaign, the discussion was largely monopolized by the economy, the financial crisis, and its social and occupational repercussions. Nevertheless, looking with hindsight through the prism offered by foreign and security policy to evaluate these elections, one can note the emergence of two factors. First, Obama succeeded in winning the nomination, perhaps above all, because of the merit of his position on foreign policy. His critique of the invasion of Iraq and of those Democratic politicians who let it happen (most notably, Hillary Clinton) was decisive in many ways. It helped him to intercept a fundamental part of the Democratic electorate, to claim his own space in the political landscape with his own profile, distinct from those of all the other candidates with the exception of the electorally irrelevant pacifist congressman from Ohio, Dennis Kucinich. The observation that Obama constructed his initial electoral successes on foreign policy leads us to a second consideration: his capability during the general election campaign to contain his own alleged vulnerability in matters of foreign policy and even to exploit certain crucial issues dominating the electoral debate. Obama won, at least in part, because of the strength of his foreign policy, but he also won because he succeeded in avoiding the mistakes that Democratic candidate John Kerry made in 2004, when he lost in part because of his perceived foreign and security policy weakness.


205

The obvious question that now arises is whether these elections indicate a turning point in American foreign policy, and whether it is plausible to predict strong discontinuities in the foreign policy of the Obama administration. The answer is ambiguous. On the one hand, the discontinuity has already been apparent, as the long election campaign and its outcome clearly prove. Obama as a candidate, as well as American democracy as a political system, has offered the world an extraordinary spectacle and message. The world reacted to the American elections with participation, involvement, and enthusiasm, overwhelmingly taking Obama’s side, and seeing in him the personification of an America that is capable like no other country of rejuvenation and rising again. During recent years, the international difficulties faced by the United States have stemmed in part from an evident crisis in its hegemonic position, caused also by its damaged image in the eyes of the world. With the emergence of Obama, this profound damage, which many had considered to be irreversible, has been in large part healed. According to a poll conducted by Gallup/Foreign Policy, if the world had had the chance to vote, it would have chosen Obama instead of McCain (64 percent vs. 4 percent in France; 66 percent vs. 15 percent in Japan; 43 percent vs. 9 percent in Chile).27 As stressed by the most famous advocate of the importance of soft power, Joseph Nye, who was impressed by Obama’s enormous popularity during his travels through Europe, it is difficult “to think of any single act that would do more to restore America’s soft power than the election of Obama to the presidency.” This is an act, Nye continues, that can restore the myth of an America that is always able to “recreate itself.”28 Therefore, a first and relevant discontinuity can be found in the improvement of America’s image, catalyzed by the vitality of American democracy and by the fascination that Obama—with his improbable and cosmopolitan biography—was (and is) able to hold. A second important discontinuity is represented by the foreign policy discourse of the new president. It is a discourse filled with classic formulas of liberal internationalism, far removed from the ostentatious and unilateral nationalism of the neoconservatives. It must be said, however, that the crisis of the neoconservative moment predated the last electoral cycle and inf luenced the choices and the matching rhetoric of the second Bush administration. Indeed, during the period from 2005 through 2008, the attitude of United States to international issues was characterized by an inclination toward dialogue, caution, and moderation. The damage done during the radically unilateral phase could not be entirely repaired; however, if

206

Mario Del Pero

one evaluates exclusively the contents of Obama’s policy proposals, the rupture seems less clear today than it would have been under a Kerry presidency in 2004. From immigration to transatlantic relations, to a multilateral assessment of the North Korean nuclear issue, to the need to modify the way the mission in Afghanistan is undertaken, it is possible to note many areas in which there are similarities, if not convergences, between Bush’s last foreign policy and Obama’s presumed first foreign policy—even more than one might credit at first sight.29 Continuity and discontinuity, change and persistence will in large part be determined by the obstacles that the Obama administration confronts in its decision making and by the many dilemmas it must face. Within a highly volatile global framework, even the only great power with a capacity to discipline others will face many limitations, especially when we take into account the decline of that capacity in recent years. A list of possible challenges includes the frailty of the situation in Iraq and the return of sectarian violence toward the end of 2008, which could worsen once American troops are withdrawn; the tensions between India and Pakistan; and the dramatic rekindling of the Israel-Palestine conf lict. Among many others, these are intractable issues that will have to be addressed by the Obama administration in the months to come. These are problems inherited by the Obama administration. But, at least to some extent, they are further complicated by the high expectations fostered by his campaign both within and outside of the United States. The different sets of expectations—domestic and international— are difficult to reconcile, and, as a result, it will be hard for the Obama administration to strike a balance. A good example of the difficulties Obama will face in generating the necessary double consent on both the domestic and the international levels is in his efforts to project an America that is both interventionist and multilateral at the same time. The 2008 elections revealed a clear preference among the American electorate for a reduced global commitment and for minimal international exposure. This does not indicate isolationism as such, which is a categorization that has been historically abused. (Isolationism would, in any case, be impractical given the current global framework.) It does indicate, however, the umpteenth manifestation of a “limitationist” syndrome, as Roberto Osgood would have put it forty years ago.30 Such limitationism conf licts with the demands of the internationalist elite, both American and European, who were critical of Bush as they insisted on a return to multilateral practices in the international system and the promotion of classic institutional channels or even new institutions and forums in order to face the challenges of the new world


207

order. Furthermore, it conf licts with the widespread pressure on the United States to commit itself to relaunching the Middle East peace process and, more generally, with the extraordinary expectations the election of Obama has generated in the less developed countries for more active participation by the United States in the process of nation building, for the sustainment of development processes, and, in the most dramatic cases, for the supply of basic humanitarian aid. Since his election, Obama has tried more than once to attenuate these expectations, but they seem unlikely to be softened any time soon. A first test for Obama was to choose his foreign and security policy team. Clearly driven by bipartisan criteria, the new president chose to work with politically and intellectually high-profile colleagues. Robert Gates, the secretary of defense of the second Bush administration, stayed in the Pentagon. As secretary of state, Obama chose his main rival during the primaries, Hillary Clinton. Former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe James L. Jones was appointed national security adviser. Finally, Susan Rice will represent the United States in the United Nations. Rice is one of Obama’s main advisers on international issues, a renowned liberal internationalist, and a staunch advocate of the need for the international community and the United States to cooperate in humanitarian crises such as Darfur, with the possibility of falling back on the instrument of military power if necessary. The choice of Rice and the decision to restore the cabinet status of the UN ambassadorship indicate Obama’s intention to involve the United States actively in the United Nations, abandoning the ostentatious ostracism of the organization that characterized the Bush administration, especially during his first mandate.31 With the exception of some on the Democratic left, who have been most notably critical of Clinton and Gates, Obama’s choices have been welcomed by experts, the political world, and, on the basis of opinion polls, the majority of the American public. On paper, Obama’s foreign policy team consists of a mixture of realists, such as Gates and Jones, and liberal interventionists, such as Clinton and, above all, Rice. These categorizations, however, are of limited value. The different positions, and the eventual synthesis of these beliefs, will largely be determined by the response to the immediate foreign policy challenges the Obama administration has to face. Obama has been politically reinforced by his choices, succeeding in confirming certain aspects of his approach as adapted during the election campaign: an emphasis on competence, bipartisan and consensual choices, moderation, and caution. As in the past, the real problem will be to maintain a balance among politically

208

Mario Del Pero

strong figures in charge of guiding institutions whose competences and responsibilities are often entwined and overlapping. In appointing his foreign and security policy team, Obama has shown great political ability. All that is left to do now is to wait and see whether he will be capable of exerting the leadership necessary to guide this team and make its members cooperate with each other.32 Obama has a lot of political capital to spend. There will, however, inevitably be disillusionment among, and perhaps even renewed tensions with, some of the United States’ historical allies, starting with Europe. Indeed, Europe now finds itself deprived of the alibi it had when Bush was still in the White House that, in the final instance, conveniently justified not having to take up responsibilities. Europe has already been asked to show more diplomatic (regarding a nuclear Iran) and military (in Afghanistan) commitment, which could lead to tensions within transatlantic relations.33 In conclusion, American foreign policy and the discourse through which it is presented have already changed since the 2008 elections. By speaking to the world, much more than of the world, America has been able to rebuild an image that only two years ago seemed to be irreversibly damaged. The new president has reintroduced the discourse of a classic internationalist liberalism, sober and consensual, which differs greatly from the hypernationalistic rhetoric of the post-9/11 era. With regard to some important issues such as the environment and nuclear proliferation, the administration has already made clear its intention to break with the most recent decisions, in terms both of content and of symbolism, and to restore the cooperation among the most developed countries that has been lacking in recent years. However, this administration does not have the instruments at its disposal—political, economic, and military—to satisfy many of the expectations that Obama’s victory has generated, and for now it is offering rather vague and general indications of the way it will address some of the biggest problems of present- day international relations. There is no lack of crises, and the world will be watching Obama, judging him not on what he promises or represents but on what he does. It is on these occasions that the concreteness and pragmatism of Obama—indeed, this “realism” admired and celebrated by many commentators—will finally be tested. 34 Notes 1. Kurt M. Campbell and Derek Chollet, “The National Security Election,” Washington Quarterly 31, no. 1 (Winter 2007–2008): 192.


209

2. For a historical ref lection upon this point and upon how it could have weighed on the discourse of American foreign policy, see Frank Ninkovich, Modernity and Power. A History of the Domino Theory in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1994); Anders Stephanson, “Fourteen Notes on the Concept of the Cold War,” in Rethinking Geopolitics, ed. Simon Dalby and Gearóid Ó Tuathail, 62–85 (London: Routledge, 1998); Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005). 3. As addressed, for example, by G. John Ikenberry, “The End of the Neoconservative Moment,” Survival 2 (Summer 2004): 7–22; Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006). 4. Michael Mann, Incoherent Empire (London, Verso, 2003); Charles Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); Michael Cox, “American Power Before and After 11 September: Dizzy with Success?” International Affairs 2 (April 2002): 261–76; Michael Cox, “Is the U.S. in Decline——Again? An Essay,” International Affairs 4 (2007): 643–53. 5. In a poll conducted by Gallup in October 2007, 62 percent of the interviewees indicated Iraq as one of the two priorities that Congress and the presidency should address, followed by health care (29 percent) and the economy (18 percent). See Joseph Carroll, “More Americans Saying the Economy Should Be Top Priority,” November 14, 2007, www.gallup.com/poll/102709/More-Americans- Saying-Economy- Should-Top-Priority. aspx. Pew Research Center, Increasing Optimism about Iraq: Obama Has the Lead, but Potential Problems Too, February 28, 2008, http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/398.pdf. 6. This affiliation has been affirmed by much of the recent work of international relations scholar Andrew Bacevich. Two examples can be found in American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002) and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008). 7. Peter Walker, “Clinton and Obama Split Over ‘Slur,’ ” Guardian, November 19, 2007, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/19/usa.barackobama. In his Foreign Affairs article on the presentation of his own position, Obama does not mention NAFTA. See Barack Obama, “Renewing American Leadership,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007, www. foreignaffairs.org/20070701faessay86401/barackobama/renewing- american-leadership. html?mode=print. For a criticism of Obama’s position on NAFTA (and that of Hillary Clinton), see Robert A. Pastor, “Stop Debating NAFTA——Start Shaping a Future for North America,” New Perspectives Quarterly 2 (2008): 79–81. 8. www.barackobama.com/issues/foreign_policy/index.php#diplomacy; Obama, “Renewing American Leadership.” 9. Spencer Ackerman, “The Obama Doctrine,” American Prospect, March 24, 2008, www. prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_obama_doctrine. For a criticism of interventionism by Obama, see Justin Logan, “Two Kinds of Change: Comparing Candidates on Foreign Policy,” Policy Analysis 623, Cato Institute, October 14, 2008, www.cato.org/pubs/pas/ pa- 623.pdf. See also Thomas Carothers, Critical Mission: Essays on Democracy Promotion (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004). The emphasis on the fundamentally political nature of the causes of Islamic radicalism is especially apparent in one of the most discussed documents of the Bush era, the National Security Strategy of September 2002. See The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/national/nss- 020920.pdf. 10. James Carney, “Behind McCain’s Blast at Bush,” Time, August 23, 2006, www.time.com/ time/nation/article/0,8599,1328477,00.html; Roger Simon, “Petraeus Testimony May Be McCain Lifeline,” Politico, September 11, 2007, www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5748. html. 11. With the obvious exception being the libertarian and isolated congressman from Texas Ron Paul.

210

Mario Del Pero

12. Logan, “Two Kinds of Change,” 9–11; Robert M. Hathaway and Jordan Tama, “The U.S. Congress and North Korea during the Clinton Years: Talk Tough, Carry a Small Stick,” Asian Survey 5 (September/October 2004): 711–33. 13. Another area in which McCain took a more moderate stance than the other Republican candidates was immigration. In this case, however, McCain found himself on the same wavelength as the administration, which had ineffectively tried to pass an all- encompassing law in 2007 to better the position of millions of illegal immigrants in the country. 14. Sasha Issenberg, “McCain, Hawk on Iraq, Getting Antiwar Vote,” Boston Globe, January 25, 2008, www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/25/mccain_hawk_on_iraq_ getting_antiwar_vote. In Iowa, McCain finished second among the independents, immediately after Ron Paul. In New Hampshire, McCain obtained a broad majority of the independent vote and won a crucial victory. 15. John McCain, “An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2007, www.foreignaffairs.org/20071101faessay86602/john-mccain/an- enduring-peacebuilt- on-freedom.html. 16. McCain, “Enduring Peace”; John McCain, “Why We Must Be Firm with Russia,” Financial Times, June 13, 2007. Regarding the idea of creating a “League of Democracies,” see the various positions taken by Robert Kagan, “Is the League of Democracies a Bad Idea?” Financial Times, May 14, 2008, and Charles A. Kupchan, “Minor League, Major Problems: The Case against a League of Democracies,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008, www.foreignaffairs.org/20081001faessay87607/charles- a- kupchan/why- a- league- ofdemocracies-won-t-work.html. 17. John McCain, “We Are All Georgians,” Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2008, http://online. wsj.com/article/SB121867081398238807.html?mod=googlenews_wsj; Elana Schorr, “McCain and Obama Use Conf lict in Georgia to Prove Foreign Policy Mettle,” Guardian, August 11, 2008; Stephen Sestanovich, “What Has Moscow Done? Rebuilding U.S.Russian Relations,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008, www.foreignaffairs. org/20081001faessay87602/stephen-sestanovich/what-has-moscow- done.html; Karl E. Meyer, “After Georgia: Back to the Future,” World Policy Journal 3 (Fall 2008): 119–24. 18. On Obama’s various interventions with regard to the Georgian crisis, see http:// my.barackobama.com/page/content/russiaandgeorgia. 19. Quinnipiac University poll, August 19, 2008, www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295. xml?ReleaseID=1204; German Marshall Fund, Transatlantic Trends 2008, www. transatlantictrends.org/trends/doc/2008_English_Key.pdf; Linda Felman, “Georgia Crisis Helps McCain,” Christian Science Monitor, August 15, 2008, www.csmonitor. com/2008/0815/p02s01-uspo.html. 20. Fareed Zakaria, “Obama, Foreign Policy Realist,” Post Global, July 21, 2008, http:// newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/fareed_zakaria/2008/07/obama_ foreign_ policy_realist.html; Fareed Zakaria, “Who’s More Realistic: McCain or Obama?” Post Global, September 14, 2008, http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/ fareed_zakaria/2008/09/whos_more_realistic_mccain_or.html; Pew Research Center, “Declining Public Support for Global Engagement,” September 24, 2008, http://peoplepress.org/report/453/. On the rapid decrease in attention paid to the Georgian crisis, see the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, “Obama’s Background Better Known Than His Issues Positions,” August 27, 2008, http://people- press.org/report/447/obama-mccainbackground-issue-positions. 21. For some symbolic examples of the conservative diaspora that led many conservatives to choose (or show their appreciation for) Obama, especially regarding his competence and his preparation, see Ken Adelman, “Why a Staunch Conservative Like Me Endorsed Obama,” Huffington Post, October 24, 2008, www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-adelman/why-a- staunchconservativ_b_137749.html?page=4&show_comment_id=17290243#comment_17290243; “The Rise of the Obamacons,” Economist, October 23, 2008, www.economist.com/world/


22.

23. 24.

25.

26.

27. 28.

29.

30.

31.

211

unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12470555; David Brooks, “Thinking About Obama,” New York Times, October 16, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17brooks. html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. Accordingly, the necessity of increasing military deployment was frequently emphasized. In his program, Obama stressed his desire to augment troops on the ground to 65,000 units and to increase the presence of marines to 27,000 units (www.barackobama.com/ issues/defense/). “Obama Pledges to Increase U.S. Aid to Afghanistan,” International Herald Tribune, November 23, 2008, www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/23/asia/kabul.php. Barack Obama, “Renewing American Leadership,” Foreign Affairs 86:4 ( July/August 2007) pp. 2–16. The citations come from p. 5.. Barack Obama, “Remarks at AIPAC Policy Conference,” June 4, 2008, www. realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/obamas_remarks_at_aipac_policy.html; Obama, “Renewing American Leadership.” “Transcript of Barack Obama’s Speech in Berlin,” New York Times, July 24, 2008, www. nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/politics/24text- obama.html?ref=politics&pagewanted=prin t. For a highly critical analysis of Obama’s shift to moderation, see Robert Dreyfuss, “Obama’s Evolving Foreign Policy,” The Nation, July 1, 2008, www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/ dreyfuss. For a defensive approach, see E. J. Dionne Jr., “Barack H. W. Obama,” The New Republic, November 28, 2008, www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=c81f2f69-a55d- 445f8479–376db42828c9. Pew Research Center, “Some Final Thoughts on Campaign ‘08,” December 8, 2008, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1049/some-final-thoughts- on- campaign- 08; Pew Research Center, “Inside Obama’s Sweeping Victory,” November 5, 2008, http://pewresearch.org/ pubs/1023/exit-poll- analysis-2008. In these polls conducted in 2008, more than 68 percent of the respondents indicated economic issues as a primary concern, whereas only 10 percent referred to terrorism and 9 percent to Iraq. These latter two issues accounted for 14 and 22 percent, respectively, in 2004. The only exceptions in this case are the Philippines, Cambodia, and, not surprisingly, Georgia (www.foreignpolicy.com/gallup/). Joseph Nye, “Barack Obama and Soft Power,” Huffington Post, June 12, 2008, www. huffingtonpost.com/joseph-nye/barackobama- and- soft-pow_b_106717.html; Joseph Nye, “The Obama Effect: Impressions from London,” Huffington Post, November 7, 2008, www. huffingtonpost.com/joseph-nye/the-obama-effectimpressio_b_142019.html; James Traub, “Is (His) Biography (Our) Destiny?” New York Times Magazine, November 4, 2008, www. nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04obama-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print. For a vigorous, although unconvincing, elaboration of the argument for a necessary continuity between Bush and whoever succeeded him as leader of the country, see Timothy J. Linch and Robert S. Singh, After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Analysis of Changes in International Politics since World War II and Their Implications for Our Basic Assumptions about U.S. Foreign Policy, affiliated with the Memorandum from President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, October 20, 1969, Foreign Relations of the United States (d’ora innanzi FRUS), 1969–1976, I: Foundations of Foreign Policy, 1969–1972 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2003), www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/i. Also see the polls mentioned in note 20. Paul Richter, Christi Parsons, and John McCormick, “Obama Stresses Diplomacy with New National Security Team,” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 2008, www.latimes.com/ news/nationworld/nation/la-na- obama-national- security2–2008dec02,0,2022463.story; David E. Ranger, “A Handpicked Team for a Sweeping Shift in Foreign Policy,” New York Times, November 30, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/us/politics/01policy. html?em.

212

Mario Del Pero

32. For two positive comments on Obama’s choices, see “Masters of War,” The Economist, November 27, 2007, and Henry A. Kissinger, “Team of Heavyweights,” Washington Post, December 5, 2008, www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/12/04/ AR2008120402863_pf.html. 33. I have elaborated this argument in “Obama e l’Europa,” EuropressResearch, November 2008, www.europressresearch.eu/html/focus.php?lang=ITA&id=23. 34. Noam Scheiber, “The Audacity of Data,” The New Republic, March 16, 2008, www.tnr. com/politics/story.html?id=4d40a39e- 8f57–4054-bd99–94bc9d19be1a.

CH A P T E R

E L E V E N

A New U.S. Economy? Jonathon W. M o se s

America was due for a new economy—regardless of who won the race for the White House. But this truth was far from evident at the outset of what became the longest U.S. presidential election campaign in history. Early on, most attention was focused on the role of the United States abroad and the level of corruption and mismanagement at home; economic policy, at first, did not pique the electorate’s interest. For too long it mattered little that John McCain did not understand economics as well as he should (at least, so he admitted). Then, just as the dust was beginning to settle on the two campaigns, the economic situation took a dramatic turn. In the week before the first presidential debate (scheduled for October 26), Wall Street plunged on the news of a looming financial crisis, and a remarkable coalition of the willing promptly came to its rescue, offering a $700-billion-plus bailout package for the troubled U.S. financial sector. This new economic climate was a game changer, and Barack Obama’s tempered response contrasted strongly with the chaotic, stop-and-go jockeying of the McCain team. In the final weeks of the election, economic issues took center stage, pushing the McCain–Palin ticket off into the wings of American political history. This chapter sets the stage for the new economy under an Obama administration. I outline the economic promises that Obama made to the American electorate during his remarkable campaign. I then describe the growing mess that was the American economy during the months immediately preceding his inauguration. By juxtaposing

214

Jonathon W. Moses

Obama’s earlier campaign promises with the symbolism embedded in his transition team, I use the third section to outline what sort of economic policy we might expect to see in the years to come. The Campaign Trail We can learn much about candidate Barack Obama by looking closely at his campaign promises and the people he relied on to formulate these promises. Under these lights, we can see that although Obama’s message may be “Change,” his choice of staff denotes “Steady be the course.” With what sort of economic advisers did Obama the candidate surround himself? Starting off as a challenger, Obama did not enjoy access to many of the Democratic Party’s leading intellectual lights. These advisers tended toward Hillary Clinton. As a result, the early core of the Obama economic team were highly educated, but relatively inexperienced in national politics, and (in principle, at least) less beholden to the interests that tend to dominate that party. From the start, Obama’s lead economic adviser was Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. A political novice on national economic policy issues, his public record places him very near the mainstream of American economic thinking.1 I cannot find any hidden hostility to global capitalism, or any apparent desire for large-scale redistribution at home, in Goolsbee’s work or writings: he is a problem solver who likes to tinker with the mundane details of the economy. Accompanying Goolsbee at Obama’s side were several respected academics with very centrist views. Two Harvard economists formed the core of his domestic team: Jeffrey Liebman’s academic research has been on the earned-income tax credit and its role in moving people from welfare to work,2 and David Cutler’s inclusion on the team signaled the importance of health care reform (as Cutler is a health economist who wants doctors’ pay tied to medical outcomes).3 A Georgetown law professor, Daniel Tarullo, served as Obama’s international economy and trade adviser.4 In June, Jason Furman took over as Obama’s economic director. An economist in the Clinton administration and top aide to John Kerry in 2004, Furman is another middle-of-the-road economist and headed Washington’s Hamilton Project—an economic policy group co-founded by Bob Rubin (once Bill Clinton’s Treasury

A New U.S. Economy?

215

secretary). Furman’s research areas include taxes, health care, and the U.S. Social Security program, but he is also well known for his staunch support of free trade (in 2005, he penned an article entitled “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story”—something only very brave Democrats do) and his support for lowering corporate taxes. For these reasons, Furman’s selection was not exactly embraced by organized labor.5 This initial team of advisers carried the ball through a grueling campaign, but one in which economic issues played a relatively minor role. The only exception seems to have been trade, but the differences between Obama and Hillary Clinton on this point are too often exaggerated: both candidates have been careful not to embrace protectionist positions, while concomitantly voicing many of the critiques used by opponents of free trade.6 Later in the campaign, as the U.S. economy nose-dived, Obama circled himself with high-celebrity types such as Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, Warren Buffet, and Bob Reich—a transition team of economic advisers whose breadth and stature were meant to impress (and to calm markets). By the eve of the election, Obama was able to muster a truly incredible economic advisory team, as listed in table 11.1, which included some of the biggest names in the practice and study of the American economy. Table 11.1 Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board David Bonior Warren Buffet Roel Campos William Daley William Donaldson Roger Ferguson Jennifer Granholm Anne Mulcahy Richard Parsons Penny Pritzker Robert Reich Robert Rubin Eric Schmidt Lawrence Summers Laura Tyson Antonio Villaraigosa Paul Volker Source: http://www.politico.com

Former Democratic congressman from Michigan Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Former SEC commissioner Former commerce secretary Former chairman of SEC Former vice chairman of the Fed’s board of governors Michigan governor Chairman and CEO of Xerox Chairman of the board for Time Warner Chairman and founder of Classic Residence by Hyatt Former Labor secretary Former Treasury secretary Chairman and CEO of Google Former Treasury secretary Former head of Council of Economic Advisors (under Clinton) Los Angeles mayor Former Federal Reserve chairman

216

Jonathon W. Moses

Despite his slogan for change and the socialist ghosts whipped up by Fox News, Obama has not surrounded himself with people who are either highly ideological or, indeed, anywhere near the left of American politics. These people are beneficiaries of a system that has failed many. In neither the writings nor the backgrounds of Obama’s economic team is it possible to find signs of radical change; this team is about small reform on the margins. Or, in the words of Alan Blinder, a Princeton economist and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, they are “mainstream with a dash of creativity. . . . These are people who think new thoughts—within the mainstream, new without a capital N.” 7 This dash of creativity is evident in a handful of proposed reforms, such as encouraging U.S. automakers to invest in more fuel-efficient hybrid cars in exchange for federal help with the health care costs of their retirees, or allowing wage earners to have the government automatically compute their federal income taxes each year, saving families hours of paperwork. But most of Obama’s campaign promises are fairly standard Democratic fare in the post-Clinton era. Obama’s remarkably vague (and often muted) position on trade is indicative of his middle-of-the-road approach. From his campaign’s homepage, we learn that Obama and Biden believe that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more American jobs. He [sic] will stand firm against agreements that undermine our economic security.8 This general position is followed up with five bullet points: “Fight for Fair Trade,” “Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement,” “Improve Transition Assistance,” “End Tax Breaks for Companies that Send Jobs Overseas,” and “Reward Companies that Support American Workers.” Obama’s trade message is clear (if implicit): steady be the course. Obama’s centrist credentials are also evident in his willingness to embrace fiscal prudence, as when he resisted some of his rival’s more populist ideas. For example, it is to Obama’s credit that he rejected proposals to temporarily repeal the 18 cent per gallon federal gas tax for the summer “driving” season. Despite an aggressive Republican campaign that argued otherwise, Obama consistently promised to reduce the deficit and return it to a balanced path.

A New U.S. Economy?

217

Obama’s main economic platform might be whittled down to three main planks: ●

●

●

Taxes. Obama plans to end Bush’s tax cuts for families making more than $250,000 and to raise the capital gains tax rate to 25 percent (from 15 percent). He wants annual tax credits of $500 for individuals and $1,000 for families. Spending. Obama has a long list of big-ticket spending items, such as promising to extend health care insurance, a new energy policy, a stronger education policy, an “infrastructure reinvestment bank,” a doubling of foreign aid, and even an increase in the size of the military. Regulation. From early in the campaign, Obama called for “a twenty-first-century regulatory framework” based on six principles to improve government oversight (including extending the Federal Reserve’s purview, strengthening the capital and disclosure requirements for financial institutions, and creating a financial market oversight commission to anticipate crises and report to the government).

These were the main planks of Obama’s early economic platform, and it was this platform that served him well when the economic crisis hit in the early fall of 2008. Indeed, most economists, as polled by The Economist magazine, rated Obama’s economic plan to be superior to McCain’s.9 Here was a centrist candidate, concerned with balancing the budget, yet aware of the need to modernize the state’s role in encouraging and regulating economic activity. But this strong support from economists does not mean that Obama’s numbers ever added up. Indeed, both Obama and McCain were guilty of hiding being elaborate façades of fiscal balance. On the eve of the election, on October 29, when Obama offered his closing argument in a half-hour infomercial—with the seriousness of the economic crisis evident to all—he continued to pretend that his promises could be paid for, claiming to have “offered spending cuts above and beyond” the cost of his proposals. But at least two independent organizations questioned this claim. The Tax Policy Center (TPC) estimated that Obama’s proposed tax plan would substantially increase the national debt over the next ten years, as his plan would not significantly increase economic growth unless it was offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaign had not specified. Compared with current law, the TPC estimated that

Table 11.2

Summary of Senator Obama’s Fiscal Policies 2013

Tax Policy Close tax loopholes and shelters Reinstate a smaller estate tax Increase income taxes on higher earners Raise capital gains & dividends taxes Increase the future payroll tax on high earners Expand the child and dependent care tax credit Expand the earned income tax credit Eliminate income taxes for many seniors Make the research and experimentation tax credit permanent Create a universal refundable mortgage credit Create a new college tax credit Cut corporate taxes Modify the saver’s credit and implement auto-savings Create a “Making Work Pay” tax credit Patch the alternative minimum tax Extend most of the 2001 & 2003 tax cuts Total

+$77 billion +$49 billion +$48 billion +$28 billion $0 -$3 billion -$5 billion -$7 billion -$9 billion -$13 billion -$13 billion -$13 billion -$21 billion -$72 billion -$106 billion -$294 billion -$354 billion

Health Care Policy Find savings to finance Part D reform Reduce overall health care costs Cut Medicare and Medicaid costs Close “doughnut hole” in Medicare Part D Expand health care coverage Total

+$43 billion +$41 billion/+$24 billion +$22 billion/+$14 billion -$43 billion -$115 billion/-$144 billion -$52 billion/-$106 billion

Energy Policy Implement a cap-and-trade system Provide tax rebates and transition assistance Invest in green technology Total

+$100 billion -$85 billion -$15 billion $0

Other Spending/Savings Initiate a phased withdraw from Iraq Reform government spending Reduce wasteful spending Reduce and reform government contracting Eliminate the Federal Education Loan Program Create infrastructure reinvestment bank Expand support for higher education Increase spending on basic research Increase pre-K – 12 education spending Increase the size of the military Double foreign aid Total

+$156 billion +$40 billion +$20 billion +$17 billion +$4 billion -$6 billion -$9 billion -$15 billion -$18 billion -$20 billion -$25 billion +$144 billion

Grand Total

-$262 billion to -$316 billion

Source: US Budget Watch (2008). “Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the Election.” 31 October Report (Washington, D.C.: Committee for a Responsible Budget).

A New U.S. Economy?

219

the Obama plan would cut taxes by $2.9 trillion over 2009–2018.10 The nonprofit, bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s US Budget Watch found that Obama’s policy changes, when fully implemented in 2013, would result in a national deficit of between $262 and $316 billion. According to this group, Obama’s tax policy alone is poised to deliver a $354 billion deficit. Although this deficit will be partially offset by plans for reduced spending and increased savings (totaling $144 billion), these savings are far from enough to balance the government’s books.11 The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s analysis provided a detailed breakdown of the economic impact of Obama’s campaign proposals, and this overview can be found in table 11.2. Here we can get a better idea of where Obama intends to spend (and save). Obama’s costliest ticket items are his plan to extend Bush’s previous tax cuts to those earning less than $250,000 (totaling $294 billion), his ambitions to extend health care coverage (costing between $115 billion and $144 billion), his hope to patch the alternative minimum tax (to the cost of about $106 billion), and his plan to jump-start a new energy policy with tax rebates and transition assistance (price tag: $85 billion). To pay for these plans, Obama’s biggest income generators are phasing out the war in Iraq (a gain of $156 billion), the implementation of an energy policy that includes a cap-and-trade system (another $100 billion gained), and closing tax loopholes and shelters (add $77 billion). In the best of times, these campaign pledges constitute a marvelous exercise in wishful thinking. And if Obama actually managed to get all the things on his wish list (such as a timely withdraw of troops from Iraq) and his world were restricted to these budget sheets, then a $300-billion deficit in 2013 would probably be manageable for an economy expected to generate more than $18 trillion.12 But Obama’s budget sheet has been forced open by events beyond his control. Changing Contexts Obama has inherited an economy that is facing its most serious challenge since the 1930s. While he prepared for his inauguration, a terrible situation grew worse, as markets began to sense a power vacuum in Washington. This section documents the changing economic context in the closing months of the election, with an eye to showing the enormity of the challenges that face the Obama presidency.

220

Jonathon W. Moses 300 200

0 −100

19 71 19 73 19 75 19 77 19 79 19 81 19 83 19 85 19 87 19 89 19 91 19 93 19 95 19 97 19 99 20 01 20 03 20 05 20 07

U.S. Dollar Billions

100

−200 −300 −400 −500

Figure 11.1

Federal surpluses and deficits, 1968–2007

Source: Congressional Budget Office

At the most general level, America’s economy was in need of change, but the magnitude of that change was not entirely clear until the fall of 2008. The American economy had been growing annually (if slowly) since 2004, with the 2007 GDP estimated at $13.6 trillion and projections that it would grow by about 2.2 percent annually.13 Even the federal deficit seemed to be under control, if one conveniently ignored the costs of the war in Iraq. According to the official overview of the president’s 2008 budget,14 the fundamentals of the American economy were strong, and significant revenue growth had reduced the budget deficit in 2004–6 (as a percentage of GDP); by 2008 the budget deficit was predicted to be just 1.6 percent of GDP. Rather remarkably, the Bush administration—as late as its 2008 budget—believed that the government was on course to balance its budget by 2012. With a longer-term perspective, as shown in figure 11.1, we can see that the United States has a long history of budget deficits (at least during Republican administrations), and we know that a history of deficits contributes to a growing level of public debt. The United States is not special in this regard, except perhaps for the size of its obligations. At the end of 2008, the total U.S. federal debt spilled over the $10 trillion mark, or approximately 65.5 percent of GDP. To get an idea of the enormity of this debt, we might look at its extent and makeup on a given day, say November 20, 2008, as shown in table 11.3 (look at all those commas!).

A New U.S. Economy?

221

Table 11.3 Total public debt outstanding Date

Debt Held by the Public

Intra-governmental Holdings

Total Public Debt Outstanding

20/11/2008

$6,393,926,893,617.82

$4,261,530,336,304.52

$10,655,457,229,922.34

Source: Treasury Direct (2008) “The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It.” 20 November. Online at: http:// www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np. Accessed 20 November.

In the second column, “Debt held by the public,” more than $6 trillion of federal debt is held by states, corporations, individuals, and foreign governments. On top of this debt is the $4-plus trillion in the third column, “Intragovernmental holdings,” which includes all the funds held by the government (i.e. the Social Security Trust Fund). As if this were not enough, to these frighteningly large figures it is possible to add more debt in the form of the contingent liabilities associated with Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ pensions, and other obligations. If these are added to the debt tally, the total U.S. debt figures rise to $59.1 trillion.15 As the U.S. GDP for 2008 is estimated to be about $14.5 trillion, this debt is large enough to cause concern (at roughly four times GDP). As is well known, much of this debt—about 25 percent—is held by foreigners. In September 2008, these foreign holdings totaled about $2.8 trillion, with mainland China ($0.59 trillion), Japan ($0.57 trillion), and the United Kingdom ($0.34 trillion) being the largest lenders.16 An equally ominous and troubling development can be found inside the workings of the American economy, in the rise of American income inequality. Data from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service indicate that income inequality has been increasing since the 1970s. In 2006 this inequality reached its zenith, when the United States had one of the developed world’s highest levels of income inequality.17 Although the U.S. Gini index began to fall in 2007 (for the first time since 1968), its current score (40.8) is much closer to those of Sri Lanka (40.2), Georgia (40.4), and Turkmenistan (40.8) than it is to those of other developed countries, such as Canada (32.6) or Germany (28.3), not to mention the world leader, Norway (25.8).18 This was the gloomy economic backdrop to the campaign before things got ugly. In the closing months of 2008—both immediately before and immediately after the election—the U.S. economy was being held hostage to a number of housing, credit, and financial woes and the threat of a deep recession.

222

Jonathon W. Moses

At the eye of the current tempest is a financial crisis that began a year earlier, in July 2007. It was then that Wall Street began to realize that it could no longer hide the problems that were buried in a mountain of bad, securitized, mortgages. Nevertheless, it seems the crisis was relegated to the back-burner, where it was conveniently ignored and allowed to simmer over the year that followed. Then, in September 2008, the crisis boiled over as the world’s stock markets crashed, taking with them a number of big banking, mortgage, and insurance companies. It is hard to exaggerate the volatility of these markets in midSeptember 2008, when Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, AIG sought the first of its enormous bridge loans, and several banks became insolvent. On September 15, Wall Street buckled under and the Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 500 points, the biggest daily decline since 2001. The result of this initial turmoil was the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, a promise by the U.S. Treasury to spend up to $700 billion to purchase distressed assets (especially mortgage-backed securities) and to inject capital into needy banks. A month and a half later, American automakers were following suit: looking to Congress for a bailout after posting enormous third-quarter losses. Although most political attention was focused on the liquidity crisis, the real economy was also in need of desperate attention. This need became more evident immediately after the election, when the government announced that more than 500,000 jobs had been lost in the month of November alone—lifting the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, or 10.3 million jobless, a fourteen-year high. Since the start of the current recession (December 2007), more than 2.7 million people have become unemployed, and most of these jobs were lost in the three months before and immediately after the election.19 As if this were not enough, the threat of def lation emerged as the consumer price index dropped 1 percent in October on account of tumbling energy prices. These pressing developments at the end of a long campaign will surely tie the hands of the new president. Even before the current crisis, it was doubtful that Obama could pay for all that he had promised. But during the final months of the Bush presidency, the fiscal burden of dealing with this crisis was becoming all the more evident, threatening to undermine government revenues (lower growth means lower tax revenues) as well as future expenditures (in the form of enormous stimulus and bailout packages). Consequently, the projected fiscal deficits for 2008 and 2009 had to be recalibrated almost continually and the projected 2008 deficit has

A New U.S. Economy?

223

jumped from $389 billion ( July estimate) to $455 billion, or 3.2 percent of GDP (in September). The Congressional Budget Office’s (September 2008) projection for 2009 was for a deficit on the order of $438 billion, but Peter Orszag, the agency’s director, acknowledged that it might rise to $750 billion (or about 5 percent of GDP) as a result of the recession’s impact on revenue and spending and the costs associated with various bailouts.20 With the end of the crisis nowhere in sight, still others have predicted that the 2009 deficit might tip over $1 trillion, or 7 percent of GDP. In the end, even these most pessimistic estimates fell well short of the mark. The Transition and Onward How will the crisis affect the Obama presidency and the economy over which it will preside? It is impossible to answer this question with any degree of accuracy, as the nature and depth of the crisis are still unknown. But as the inauguration approached, the outlines of Obama’s all-star economic team began to take shape, and in them we find signs for the road ahead. During this time it was becoming evident that the scale of the economic problems facing the new administration and the fiscal legacy of the previous administration were both much larger than originally feared. Although Obama inherited an economic mess that would surely limit his scope of activity, his transition team tenaciously held to the belief that the crisis would not stop his plans for expanding health care, overhauling education and energy policy, and passing a middle-class tax cut.21 In addition to these costly campaign promises, Obama inherited a pressing need for a massive fiscal stimulus. Indeed, in his first postelection news conference, Obama announced that his top concern was the passage of a multibillion-dollar stimulus package to create 2.5 million jobs over a two-year period. Although the Obama team initially refused to put any specific numbers into play, economists first bandied around figures that corresponded to roughly 2–3 percent of GDP, or $300–400 billion.22 As the economic crisis deepened, it became apparent that the eventual stimulus package would need to be much larger than this. With the economic crisis deepening, and in the hope of calming nervous markets, Obama’s first order of business was to assemble an all-star economic team. On November 25, some of the main players in

224

Jonathon W. Moses

that team were announced to the public: Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers as the director of the National Economic Council, Christina Romer as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Melody Barnes as director of the Domestic Policy Council. In the days that followed, Peter Orszag was tapped to be the Office of Management and Budget director, and Paul Volcker agreed to lead the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Later, Obama chose Gary Locke to head the Commerce Department and Hilda L. Solis as his labor secretary. What can be said about Obama’s economic team? Two impressions come to mind. First, this is a remarkably well-educated, experienced, and competent team that can hit the ground running. In light of the selection criteria used by the previous administration, the choice of experienced economists (rather than friend-lawyers) is a refreshing and welcome change. Despite his young age, Tim Geithner is a highly respected central banker with hands-on experience dealing with the current crisis (at his current position as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank). Larry Summers is a top-shelf economist and former Treasury secretary who has secured almost deity status in the U.S. media. Christina Romer is a leading economic historian at the University of California, Berkeley, whose work focuses on the causes of (and U.S. response to) the Great Depression. Melody Barnes brings tons of legislative experience to the table, with a history as chief counsel to Mr. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Peter Orszag, as the current director of the Congressional Budget Office, knows the numbers inside out, and Paul Volker was, of course, two-term chair of the Federal Reserve. Such an all-star team should provide comfort to troubled markets. But experience can dirty the hands, and this brings me to my second impression. Although this team may provide “Hope,” it does little to signal “Change.” The experience that pads this team’s portfolio of résumés also implicates many of them in the problems that currently ail the U.S. economy. It is also noteworthy that Obama did not announce his choice for labor secretary until weeks after the core economic team was unveiled, as if the interests of labor were an afterthought for the transition team. Indeed, what is most remarkable about the new team is how many of its roots can be traced back to the Clinton era and his Treasury secretary, Robert Rubin: Summers was Rubin’s deputy secretary and later succeeded him as Treasury secretary; Geithner was undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs (1998–2001) under both Rubin

A New U.S. Economy?

225

and Summers; Orszag is yet another Rubin protégé. These links to Clinton’s Treasury continue at the next level of advisers being discussed, including Michael Froman, who was Rubin’s chief of staff at the Treasury (and eventually followed him to Citigroup), and even Rubin’s son, James Rubin. In short, this team is chock-full of Rubin disciples, without a single dissenter in the senior group. The inf luence of Clinton-era thinking is most evident at the highest levels: in the person of Larry Summers. Although Summers’ formal title will be director of the National Economic Council, his real role will be much bigger than this title implies. This is problematic, if only because Summers was an early supporter of the sort of financial deregulation that helped to fuel the current housing bubble. Worse, he is known for his earlier lack of concern about the threat of financial asset bubbles and his willingness to bail out earlier Wall Street failures.23 Finally, Summers and Geithner were largely responsible for the design of the East Asian bailout (after the 1997 financial crisis). Their solution produced the overvalued dollar and large trade deficits that are the source of many of the imbalances that created today’s problems.24 Of course, Summers is a bright man—capable of learning from past mistakes. Indeed, he has clearly been ahead of the curve when commenting on the unfolding economic crisis in his regular Financial Times columns, and he has been a vocal and early advocate for a massive stimulus package. But Summers is not the soothsayer that the media often portrays him to be, and he is surely not the breath of economic fresh air that many of Obama’s supporters were hoping for. Conclusion President Obama faces enormous and ominous challenges. The world economy is neck-deep in crisis, the likes of which we have not seen since before the Second World War. It is hopeful, then, that the new president has surrounded himself with people who are familiar with the Depression era and that he himself has studied earlier administrations facing similar problems. It was, after all, under two previous Democratic administrations—those of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman—that the United States helped to lead the world out of the depression and away from the autarkic policies that mired the interwar economy. Clearly, the United States cannot now turn its back on the world it helped to shape, even as it grasps for necessary changes at home.

226

Jonathon W. Moses

Another lesson that might be learned from earlier experiences is the need for creative and radical reforms. On this front, I fear, there are fewer grounds for optimism. Obama’s economic team is frighteningly short of people with the sort of perspective that can bring about real change.25 This is a team assembled to protect the backs (and wallets) of established financial interests. Although this sort of team may be necessary to lead the United States out of its current difficulties, it is not particularly well suited to make any significant changes at the core of the American economy and in the powers that sustain it. The massive grassroots movement that brought Obama to power is bound to be disappointed by an administration that will be forced to spend its strapped budget on bailing out those who profited most from the excesses of financial deregulation. Organized labor—to whom Obama is also heavily indebted—has already seen the writing on the wall, when Jason Furman was selected as Obama’s economic director. For the pessimist, the Obama presidency is bound by shackles that were forged during the Bush administration. A suffocating economic crisis will place enormous fiscal pressures on the new administration, and many of Obama’s election promises will need to be set aside in order to stop the economic hemorrhaging. With so much money and attention being thrown at getting us back to where we were, one has to wonder how much money or attention will be left to take us to a better place. At the height of the election, Obama secured victory by holding firm in the face of a looming crisis. When Senator McCain placed his campaign on hold to focus his attention on the economic crisis, Obama seized the initiative by explaining that a president should be able to do more than one thing at a time. In this simple truth I find some grounds for optimism. Perhaps, if we are lucky, Obama may be able to press his very conventional team to think in unconventional ways. It may just be that Obama can find a new economy buried in the pile of economic ashes bequeathed to him by Bush. After all, the incoming president enjoys a substantial mandate that he can spread over both the short and the longer terms. In the short term, he can fulfill many of his campaign promises by including them in the sort of enormous stimulus program that everyone has come to expect. Indeed, the appalling state of the economy provides Obama with some unexpected elbow room, and it is clear that the country is eager to set out on a new economic heading. Obama can use this broad mandate to green the economy; to rebuild the nation’s education, information, and transportation infrastructures; and to better educate the American

A New U.S. Economy?

227

labor force. This is possible, but the new president needs to think big thoughts. By securing these short-term objectives, Obama can provide the economic foundation necessary to support his long-term goals, such as decreasing income inequality, rebuilding a middle class that can rely on solid wages (and retirement packages), securing a greener and more independent energy footing, and (most dauntingly) reforming the American health care system. It is here, on the temporal horizon of Obama’s first term, that his mettle will be truly tested. This test will not be of the typical sort. Bringing about real change will depend only in part on securing the majorities needed in Congress. There is, after all, broad political support for the sorts of changes that Obama has promised, and the incoming president has shown that he is capable of securing delicate political balances. The problem is that real change— “Change We Can Believe In”—finds little traction among Obama’s own team of advisers. For Obama to be true to his campaign promises, and the hopes that they engender, he must harness this experienced team and shorten their reins significantly for the very long and heavy pull ahead. Notes 1. This record became known from Goolsbee’s Slate.com and New York Times columns. For a brief résumé, see www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/us/politics/11web-goolsbee.html?_r=1. His own homepage can be found at http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/austan.goolsbee/website. 2. Liebman’s centralist credentials were secured by his coauthorship of a paper on the feasibility of privatizing social security (when he was an advisor to Bill Clinton) and a book on social security reform with Martin Feldstein (chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under Ronald Reagan). His homepage can be found at www.hks.harvard.edu/jeffreyliebman. 3. Cutler also brings much public experience to the table, having served on the Council of Economic Advisers and the National Economic Council during the Clinton administration, and having advised the presidential campaigns of Bill Bradley and John Kerry. His homepage can be found at www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/cutler. 4. Tarullo held several senior positions in the Clinton administration, ultimately that of assistant to the president for international economic policy, responsible for coordinating the international economic policy of the administration. He was a principal on both the National Economic Council and the National Security Council. Before his appointment to that position, he was deputy assistant to the president for economic policy, with special responsibility for regulatory and international issues. His homepage can be found at www.law.georgetown. edu/faculty/facinfo/tab_faculty.cfm?Status=Faculty&ID=1298. 5. Tom Hamburger, “Obama’s Selection of Jason Furman as Economic Advisor Is Criticized,” Los Angeles Times, June 11, 2008, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/11/nation/na-furman11 (accessed December 2, 2008). 6. Don Pedro, “Obama Economic Policy: Clinton vs. Obama on Trade,” Economists for Obama, January 17, 2008, http://econ4obama.blogspot.com/2008/01/obama-economicpolicy-clinton-vs-obama.html (accessed December 1, 2008).

228

Jonathon W. Moses

7. Mike Dorning, “Obama’s Policy Team Loaded with All-Stars,” Chicagotribune.com, September 17, 2007, www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/chiobama_mon_nusep17-archive,0,908712.story (accessed December 1, 2008). 8. Barack Obama, “Plan to Strengthen the Economy,” 2008, www.barackobama.com/issues/ economy/#trade (accessed December 1, 2008). 9. “How Big Is Too Big?” The Economist, October 25, 2008, 38 (U.S. edition). 10. Tax Policy Center, “An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans,” September 15, 2008, www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411750_updated_ candidates_summary.pdf (accessed November 20, 2008). 11. U.S. Budget Watch, “Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the 2008 Election,” October 31, 2008 (Washington, DC: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget), www. usbudgetwatch.org/files/crf b/USBW%20Voter%20Guide%20Oct%2031.pdf (accessed November 15, 2008). 12. Congressional Budget Office, “CBO’s Baseline Budget Projections,” September 2008, www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/97xx/doc9706/Selected_Tables.pdf (accessed November 15, 2008). 13. ———————————————(2008b)Congressional Budget Office, “Historical Budget Data,.” Online at: http://www.cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.xls. (accessed November 20, 2008). 14. Government Printing Office, “Overview of the President’s 2008 Budget,” www.gpoaccess. gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/budget/overview.pdf (accessed December 2, 2008). 15. Dennis Cauchon, “Taxpayers on the Hook for $59 Trillion,” USA Today, May 28, 2007, www. usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-28-federal-budget_N.htm (accessed November 2, 2008). 16. U.S. Treasury, “Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities,” September 2008, www. ustreas.gov/tic/mf h.txt (accessed November 29, 2008). 17. David Cay Johnston, “Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows,” New York Times, March 29, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html?ex=1332820800&en=f b472e7 2466c34c8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss (accessed December 1, 2008). 18. United Nations Development Programme, “Inequality in Income or Expenditure (Gini Index),” Human Development Report 2007/8, table 15, http://hdrstats.undp.org/ indicators/147.html (accessed December 1, 2008). 19. U.S. Department of Labor, “Employment Situation Summary,” Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Economic News Release, December 5, 2008, www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm (accessed December 5, 2008). 20. “How Big Is Too Big?” 21. Andy Sullivan, “Economy Won’t Stop Obama’s Priorities, Aides Say,” Yahoo!News, November 9, 2008, http://www.forexpros.com/news/commodities-&-futures-news/update1-economy-won’t-stop-obama’s-priorities,-aides-say-4096 (accessed November 30, 2008). 22. Indeed, a letter dated November 19, 2008, and signed by more than 375 economists (including Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Solow, and George Akerlof ) urges Congress to move quickly and decisively to pass an effective new economic stimulus package of this magnitude. See www.cepr.net/documents/publications/Economists_letter_2008_11_19. pdf (accessed May 24, 2009). 23. Kevin Connor and Matthew Skomarovsky, “The Summers Bubble,” The American Prospect, November 17, 2008, www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_summers_bubble (accessed November 29, 2008). 24. In particular, the Treasury Department chose to show forbearance to companies and countries in the region in the form of short-term loans and a commitment to keep U.S. markets open to the enormous supply of exports from the region (to ensure they could repay the loans). This was done by securing grossly undervalued currencies in the region. With time, these countries accumulated massive volumes of foreign exchange through their trade

A New U.S. Economy?

229

surpluses with the United States, and an overvalued dollar meant job losses in the U.S. export sector. 25. For example, Christina Romer—the team member most familiar with the Great Depression—has consistently argued that monetary policy is far more important than fiscal stimulus in encouraging economic recovery. Her homepage can be found at http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~cromer/index.shtml. See Edward L. Glaeser, “Obama’s Most Interesting Pick,” New York Times, December 2, 2008, http://economix.blogs.nytimes. com/2008/12/02/obamas-most-interestin-pick (accessed December 2, 2008).


CH A P T E R

T W E LV E

A New U.S. Politics and Society? Chri stophe r J. Bai ley

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” Barack Obama’s claim in his victory speech that his triumph in the 2008 presidential election constituted a transformative event that heralded a new America was echoed in news headlines and editorials both in the United States and around the world. Phrases such as “historic,” “sea change,” “landmark,” “milestone,” and “defining” dominated commentaries on the election result. Millions of Americans, famous and unknown, concurred in this view that something monumental had occurred. Senator John Kerry, the defeated Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, claimed in his victory speech celebrating his reelection to the U.S. Senate, “Tonight new dreams are born and old truths are affirmed. Tonight we enter a new America, the best America, the America of our highest hopes.” Spike Lee, the African American film director, described the election on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show as the “defining event of all human history.” He even suggested that human time should now be marked “BB” and “AB”: Before Barack and After Barack. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans took to the streets on election night to celebrate change. One report described an African American wandering round Washington DC’s Eastern Market telling everyone, “It’s all changed, man.”1 In this chapter I assess the substance of these cacophonous claims of change to determine whether the 2008 presidential election really presages the arrival of a new America. After all, claims of change, of

232

Christopher J. Bailey

new beginnings, of historic outcomes, have frequently been used to describe the results of American presidential elections over the past fifty years. First, I examine what the election of Barack Obama reveals about the contemporary politics of race in the United States. The historic nature of Obama’s election as the first African American president is obvious, but what is less clear is whether his victory signifies a transformation in racial politics in general. Second, I examine what the election results mean in terms of partisan realignment. Do Obama’s victory and Democratic gains at other levels of American government herald a new era of Democratic dominance and the end of current Republican hopes to become the natural party of government? Finally, I examine whether the election signals the end of the conservative mood that has dominated American politics since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Is America on the cusp of a rebirth of liberalism? A New Politics of Race? In his concession speech the defeated Republican candidate, John McCain, noted the landmark nature of Barack Obama’s victory with the observation “This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.” The American media and a majority of Americans agreed with McCain. A Pew survey of media coverage of the election results showed that news broadcasts and newspaper headlines stressed the historical importance of the election of an African American as president.2 The ABC anchor Charles Gibson, for example, began his newscast on November 5, 2008, with the question “How do you measure the magnitude of a moment such as this, the election of the first African American president?” and headlines such as “Obama Overcomes,” “Dream Realized,” and “Race Is History” dominated newspapers. Opinion polls revealed similar sentiments among the American public. In a Gallup poll conducted on November 5, 2008, 33 percent of respondents reported that they viewed Obama’s election as “the most important advance for blacks in the past 100 years,” and a further 38 percent regarded his election as “one of the two or three most important advances.”3 Much of the rest of the world concurred that the election of the first African American president was a landmark event. A Pew survey of how overseas newspapers reported the outcome of the election revealed that most emphasized the historical importance of Obama’s election.4 The British tabloid newspaper The

A New U.S. Politics and Society?

233

Sun, for example, compared the result to the first moon landing with the headline “One Giant Leap for Mankind.” The historical importance of Barack Obama’s election is clear and is testimony to the work of the civil rights movement over the past fifty years. In 1961, the year Obama was born, “Jim Crow” laws segregated the races in the American South; literacy tests, poll taxes, and intimidation restricted the right of African Americans to vote; only three African Americans served in the U.S. House of Representatives, none served in federal or statewide elected office, and no African American had been nominated for national office since 1872, when Frederick Douglass’ name had been placed on the ballot as the Equal Rights Party’s candidate for the vice presidency.5 “Little more than 40 years ago Barack Obama would have found it hard to be served lunch in a restaurant, let alone be candidate for US president,” noted one commentator discussing the outcome of the 2008 election.6 Over the next fifty years these circumstances changed as the civil rights movement campaigned for an end to discrimination. Civil rights laws, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and various court decisions gradually swept away de jure segregation, enfranchised African Americans, paved the way for increasing numbers of black elected officials at local, state, and federal level, and encouraged a small number of African Americans to run for the presidency. In 2007, the year Obama announced his candidacy for U.S. president, 622 African Americans served in state legislatures, 42 served in the U.S. House of Representatives, 43 held a federal or statewide elected office, and 5 had already sought the presidential nomination of one of the major parties.7 Obama’s victory depended not only on the removal of legal and institutional barriers to African American political participation but also on a diminishing of some of the attitudinal barriers that tended to restrict African Americans’ success to offices with black majority constituencies. Electoral success requires both an opportunity to stand and campaign for office and an ability to attract sufficient support from voters to win the election. Previous African American candidates for the presidency, such as Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, failed to win their party’s nomination because they did not mobilize sufficient support among white voters. Central to Obama’s victory is the fact that 43 percent of white voters cast their ballot for him: a figure higher than that achieved by John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000, and on a par with that achieved by Bill Clinton in 1996.8 Without these votes he would not have been successful. Although African Americans and other racial minorities voted in greater numbers in 2008 than in any

234


previous election, they constituted only just over a quarter of the electorate, and the high levels of support they gave to Obama would have been insufficient to propel him to the White House without the votes of white Americans. Demographic change and the enfranchisement of minority populations have led to a reduction in the proportion of white voters in the electorate from 92 percent in 1964 to 74 percent in 2008, but they remain a majority of the voting population. The fact that a substantial minority of these white voters voted for Obama generated a sense of pride among many Americans. In the words of one commentator, “There is no other nation in the world where a 75% majority electorate has elected as their supreme leader a man who identifies as one of that nation’s historically oppressed minorities.”9 Obama’s ability to fashion a “rainbow coalition” of African American, Latino, Asian, and a substantial number of white voters has led to claims that his victory signals the beginning of a “postracial” society. Proponents of this view argue that the traditional structure of race relations in the United States is becoming less important as the attitudes of white Americans change and profound demographic changes undermine the historic pattern of black–white relations. Some support for such claims can be gleaned from opinion polls that show that 92 percent of white Americans reported race made no difference to the way they voted in 2008, exit polls that reveal that 54 percent of young white Americans (aged eighteen to twenty-nine) voted for Obama, and census data that show that the number of Latinos in the population surpassed the number of African Americans in 2002.10 Further evidence that white Americans have become more comfortable with black political leadership can be found in the increasing number of African American legislators representing white majority constituencies.11 In 2007 approximately 30 percent of the 622 black state legislators represented white majority districts, compared with 16 percent in 2001. Several African Americans also represent white majority constituencies in the U.S. House of Representatives. Both Keith Ellison (D. MN) and Emanuel Cleaver (D. MO), for example, represent districts that are more than 60 percent white. An alternative view is that Obama’s victory was a personal triumph that should not be interpreted as ushering in a new era in race relations in the United States. Proponents of this view argue that Obama advanced a de-racialized campaign message that emphasized the themes of the American Dream rather than the traditional concerns of race, was only loosely connected to the African American community, and relied heavily upon veteran white Democratic Party insiders


235

as key advisers.12 His victory was an individual accomplishment that did not translate into significant African American successes elsewhere. Although his campaign certainly persuaded unprecedented numbers of African Americans and other racial minorities to vote, it did not lead to large numbers of African Americans being elected at lower levels of government. The number of African Americans serving in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 111th Congress (2009–10), for example, has not changed. A few even question whether Obama should properly be characterized as the first black president of the United States as he has a mixed-race background and is not descended from West African slaves.13 The test of which of these two views is correct will be whether other racial minority candidates can repeat Barack Obama’s success in the future. If the next decade shows that other African American or minority candidates can wage successful campaigns for national or statewide office, then Obama’s victory did mark the beginning of a new “postracial” society. If racial minority candidates find it difficult to achieve such success, on the other hand, Obama’s victory will need to be interpreted as a personal triumph. Although claims that “it’s all changed, man” are premature, the 2008 election result has changed racial politics in at least one important way. Barack Obama provides a powerful example of what African Americans can achieve that gives substance to assertions that hard work can open the doors to the White House. “He obviously means a lot to African-American children, many of whom have been told that they, too, could become president, if they just worked and studied hard enough. And yet, a cursory glance at any history textbook will reveal that all 43 of the previous presidents have not only been white, but male and aff luent,” noted one commentator.14 Racial inequalities did not disappear with Obama’s election, but his victory might usher in an era in which minorities believe and act with a conviction that they can better their circumstances.15 A Partisan Realignment? Barack Obama’s success in winning the presidency, Democratic gains in the U.S. Congress, and similar advances at the state level led a number of commentators to speculate that 2008 was a realigning election. Lanny J. Davis, a former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, claimed that “Tuesday’s substantial victory by Barack Obama, together with Democratic gains in the Senate and House, appear to have accomplished

236


a fundamental realignment.”16 Another analyst argued that “[Obama’s] election is the culmination of a Democratic realignment that began in the 1990s, was delayed by September 11, and resumed with the 2006 election.”17 Others dismissed such claims as premature or incorrect. Conservative commentator John Podhoretz argued, “What we are seeing, in other words, is a wholesale f light from the Republican party but not an epoch-making reversal of partisan or ideological direction.”18 Another prominent political analyst concurred: “At this point, it is far too premature to claim that 2008 was anything more than a dramatic reaction to an unpopular president and to a party hurt by its own ineptness. . . . [Obama’s] election, by itself, isn’t necessarily a sign of a new partisan alignment.”19 Proponents of the view that 2008 should be interpreted as a realigning election that established a new dominant party in American politics base their claims on a number of observations. First, they note that the high turnout in the 2008 election fulfills one of the key requirements set out in political scientist V. O. Key’s seminal essay “A Theory of Critical Elections.”20 The estimated 63 percent turnout in 2008 was the highest for at least forty years and perhaps even for one hundred years. Opinion polls also suggest that voters displayed the high level of interest in the elections that Key deemed necessary for a realigning election. In one Gallup poll, for example, 68 percent of respondents claimed that they followed news about the 2008 presidential elections “very closely.”21 Second, they point out that exit polls suggest some notable changes in the sociodemographic support base of the parties— something that Key also regarded as a prerequisite for a realignment. Obama gained overwhelming support from racial minorities and young voters and made significant inroads among important swing groups such as Catholics, suburbanites, and independents. 22 He also won states in the Midwest and South. Finally, they argue that Obama’s victory, Democratic majorities in Congress, and Democratic gains in gubernatorial and state legislatures show that there has been a change in party dominance. Democrats gained eight seats in the U.S. Senate, twentyone seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, seven state governorships, and control of a further six state legislatures. Realignment skeptics counter that evidence of Democratic dominance is underwhelming. First, they note that the proportion of the electorate identifying themselves as Democrats in 2008 was slightly higher than in 2004 but less than in 1992. Exit polls reveal that 39 percent of voters said they were Democrats in 2008, compared with 37 percent in 2004 and 43 percent in 1992.23 Although the proportion of the


237

electorate identifying themselves as Republicans fell from 37 percent in 2004 to 32 percent in 2008, the largest drop in party identification since the post-Watergate election of 1974, these voters do not appear to have f locked in great numbers to the Democratic Party. In short, there is little evidence of the sort of fundamental shift in self-identified partisanship that would signal a realignment. Second, they point out that although the Democratic share of the presidential vote in 2008 was higher than in any presidential election since 1964 (see figure 12.1), Obama managed to win only 53 percent of the vote. This is hardly evidence of a new dominant political coalition.24 Third, they argue that Democratic gains in Congress and at the state level have simply restored the party to its position during the Reagan/Bush years (see figures 12.2 and 12.3). The fact that the Democrats control both the presidency and Congress may be significant for the way that government operates, but it does not necessarily point to a partisan realignment. The best way to interpret the 2008 election is that it laid the foundations for a potential realignment. Demographic changes mean that Democratic gains among younger voters, those living in suburbia, and Latinos may, if consolidated, provide the basis of a new dominant political coalition, as these are the fastest growing groups in the electorate. Whether the Democrats will manage to hang on to these groups, however, is a moot point. The Latino vote, in particular, has 70

Percent Vote Share

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 Election Year Figure 12.1

Democratic presidential vote share, 1960–2008

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%

19 75 19 77 19 79 19 81 19 83 19 85 19 87 19 89 19 91 19 93 19 95 19 97 19 99 20 01 20 03 20 05 20 07 20 09

0%

House Figure 12.2

Senate

Proportion of congressional seats held by Democrats

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20%

Governors

2009

2007

2005

2003

2001

1999

1997

1995

1993

1991

1989

1987

1985

1983

1981

1979

1977

0%

1975

10%

State Legislatures

Figure 12.3 Share of governorships and state legislatures controlled by Democrats, 1975–2009


239

proved volatile in recent years.25 History also suggests that care should be taken about proclaiming realignments. Both President Carter and President Clinton claimed that they had reshaped electoral politics by winning states such as Georgia and Ohio, but Carter’s declaration of a post-Watergate realignment ended after one term and the loss of the Senate in 1980, and the Democrats lost control of Congress a mere two years after Clinton’s election in 1992.26 Barack Obama may be the first northern urban president since President Kennedy, but his election does not mean that a fundamental partisan realignment occurred in November 2008. The End of the Conservative Mood? A number of commentators greeted the 2008 election with claims that the result marked the end of the conservative mood that had dominated American politics since the early 1980s and the emergence of a new liberal era. George Packer, in an essay titled “The New Liberalism” published in The New Yorker, for example, argued that Obama’s victory “brings to a close another conservative era, one that rose amid the ashes of the New Deal coalition in the late 1960s, consolidated its power with the election of Ronald Reagan, in 1980, and immolated itself during the Presidency of George W. Bush.”27 The election of a president with a liberal voting record, changes in the ideological composition of the Democratic majorities in Congress, and evidence that the population were more willing to countenance government action to cure social and economic ills appeared to signal the end of a conservative mood that had stressed small government and low taxes. In the language of the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., 2008 seemed to mark the end of an era of “private interest” and the start of an era of “public action.”28 Establishing whether the 2008 election signals the end of a conservative mood in America and the emergence of a new liberal era poses many challenges. The first problem is defining what is meant by conservatism. Conservatism in the United States has at least two prominent strands—a small-state, free-market tradition and a social conservative tradition that promotes specific values—and most commentators fail to make clear whether both or only one of these strands is in decline. The second problem is measuring the conservativeness of the country. Should indicators of government activity be used or measures of public opinion? Elite action and public opinion do not always mesh. The final problem is evaluating whether a liberal political elite is now in power in Washington DC. This

240


is a question both of interpreting Obama’s ideological position and of measuring the ideological composition of Congress. Is Obama a liberal or a postpartisan pragmatist? Are there liberal majorities in Congress? Data on government spending, entitlement programs, and federal regulations provide evidence that small-state, free-market conservatism had been in retreat in the United States for a number of years before the election of Barack Obama. Between 2000 and 2008 federal spending rose from $1.9 trillion to $3.1 trillion, the federal budget moved from a surplus of $236 billion to a deficit of more than $400 billion, and the national debt rose from $5.6 trillion to more than $9 trillion.29 The cost of the Wall Street bailout in October 2008 added a further $700 billion to government spending in 2008–9. Although the “war on terror” accounts for some of this increased spending, a significant factor has been a rapid rise in the number of Americans claiming federal entitlements. An analysis of twenty-five major government programs carried out by USA Today showed that enrolment in the programs increased by an average of 17 percent between 2000 and 2005, while the population grew by only 5 percent.30 This represented the largest five-year expansion in the welfare state since the Great Society in the 1960s. The regulatory state also expanded under President Bush. More than 7,000 pages of new regulations were added to the Federal Register during the Bush administration.31 In short, a Republican administration castigated by its opponents for its conservative ideology presided over a dramatic expansion of federal spending and power and even ended up taking banks and insurance companies into public ownership. Evidence that social conservatism has been in similar retreat is less apparent, as the 2008 elections revealed some conservative successes in the “culture wars” that have been seen in the United States since the 1970s.32 Ranged on one side of this war are “traditionalists” who regard abortion, rising divorce rates, an increasing incidence of out- ofwedlock births, growing numbers of single-parent households, and the affirmation of gender and homosexual rights in the United States as evidence of moral decline. Traditionalists such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and the late Jerry Falwell stress an absolutist set of values based on religious texts that are nonnegotiable. Ranged on the other side of the battlefield are “progressives” who stress a multicultural and largely secular view of morality. Progressives reject the idea that moral “truths” are derived from transcendent religious texts and champion a more relativist approach to moral authority. At the heart of the culture wars is an effort to define what it means to be an American and delineate how proper Americans should lead their lives.33


241

Propositions (referenda) in various states addressed many of the core issues in the culture wars in the 2008 elections. In Arizona, Florida, and California, voters passed propositions to ban same- sex marriages. Passage of California’s Proposition 8 was the most significant of these measures as it rescinded marriage rights that had already been granted, raised doubts about the validity of approximately 18,000 Californian marriage licenses, and left only Massachusetts and Connecticut as states allowing same-sex marriages. A key element in the passage of Proposition 8 (and the propositions in Arizona and Florida) was the ability of supporters of the ban to mobilize a broad coalition of churches and religious groups from across the ethnic spectrum.34 Although the campaign to pass Proposition 8 began in white evangelical churches, important support came from Latino churches whose priests told their congregations that same-sex marriage threatened the traditional family, and from African American pastors who preached that the Bible sanctioned only traditional marriage between a man and a woman. An exit poll of California voters showed that African American voters sided in favor of the measure by margins of more than two to one.35 Voters who cast their ballot overwhelmingly for Barack Obama listened to their priests on this issue. Passage of the propositions in California, Florida, and Arizona led one activist to dismiss claims that the issue of same- sex marriages was no longer important to voters. “This is not a dying issue,” argued Jordan Lawrence of the Alliance Defense Fund. “This is not an issue that had its heyday in the 2004 election and is dwindling.”36 The 2008 results mean that thirty states have constitutional prohibitions on same-sex marriage. Arizona voters also approved a measure to prohibit homosexuals and lesbians from adopting children. Traditionalists, however, did not triumph everywhere. Propositions in Colorado and South Dakota that sought to impose comprehensive bans on abortion failed to pass, voters in California rejected a measure requiring doctors to notify parents before carrying out an abortion on a minor, a proposition legalizing doctor-assisted suicide passed in Washington state, and voters in Michigan lifted a ban on stem- cell research. Overall, the battles of the culture wars look set to continue, with both sides capable of winning victories on particular issues at particular times and in particular places. The question of whether the conservative mood has ended is further complicated by public opinion data. Over the past twenty years the proportion of Americans who describe their ideological position as conservative, moderate, or liberal has hardly changed. 37 In 2008,

242


38 percent of respondents described themselves as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 21 percent as liberal, whereas in 1992, 35 percent regarded themselves as conservative, 40 percent as moderate, and 18 percent as liberal. These figures fail to support claims of a general shift in the public mood toward a more liberal viewpoint. On the other hand, there is some evidence that support for small-state, free market conservatism has waned as the problems of the financial sector and the prospect of a general recession have become more apparent. The proportion of Americans who want government to take more action to solve problems rose from 44 percent in 1992 to 51 percent in November 2008.38 There is also some evidence that support for social conservatism has declined. The proportion of Americans who believe that government should promote traditional values has declined from a high of 59 percent in 1992 to 48 percent in 2008.39 None of these data, however, provide unambiguous evidence that conservatism is a spent force in the United States. The uncertainty about the state of conservatism is mirrored by a similar uncertainty about the liberal credentials of the new Democratic rulers in Washington DC. Although the annual ratings produced by the liberal interest group Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) clearly show that Obama had a liberal voting record as a senator, his campaign rhetoric and writings suggest a more centrist, even pragmatic, outlook. In The Audacity of Hope, for example, Obama argues that “the pursuit of ideological purity . . . keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country.”40 Obama simply does not fit easily into the standard liberal–conservative divide. A further problem is the claim that liberals dominate Congress. Writing on the day of the election the conservative commentator Fred Barnes warned readers of The Wall Street Journal, “For the first time since the 1960s, liberal Democrats are dominant. They are all but certain to have a lopsided majority in the House, and either a filibuster-proof Senate or something close to it.”41 Such claims, however, are overstated. Although there are undoubtedly a large number of liberal Democrats in Congress, some occupying powerful positions, many of the new Democrats who won in moderate and Republican-leaning districts are centrist in orientation. The evidence suggests that the 2008 election was not so much about the rejection of a particular ideology and the embrace of an alternative but more about competence. Gallup polls reveal a rising dissatisfaction with the way that the nation has been governed during the first decade of the twenty-first century.42 In September 2008, 72 percent of those


243

polled stated that they were dissatisfied with government, compared with 39 percent in September 2001. The reason for this loss of confidence has been described by one commentator in the following terms: “Turn on the TV in the Bush Administration, and what do you see? American solders bogged down in a complicated Middle East country, their reason for being there exposed as a lie. A government paralyzed by incompetence days after a category- 4 hurricane engulfed a major American city. Factories closing, house values swooning and stock prices collapsing.”43 Obama won the election not because he offered a liberal alternative but because he persuaded sufficient voters that he offered a competent alternative. A New U.S. Politics and Society? All elections generate political change of some sort. Some produce new leaders, cause shifts in the partisan control of government, and changes in the priorities and policies of a country. Others have a more marginal impact—producing, perhaps, only minor changes in personnel but nonetheless altering the dynamics of political relationships. Reports of the 2008 American election, however, suggested something of a different magnitude. The election was described in many quarters as no mere change of administration or change in partisan majorities but as a fundamental reordering of the American political universe. Prominent claims included assertions that the election had changed historic patterns of race relations, brought about a partisan realignment, and ended the conservative mood that had dominated the country since the early 1980s. Although there is some truth in all these claims, there is little evidence that the 2008 election brought about the type of fundamental change trumpeted by many commentators. The first African American was elected to the presidency, Democrats made gains at all levels of government, and new solutions will undoubtedly be sought for America’s problems at home and abroad, but these developments do not necessarily signal the dawn of a new politics and society. It is certainly conceivable, for example, that a white Republican man could win the presidency in 2012 if the Obama administration proves incapable of dealing with the recession or successfully resolving America’s wars. The best interpretation of the 2008 elections is that they could prove to be the first step in a process of change that leads to a fundamental reordering of the American political universe.

244

Christopher J. Bailey Notes

1. Tony Allen-Mills, “Now Comes the Hard Part,” The Sunday Times, November 9, 2008, 13. 2. Pew Research Center, “Media Moment: History, Trends and Transition Dominate News Coverage,” November 11, 2008, www.pewresearch.org/pubs/1028/media-moment. 3. “Americans See Obama Election as Race Relations Milestone,” November 7, 2008, www. gallup.com/poll/111817/Americans- See- Obama- Election- Race- Relations- Milestone. aspx. 4. Pew Research Center, “Global Media Celebrate Obama Victory——But Cautious Too,” November 13, 2008, www.pewresearch.org/pubs/1033/global-media- celebrate- obamavictory–%20but- cautious-too. 5. Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, “African-Americans in Statewide Elective Office,” www.jointcenter.org. http://www.jointcenter.org/index.php/current_research_ and_policy_activities/political_participation/black_elected_off icials_roster_introduction_and_overview/african_americans_in_statewide_elective_office 6. Daniel Finkelstein, “Four Reasons Why This Was a Landmark Election,” The Times, November 5, 2008, 28. 7. Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, “African-Americans in Statewide Elective Office.” 8. CNN Exit Polls, http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1. 9. Juan Williams, “What Obama’s Victory Means for Racial Politics,” Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122628263723412543.html. 10. Pew Research Center, “Inside Obama’s Sweeping Victory,” November 5, 2008, www. pewresearch.org/pubs/1023/exit-poll- analysis-2008; CNN Exit Polls; U.S. Census Bureau, “Voting-Age Population, Percent Reporting Registered, and Voted: 1994 to 2006,” table 404, http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p20-552.pdf. 11. Rachel L. Swarns, “Quiet Political Shifts as More Blacks Are Elected,” New York Times, October 14, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/us/politics/14race.html. 12. Valeria Sinclair- Chapman and Melanye Price, “Black Politics, the 2008 Election, and the (Im)Possibility of Race Transcendence,” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (2008): 739–45. 13. “Viewpoint: Is Barack Obama Black?” November 19, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ americas/us_elections_2008/7735503.stm. 14. ZZ Packer, “I Want Obama to Be Daily Proof That Race Is No Barrier,” Guardian, November 8, 2008, 31. 15. Williams, “What Obama’s Victory Means.” 16. Lanny J. Davis, “The Obama Realignment,” Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2008, http:// online.wsj.com/article/SB122593028681903153.html. 17. John B. Judis, “America the Liberal,” The New Republic, November 5, 2008. 18. John Podhoretz, “An Obama Realignment?” Commentary, December 2008, www. commentarymagazine.com/printarticle.cfm/an- obama-ralignment—13514. 19. Stuart Rothenberg, “Is 2008 a Realigning Election? Numbers Offer Some Clues,” The Rothenberg Political Report, November 13, 2008, www.rothenbergpoliticalreport. blogspot.com. 20. V. O. Key, “A Theory of Critical Elections,” Journal of Politics 17 (1955): 3–18; V. O. Key, “Secular Realignment and the Party System,” Journal of Politics 21 (1959): 198–210. 21. “Most Americans Closely Watching Obama’s Transition,” November 18, 2008, www. gallup.com/poll/111970/Most-Americans- Closely-Watching- Obamas-Transition.aspx. 22. Marjorie Connelly, “Dissecting the Changing Electorate,” New York Times, November 9, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/weekinreview/09connelly.html. 23. CNN Exit Polls. 24. Rothenberg “Is 2008 a Realigning Election?”


245

25. Steve Schifferes, “Has US Politics Changed Forever?” BBC News, November 11, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7716671.stm. 26. Patrick Healy, “Now, Promises to Keep, and Divides to be Bridged,” New York Times, November 5, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05assess.html. 27. George Packer, “The New Liberalism,” The New Yorker, November 17, 2008, www. newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/17/081117fa_fact_packer. 28. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Cycles of American History (Boston, MA: Houghton Miff lin, 1986). 29. Congressional Budget Office, “Historical Budget Data,” December 2008, www.cbo.gov/ budget/historical.shtml; Office of Management and Budget, “Historical Tables,” December 2008, www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf. 30. Dennis Cauchon, “Federal Aid Programs Expand at a Record Rate,” USA Today, 13 March 13, 2006, www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006- 03-13-federal- entitlements_x.htm. 31. Michael D. Tanner, “A Repudiation, But of What?” November 10, 2008, www.cato.org/ pub_display.php?pub_id=9781. 32. James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991). 33. Christopher J. Bailey, “Values, Lifestyles, and Politics,” in Developments in American Politics 5, ed. Gillian Peele, Christopher J. Bailey, Bruce Cain, and B. Guy Peters, 182–99 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2006); Christopher J. Bailey, “Social Change, Families and Values: Morality Politics in Contemporary America,” in America’s Americans, ed. Philip Davies and Iwan Morgan, 199–221 (London: Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2007). 34. Jesse McKinley and Laurie Goodstein, “Bans in 3 States on Gay Marriage,” New York Times, November 6, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06marriage.html. 35. Dan Morain and Jessica Garrison, “Backers Focused Prop. 8 Battle Beyond Marriage,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2008, www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me- gaymarriage62008nov06,0,2331815.story?page=1. 36. John Gramlich and Christine Vestal, “3 States, Including Calif., Ban Gay Marriage,” November 6, 2008, www.stateline.org/live/printable/story?contentId=353318. 37. Pew Research Center, “Winds of Change Haven’t Shifted Public’s Ideology,” November 25, 2008, www.pewresearch.org/pubs/1042/winds- of-political- change-havent—shiftedpublics-ideology. 38. “Gallup’s Pulse of Democracy,” December 17, 2008, www.gallup.com/poll/27286/ Government.aspx; CNN Exit Polls. 39. “Gallup’s Pulse of Democracy.” 40. Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2008), 40. 41. Fred Barnes, “We Could Be In For a Lurch to the Left,” Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122576065024095511.html. 42. “Gallup’s Pulse of Democracy.” 43. Froma Harrop, “The Landslide That Doesn’t Feel All Liberal,” November 6, 2008, http:// www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/the_landslide_that_doesnt_feel.html.


Epilogue Eri k Jone s and Salvatore Vas sal lo

The Obama administration came to power with the most complex policy agenda that any president has inherited since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1932. Stock markets were collapsing, trade was shrinking, output was declining, and banks were failing across the globe. As if this economic situation was not bad enough, the security environment was pressing as well. Although Iraq appeared stable, Afghanistan did not, and Taliban insurgents were challenging the government of Pakistan. Relations between Israel and Palestine had taken a turn for the worse, Iran had begun to accelerate its nuclear enrichment program, and North Korea was threatening another ballistic missile test. Ethnic genocide continued to haunt the Darfur region and threatened to return to the African Great Lakes. Then there was the host of domestic institutions in pressing need of reform. The health care system in the United States leaves appalling numbers of people without adequate coverage, the social security system cannot guarantee benefits far into the future, education is struggling, environmental protection is inadequate, and energy consumption is excessive. Moreover, the United States is hardly alone in suffering any of these domestic problems. Other countries may be better in some areas, but in other areas they are likely to be worse, and no country is sound across the board. Meanwhile, popular protests were spreading across Europe and threatening to ignite in the developing world. Even those countries that continued to grow, such as China, could not keep up with the pace of popular expectations and so feared the prospect of descending into turmoil. Economic crisis, international tension, and domestic stability were tightly intermingled.

248


In this fraught context, it was hardly surprising that Obama gave a somber inaugural address. Gone were the lofty phrases of his primary campaign, to be replaced by more austere calls to citizenship and solidarity. Obama insisted that “the time has come to set aside childish things,” he noted that “everywhere we look, there is work to be done,” and he encouraged the American people to embrace “a new era of responsibility.” His message was not just for domestic consumption. To the outside world, Obama made it clear that America is “ready to lead once more” and that he would exercise leadership with “humility and restraint” on the basis of “greater cooperation and understanding between nations.” Most important, perhaps, he made a firm commitment to joint action: To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms f lourish and let clean waters f low; to nourish starved bodies and to feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering beyond our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.1 The America that Europeans had longed for without really expecting had finally come into being. The Obama administration restruck the balance in its relations with the outside world, deemphasizing the continuity in American foreign policy and instead stressing the need for change. It called for a new era of multilateral diplomacy, and it promised to listen to friend and foe alike. The buzzwords of the Obama administration were unfamiliar as well. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke openly about “smart power” in her confirmation hearings before the Senate, and the woman tapped to run the State Department’s policy and planning division, Anne-Marie Slaughter, added “network power” to the list. Awkward Beginnings The change in the tenor of transatlantic relations from the Bush administration to the Obama administration was like night and day. Where Bush tried and failed to stress the importance of strengthening the bonds across the Atlantic during his second term in office, Obama succeeded without even trying. Apart from a few holdouts, including Italy’s Silvio

Epilogue

249

Berlusconi, who paid an odd compliment to Obama’s suntan, most European leaders were eager to congratulate the new American president and to offer sincere commitments to close cooperation in the future. French president Nicolas Sarkozy and British prime minister Gordon Brown were among the most enthusiastic in displaying their affection for Obama, but the others were not far behind, and even the Russian president Dimitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin were willing to admit an improvement in relations with the United States. Despite all this enthusiasm, the new transatlantic relationship had its awkward moments as well. The most important of these centered on Afghanistan, where Obama has made clear his desire for closer coordination. According to the Obama administration, the Afghan theater is the real front line in the fight against international terrorism. Moreover, it is a front that extends deep inside Pakistan. Obama named Richard Holbrooke as his special envoy to the region, and he took every available opportunity to bring it to the top of the administration’s foreign policy agenda. The war against the insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a conf lict of truly international dimensions, which means it is more than just an American concern. Obama liked to point out that the troops in Afghanistan come under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and not the United States. Although most of those troops are American, there is plenty of scope for other allied contributions. In the run-up to the April 2009 NATO summit, Obama made it clear that he would be seeking additional international support and that he was not just willing to strengthen the American presence as a quid pro quo but committed to doing so. This strong commitment to resolving the Afghanistan situation came before a clear statement of what such a “resolution” would entail. Other than promoting a vague idea of Afghans no longer living in fear, even President Obama admitted that precise objectives remained to be determined. Indeed, the Obama administration announced its increased troop commitment to Afghanistan and its intention to hold a strategic review of the Afghan mission at roughly the same time. For Europeans, this posed an obvious dilemma. Sending troops to Afghanistan is good alliance politics, but it is bad politics domestically, where the military interpretation of the fight against international terrorism has never been popular and where patience with oversees commitments was already wearing thin. Sending those troops without a clear understanding of the mission objective risked the prospect

250


of an indefinite deployment. No European country was eager to take that risk, and many were already looking for ways to ensure that what troops they had in country would not come under fire and might more easily move toward an exit. Yet to turn down a request from the Obama administration was no easier than to accept one. After the expression of such enthusiasm for a change in the U.S. administration, any appearance of returning to politics as usual runs the risk of looking hypocritical. What is more, it creates the prospect of a prisoner’s dilemma, where only some NATO allies cooperate and others defect. The only obvious solution is to coordinate a European response. But coordination in the face of crisis is not exactly a European forte. The uncooperative solution to the prisoner’s dilemma—joint defection—is a much more likely result. Europe, What Europe? The weakness of intra-European coordination has always been a vulnerable spot in the transatlantic alliance. It is apparent when the United States tries to ignore Europe, as it did during the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, but it is evident too when the United States tries to engage with Europe. The weakness of intra-European coordination could be seen in the tension that arose during the negotiations of the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks pursued under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), just as it could be seen in the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that brought the WTO into being. Moreover, international trade is the area where Europe has the strongest institutions for constructing and presenting a coordinated position. In other areas where the United States has tried to engage with its European allies—say, on the Middle East, Russia, or protection of the environment—the prospects have been even worse: either the Europeans have come up with a common position that has left little room for compromise with the United States or the United States has struck deals with specific European countries at the expense of a common European position. The Obama administration came into office facing a twofold challenge. Not only was intra-European coordination historically weak, but it was also a subject of near-obsession for the Europeans themselves. The impact of the enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 and the failure of the European Constitutional Treaty in popular

Epilogue

251

referenda held in France and the Netherlands just over twelve months later still have not been absorbed. Meanwhile, efforts to paper over disagreements by dropping any pretension to write a constitution for Europe have made matters worse not better. Although national politicians may pretend that the European Reform Treaty, or Lisbon Treaty, offers a workable blueprint for more effective coordination, the public is unconvinced, and renegade political elites are making a mockery of joint efforts. The Irish people rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a popular referendum, and Czech president Vaclav Klaus threatened not to sign the document in protest. The theater that surrounds the process of European institutional reform obscures a deeper problem of intra-European coordination that was brought into sharp relief during the handover from the French presidency of the European Council and Council of Ministers at the end of 2008 to the Czech presidency at the start of 2009. Large European countries have significant diplomatic, economic, and military resources; small European countries do not. What is more, no simple turn of office in European institutions can make up the difference. Hence effective coordination between the United States and Europe depends first upon a general acceptance of the intra-European balance of power. Where European institutions can make a difference is in shielding European countries from the volatility of the outside world. The European currency union, with its attendant multinational currency, the euro, is a case in point. Countries inside the Eurozone are not so vulnerable, for example, to f luctuations in the euro–dollar relationship, they are less susceptible to currency speculation or international capital f lows, and they have greater liquidity in the face of banking failures or a more general global downturn. All of these factors became important during the economic crisis at the start of the Obama administration. However, the insulation provided by the euro did not cover Europe as a whole. Hence the European Union was forced to find ways to stabilize its weaker members and so had to divert its political attention away from the outside world. When President Obama came looking for European partners, Europe was turned in on itself. Europe’s Turn Even before the end of President Obama’s first one hundred days in office, the transatlantic relationship had deteriorated sufficiently to give

252


cause for concern. The Europeans looked unready to make a commitment to support American leadership. They looked even less prepared to present a European leadership of their own. This inability or reluctance to engage with the United States in finding joint solutions to common problems presents a great challenge in looking to the future. The multilateral moment in American foreign policy cannot survive without European support. On the contrary, the new effort by the Obama administration to embrace multilateral diplomacy must be nurtured through cooperation for the change in U.S. foreign policy to be made permanent. Otherwise there is a risk that the Obama administration will fail and that the change he offers will give way to a more traditional American approach to the world. The transatlantic relationship may not suffer as much as it did during the previous eight years, but an important opportunity for rebuilding the West will have been lost. The obligation here is not to support American leadership. Rather, it is for Europe to come to grips with itself. This challenge is domestic as well as international. It speaks to the reconciliation between European societies and their immigrant communities as well as to East and West or North and South. President Obama started his electoral campaign by arguing that the voters would have to see their hopes and aspirations in his candidacy. This worked as a formula to convince a majority of voters to support a charismatic and yet improbable candidate who called them to responsible citizenship. Europeans do not need to use Obama as such an instrument. They need only draw from his experience to know that such a mobilization is possible. Far be it from any American to tell Europe how it should change. Suffice it to show that change can come about. Note 1. “Obama’s Inaugural Speech,” January 20, 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/ 01/20/obama.politics.

I N DE X

9/11 (September 11) causing delay of Democratic realignment, 236 and invasion of Iraq, 127 national investigation of, 166 and Obama’s voters, 145 post-9/11 America, 85, 168, 174, 199, 208 and Rudy Giuliani, 42, 45–47 transatlantic disagreements on, 5 Afghanistan, 5, 7, 8, 99, 124, 130, 174–175, 177–178, 183, 203, 206, 208, 249 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 34 Albright, Madeleine, 7 Al-Qaeda, 5, 15, 47, 127, 175 Audacity of Hope, 15, 22, 242 Axelrod, David, 24, 29, 103, 108, 171, 185, 188 Ayers, Bill, 93, 103, 127 Bailey, Doug, 69 Baker, James III, 46 Baldwin, Chuck, 75, 77, 79–80 Barnes, Melody, 181–182, 224 Barr, Bob, 68, 71–75, 77, 80 Baucus, Max, 154 Bauer, Gary, 46 Bayh, Evan, 20 Bentsen, Lloyd, 122 Berlusconi, Silvio, 6–7, 249. Biden, Joe, 19–20, 115, 126, 157, 179, 181, 187, 197, 202, 216

bipartisanism, 69, 121, 123, 127 Blagojevich, Rod, 157 Blitzer, Wolf, 75 Blinder, Alan, 216 Bloomberg, Michael, 69–71 Boren, David, L, 70 Brazil, 174 Brewer, Janice K., 157 Bolton, Joshua, B., 167 Brokow, Tom, 127 Browner, Carol, 180 Buchanan, Patrick, 117 Buell, Emmett, 116–117 Buffet, Warren, 215 Bush, George W. administration 2004 reelection of, 1–2, 17–19, 50, 117, 136, 140 appointments, 160, 166, 178–180, 184 economic policies, 217, 219–222, 240 foreign policy, 42, 45, 58, 92, 196–200, 205–208, 243; See also Iraq War legacy of, 25, 42, 91, 96, 100, 103, 120, 124, 126, 146–147, 167, 168, 196, 226 public opinion on, 16, 41, 47, 58, 86, 100, 103, 119–120, 135–136, 153 relations to Congress, 185–186 transatlantic relation during, 4–8, 106–108, 248 Bush, George H.W., 41, 86, 117, 122

254

Index

Camejo, Peter, 78 campaign, 99–113 financing, 61, 68–69, 103–107, 135, 146–147, 153 negative, 147 organization, 108–111, 138 start of, 116, 138 volunteering, 110 Chambless, Saxbee, 152 Chávez, César, 109 Cheney, Richard (“Dick”), 17, 19, 41, 109, 198 China, 174, 221, 247 Chu, Steven, 179 Clark, Ed, 72 Cleaver, Emanuel, 234 climate change, 174–175 Clinton, Bill administration, 6, 7, 10, 20, 161, 78, 180, 183–185, 214 Clinton, Bill, 1, 16, 24, 29, 67, 72–73, 86, 91, 119, 138, 185, 214, 233, 235 Clinton, Hillary campaign, 17, 26–28, 86, 88, 90–93, 29–36, 86, 88–89 Democratic primaries, 16, 19, 21, 23–36, 89–93, 95, 119, 135, 197–198, Obama Administration, 178, 182, 215, 248 Cohen, William S., 70 Congress 2008 elections for, 151–157 inf luence on U.S. President, 10 midterm election, 2006, 8–9 Constitution Party, 75, 79–80 Couric, Katie, 126 Cutler, David, 214 Daley, Bill, 36 Danforth, John, 70 Darfur, 207, 247 Daschle, Tom, 109, 184 Dean, Howard, 16–18, 25, 27, 89, 109 Debate Commission, the, 77

debates, 115, 122–129, 144, first presidential, 115, 124–125 vice-presidential, 115, 122, 125–126, second presidential, 126–128 third presidential, 128–129 DeLay, Tom, 61 Democratic National Committee (DNC), 17–18, 23, 24, 31, 36, 102 Dennehy, Mike, 59 Dobson, James, 240 Dodd, Chris, 20–21, 24 Dole, Elizabeth, 154 Donovan, Shaun, 180 Douglass, Frederick, 233 Duncan, Arne, 179–180 Dunn, Anita, 100, 109 Durbin, Dick, 187 Duverger, Maurice, 68, 78 economic crisis candidates visions on, 95, 101, 123, 128, 143, 174 dominant issue in elections, 145–146, 149, 162, 202 and Europe, 247, 251 legacy of Bush, 167, 196 negative context for candidate McCain, 85, 115, 130, 217, 226 and Team Obama, 181, 222–223, 225 See also financial crisis Edwards, John, 19–20, 24, 28, 29, 89, 91, 197 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 116 Ellison, Keith, 234 Emanuel, Rahm, 178–179, 181, 184–185, 187 Europe, 1–11, 127, 151, 174, 184, 201, 203, 205–208, 247–252 European Constitutional Treaty, 250–251 Exley, Zack, 109 extraordinary rendition, 8 Falwell, Jerry, 240

Index Federal Reserve, 75, 181, 217, 224 financial crisis Bush’ legacy, 153 context of the election, 135, 143, 195, 213, 222 and the Euro, 251 hitting McCain’s credentials, 94–95, 103, 136, 143 helping Obama’s campaign, 101, 136, 143 Geithner’s and Summer’s experience with, 181, 225 meltdown financial markets, 76, 124, 127, 143, 172 Sarah Palin and, 125 Financial Deregulation Act, 79, 226 Florida, 24, 31, 47–48, 51, 54, 56, 59, 60, 76, 79, 111, 118, 138, 140, 144–145, 155, 158, 241 Foley, Mark, 155 France, 205, 251 Fund, John, 71 Furman, Jason, 214–215, 226 Franken, Al, 154 G8, 6, 201 Ganz, Marshall, 109 Gates, Robert, 178, 182, 207 Geithner, Timothy, 181, 224–225 Georgia (country), 201, 221 Gephardt, Dick, 25, 109 Germany, 3, 221 Gibbs, Robert, 109, 181 Gibson, Charles, 232 Green Party, the, 75, 79–80 Gregg, Judd, 182 Giuliani, Rudy, 42–43, 45–48, 50–51, 53–54, 56–62, 200 globalization, 6, 176 global warming, 48, 180, 250 Goolsbee, Austan, 214 Gore, Al, 1, 2, 19, 31, 67, 76, 122, 137, 166, 180, 233 Gravel, Mike, 20 Grunwald, Mandy, 28

255

Guantánamo Bay, 8, 183 Hagel, Chuck, 69 Halberstam, David, 188 Hart, Gary, 22, 70 Harkin, Tom, 27 Hildebrand, Steve, 109 Holbrooke, Richard, 249 Holder, Eric, 179, 182–183 House of Representatives, 71, 125, 136, 151, 153–154, 156, 159, 233–236 Huckabee, Mike, 43, 47–48, 50–61 Humphrey, Hubert, 116, 147 Hunter, Ducan, 44 Ifill, Gwen, 125 immigration, stances on, 48, 57, 145, 169, 172–174, 176 independents, 31, 58, 60, 62, 67–73, 76–79, 103, 117, 121–125, 154, 200, 236 India, 174, 206 internet, role of, 49, 69, 86, 104, 109–110, 128, 146, 188 Iowa caucus, 16–17, 19, 26–27, 43, 54–55, 59, 89 Iran, 34, 47, 174–175, 208, 247 Iraq 2004 reelection of George W Bush, 107 candidates’ stances on, 21–22, 27, 42, 46–47, 58, 62, 75, 95, 99, 120, 199 context of the elections, 1, 91–92, 103, 135, 153, 172, 177, 247 Obama’s objectives, 174–175, 178, 183, 206, 219–220 run-up to invasion, 3–5, 180, 186, 199, 250 theme of campaign debates, 20, 120, 124–125, 127, 130, 168, 196–197, 202–204, transatlantic issue, 7–8, 250 and voters, 18, 58–59, 143, 146, 200 Israel, 175, 184, 203, 206, 247

256

Index

Jackson, Jesse, 233 Jackson, Lisa, 179–180 Japan, 174, 205, 221 Jarrett, Valerie, 109, 185 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, 27, 91 Johnson, Clay, 167 Johnson, Lyndon, 186–187 Jones, Jim, 178, 182, 184, 207 Jordan, Hamilton, 68 Katrina (hurricane), 20, 120, 153 Kehn, Jeri, 49 Kennedy, Caroline, 157 Kennedy, Edward, 93, 119 Kennedy, Jack, 122 Kennedy, John F., 1, 52, 116, 157 Kennedy, Ted, 93, 182, 187 Kerrey, Bob, 19 Kerry, John 2004 presidential debates, 7, 31, 90 2008 candidature, 20 Bush’ victory over, 8, 21 campaign finance, 104, 107 comparison to Obama, 206, 233 lessons from, 2004 Democratic campaign, 17–19, 25, 27, 106–107, 109, 204 and McCain, 100 reaction to Obama’s victory, 231 voters for, 112, 117, 138–140 Key, V.O., 236 Keyes, Alan, 79 King, Martin Luther, 87, 120 Kirk, Ron, 179, 182 Kissinger, Henry, 3, 5, 183 Klaus, Vaclav, 251 Kucinich, Dennis, 20, 204 LaHaye, Tim, 55 LaHood, Ray, 179 Landrieu, Mary, 154 Lawrence, Jordan, 241 Leahy, Patrick, 185 Lehman Brothers, 95, 103, 124, 143, 222

Lehrer, Jim, 124 Libertarian Party, 71–75, 77, 80, 152 Liebman, Jeffrey, 214 Locke, Gary, 179, 182, 224 McCain, John, 213, 217, 226 campaign, 86, 94–96, 99, 101–112, 135–136, 138, 147, 196, 198, 202 criticizing Obama, 31–34, 49, 86, 94, 115, 197, 203 debates, 115, 118–130, 144 economic crisis, 95, 101, 143, 213, 217, 226 Republican presidential candidate, 30, 42, 44–45, 57–62, 72–73, 101, 118 Republican primaries, 48, 53–57, 200 Obama’s victory over, 33–34, 37, 232 outcome presidential elections, 80, 136, 138, 140–142, 144, 146 policy stanches, 59, 75, 94–95, 100, 199, 201 voters, 145–146, 148, 201, 205 Malbin, Michael, 106 McCarthy, Eugene, 116 McConnell, Mike, 167 McGovern-Fraser commission, 117 McKinney, Cynthia, 75, 79–80 McLarty, Mack, 170 Mukasey, Michael, 167 Mulford, Clay, 70 multilateralism, 175, 198, 206–207, 248, 252 Murtha, John, 155 Nader, Ralph, 67, 68, 71, 75–80 NAFTA, 198, 203 Napolitano, Janet, 157, 179, 182–183 NATO, 3–5, 201, 203, 249 Netherlands, The, 4, 251 New Hampshire, 20, 23, 29–30, 39, 47, 49, 53, 55–56, 59–60, 73, 89, 118, 129, 182, 200 New York Stock Exchange, 79, 94, 126 New York Times, The, 2, 46, 55, 59, 71, 79, 96, 121

Index Nixon, Richard, 122, 147, 178, 186, 188 Nolan, David, F., 75 North Korea, 34, 175, 199, 206, 247 nuclear weapons, 3, 174–175, 198–199, 206, 208, 247 Nussle, Jim, 167 Nye, Joseph, 205 Obama, administration appointments, 177–185, 223–225 domestic policy, 176–177, 247 economic policy, 214–219, 223–229 general policy objectives, 172–176, 247 foreign policy, 174–175, 247 Presidential Transition Coordinating Council, 165, 167 relations with Congress, 185–187 transition Team, 168–171 Obama, Barack acceptance speech, 119–120 Afro-American background, 23, 31–32, 37, 99–100 campaign, 25–27, 73, 85–96, 99, 101–112 Europe and, 1, 9, 94, 203, 204, 248–252 message of hope and change, 15, 22, 26 (in)experience, 15, 22–23, 25, 37, 121 victory of, 135–136, 138–148, 231 See also primaries, Democratic See also Obama, administration See also debates Obama, Michelle, 26, 32, 119 Orszag, Peter, 181–182, 223–225 Osgood, Roberto, 206 Packer, George, 239 Pakistan, 124, 174–175, 206, 247, 249 Palestine, 175, 184, 206, 247 Palin, Sarah and Alaska, 155 convention speech, 115, 121–122 debates, 115, 125–127, 203 family “scandals,” 80, 121 selection as McCain’s running mate, 95, 100, 135, 143, 200, 202, 213

257

party convention Democratic, 115, 118–120 history of, 115–116 Republican, 115, 11, 120–122 Patriot Act, 72, 75 Paul, Ron, 44, 72–73, 75, 80 Paulson, Henry, 124–127 Pelosi, Nancy, 160, 181, 187 Perkins, Tony, 46 Perot, Ross, 67, 69–70, 73, 77, 80 Petraeus, David, 196, 199 Pfeiffer, Dan, 187 Plouffe, David, 17, 35, 73, 103, 109, 171 Podesta, John, 169, 184–185 Podhoretz, John, 236 Popkin, Samuel, 101 pragmatism, 175, 178, 199, 202–203, 208 primaries, Democratic 2008 Barack Obama’s candidacy, 22 Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, 21 legacies for 2012, 35–36 lessons learned, 33–34 role of Internet, 16 role of volunteer activity, 17 Obama’s grass roots approach, 26–27 outcomes of, 29–33, 93 voting process, 23–24 primaries, Republican Party 2008 foreign policy credentials, 47 George W. Bush legacy, 41 list of candidates, 42–44 McCain’s victory, 57–61 role of religion, 46–61 voting process, 48 Prodi, Romano, 7 Pryor, Mark, 154 Quayle, Dan, 122 racial issues non-white candidate, 20, 100, 135–136, 148–149, 232–235, 243 non-white voters, 144–145, 176, 232–235, 241 Reverend Wright saga, 32

258

Index

Rafshoon, Gerald, 69 Rasmussen, Scott, 68 religion evangelical voter, 46, 50–52, 54–57, 59, 61–62, 146 religious right, 46, 50–51, 57 religious values, 49–50 Reagan, Ronald, 41, 49, 122, 138, 159, 181, 188, 232, 237, 239 Reich, Bob, 215 Reid, Harry, 187 Republican National Convention, 44–45, 54, 62–63 Rice, Condoleezza, 8 Rice, Susan, 179, 182–183, 207 Richarson, Bill, 20, 23, 35, 182 Robb, Charles, 70 Robertson, Pat, 46, 240 Romer, Christina, 181, 224 Romney, Mitt, 43, 47–57, 59–61, 200 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 170, 186, 225, 247 Roosevelt, Theodore. 67 Rouse, Peter, 185 Rubin, Robert, 214–215, 224–225 Rumsfeld, Donald, 5, 7, 180, 199 Russert, Tim, 76 Russia, 6, 174, 200–201, 249–250 Salazar, Ken, 179 same-sex marriage, 55, 61, 72, 158 Schieffer, Bob, 128 Schiliro, Phil, 181, 187 Schledinger, Arthur Jr., 239 Schröder, Gerhard, 6 Sebelius, Kathleen, 179 Shays, Christopher, 155 Shinseki, Eric, 179 Slaughter, Anne-Marie, 248 Solis, Hilda, 179–180 Soros, George, 185 South Africa, 174 Specter, Arlen, 154, 159 state governors, 151–152, 157, 161 Stevens, Ted, 155–156

Summers, Larry, 181, 215, 224–225 Super Tuesday, 47, 54, 60, 172 Sutley, Nancy, 180 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, 17–18 swing states, 107, 137–138 Taft, William Howard, 67 Tarullo, Dan, 187, 214 Terrorism 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act, 168 Bush’s emphasis on, 8 and Congress, 186 McCain’s stance on, 199 Janet Napolitano’s experience with, 183 and Rudy Giuliani, 45 (non-)issue in elections, 124, 143, 195 Obama’s stance on, 175, 198, 203, 249 See also 9/11 Thompson, Fred, 43–50, 58–59, 61 Transatlantic relationship Burden sharing, 4–5, 249–250 change in tenor of, 248 crisis of 2002–2003, 5 imbalance in attention to, 3 weakness of intra-European coordination, 250–251 See also Bush Administration Turkey, 5 Ukraine, 201 Unity 08, 68–69, 71 United Kingdom, 45, 127, 179, 221 United Nations, 182–183, 198, 200, 207 U.S. economy 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, 222 constraints on policy, 161, 223–226, 249, 226 context of, 219–223 increase in inequality, 176 role in presidential campaign, 10, 144–145, 147, 196, 213–219 See also financial crisis

Index U.S. electoral system discrimination of minor parties, 73–74 inf luence of third parties, 67 procedures, 136–137, 152, 170–171 two-party system, 78, 136 U.S. foreign policy role in presidential campaign, 10, 195–204 Obama administration and, 174–175, 204–208 Vietnam War, 17, 42, 58, 116, 186, 188 Vilsack, Tom, 20, 27, 179–180 Volcker, Paul, 181, 224 voter polarization, 147–148, 158, 176–177 realignment, 236–239 social conservatism of, 240–242 turnout, 144–146, 236

259

See also racial issues See also religious voters Wallace, George, 128 Wall Street, 75, 79, 95, 126, 213, 222, 225, 240 See also financial crisis Wall Street Journal, The, 71, 73, 242 Waltzer, Kenneth, 79 Warner, John, 161 Warner, Mark, 20 Waterson, Sam, 69 Wilson, Woodrow, 67 Winger, Richard, 79 Woodards, Jocelyn, 109 World Trade Organization (WTO), 201, 250 Wright, Reverend Jeremiah, 32, 93, 101, 127 Zakaria, Fareed, 202

The 2008 Presidential Elections: A Story in Four Acts

The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts

The crucible a play in four acts

The Seagull: A Comedy in Four Acts

The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts

The crucible: a play in four acts

The crucible: a play in four acts

The Swing Voter in American Presidential Elections

The presidential pulse of congressional elections

The American Elections of 2008

Love Story in Three Acts

Hellas: A Spectacle with Music and Dances in Four Acts

The Disappearing God Gap?: Religion in the 2008 Presidential Election

The Policy Partnership: Presidential Elections and American Democracy

Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics

French Presidential Elections (French Politics, Society and Culture)

A Presidential Energy Policy

Local Elections in Britain

The World Views of the U.S. Presidential Election: 2008

Free Four- Tobias Tells the Story

Free Four- Tobias Tells the Story

The Iowa Caucuses: First Tests of Presidential Aspiration, 1972-2008

Elections in Britain: A Voter's Guide

The Acts

Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook

In Situ and Laboratory Experiments on Electoral Law Reform: French Presidential Elections (Studies in Public Choice)

The vigil: a poem in four voices

The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel

the Outlaws a Presidential Agent Novel

The Outlaws: A Presidential Agent Novel

The 2008 Presidential Elections: A Story in Four Acts

The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts

The crucible a play in four acts

The Seagull: A Comedy in Four Acts

The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts

The crucible: a play in four acts

The crucible: a play in four acts

The Swing Voter in American Presidential Elections

The presidential pulse of congressional elections

The American Elections of 2008

Love Story in Three Acts

Hellas: A Spectacle with Music and Dances in Four Acts

The Disappearing God Gap?: Religion in the 2008 Presidential Election

The Policy Partnership: Presidential Elections and American Democracy

Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics

French Presidential Elections (French Politics, Society and Culture)

A Presidential Energy Policy

Local Elections in Britain

The World Views of the U.S. Presidential Election: 2008

Free Four- Tobias Tells the Story

Free Four- Tobias Tells the Story

The Iowa Caucuses: First Tests of Presidential Aspiration, 1972-2008

Elections in Britain: A Voter's Guide

The Acts

Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook

In Situ and Laboratory Experiments on Electoral Law Reform: French Presidential Elections (Studies in Public Choice)

The vigil: a poem in four voices

The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel

the Outlaws a Presidential Agent Novel

The Outlaws: A Presidential Agent Novel

Recommend Documents