US Election results night… November 5, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in US Politics.trackback
Well, as it happens I’d largely intended to avoid the results this evening. The best part of two years listening to NPR podcasts as I cycled up and down the seafront to Howth of a weekend and volumes of text on the issue online and off. Conversations. Debates. Discussions. The longest campaign in history – all human history it sometimes seems like (and that might be right actually).
And I’m not bored, but I’m impatient. This weekend on the Slate Gabfest someone made the point that by next Friday when they do the next one we’ll all know the result. And that sounded – odd. Because two years is an awful long time to live with anything like this.
My own views have changed too. I’ve shifted from being fairly unimpressed by the Democratic primary candidates, albeit with a slight tilt towards Clinton, to finding Obama (for all his faults as a centrist, etc, etc) to be quite fascinating. That may not be a good thing. But it is something. The historical resonances of his candidacy, let alone the possibility that he will win tonight, have been striking. Important. Defining. We’re always living through history, but rarely is it this tangible.
And the lines at polling places in the US tell their own story, somehow this election has had a galvanising effect. I looked at them tonight on Channel 4 News and a sour little part of my mind wondered how many were from the Republican base dedicated to ensuring that this history is stymied.
To be cynical about Obama is right. I’d tend to be cynical about all politicians whatever colours they wear. They’re only human after all, with all the frailties (but on occasion all the strengths) that that implies. He’s going to let us down? Why of course, that’s his job. And the dashed expectations that four years, no, more like four months, will bring will tarnish whatever magic accrues to him today, and more importantly tomorrow if he wins. It wouldn’t matter if he were the staunchest leftist, or the most egregious rightist. It’s not that political lives end in failure, they’re born of it and live it. And we tend to ignore that time and again. like cats forgetting that the other side of the door is no better than this one – and vice versa.
So no expectations there then – other than a tiny glimmer of hope that things might be just a little bit better on a number of fronts tomorrow than they are today. But forget about him, forget about the Democrats and just look at an exercise in political mobilisation, for better, and perhaps for worse. It’s quite something, and in its own way very moving.
If Obama did nothing else ever again, at least he assisted in this… Who knows where that will take us?
I’m not a hugely superstitious person, but I’m too long in the tooth to much relish sitting up with a beer to watch the returns come in, or worse, sit up without a beer. The 1992 British Election was a bad night. So was the 2000 US election. And the 2004 US election. The British General Election of 1997 was better, much better, but by then my expectations were a lot lower, and frankly I enjoyed the results from the North better. I also liked the 2007 Irish Election, despite being greeted by smiffy with the words ‘it’s the death of the left’ when a group of us met up to watch the results. Something about beer, the Teachers Club… no, it was the beer.
And yet here I am, not quite sitting up, but checking in periodically. Karl Rove has predicted an Obama landslide. Clever last minute politicking on his part in order to push that Republican base out to the polls? A truthful assessment? For once I hope Rove is right, and means it.
I guess I am shocked at how many Irish have been pro-Hillary, from Malcolm, to Skinner and you. I always saw her as Bill part 2.5. I didn’t vote for Obama BTW, just couldn’t bring myself to do it, but the wife could so there you go. I remember seeing an article entitled “For them a change has come” in the local paper after Obama’s speech at the new Mile High (Invesco Field for you interlopers). And as I sit here listening to Sam Cooke sing “If I had a Hammer”, I really wonder if a change will come. I would like to believe that it will and regardless of comments from Rust Belt Radical or Bakunin we do need a change but I just wonder if Obama will be it. He will no doubt curb some of Bush’s worst excesses but will he be more than a Bill Clinton 3.0? But truthfully his movement almost inspired me to vote for him but his AIPAC speech dissuaded me in the the end. Regardless of all else, hold onto that beer.
“I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless, how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago’s South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder – alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware – is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of the lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.”-President-elect Barack Obama (Dreams from My Father).
By American standards, the guy’s good. They’ve just had a contest between a neanderthal populist and a liberal peacenik university graduate – Teresa Gorman plays Robin Cook – and the peacenik won. And that’s not to mention the ethnicity thing, which is bloody important.
Really, it’s a better morning than we had any right to expect.
I’d agree Phil. And CL, the quote you make is important if only to prove this guy thinks! A nice change.
yourcousin, it wasn’t so much that I was pro-Clinton, but I felt (and still do) that her healthcare plan was superior to that of Obama. In a way though I do admire her on certain levels. She’s a very good very effective politician. But, I’m happier with Obama in the White House and that generation of Democrats (represented by Clinton) firmly outside.
The president of America’s favourite TV programme is The Wire and his favourite character is my namesake; who have thought it? And a first lady from a working class background….
WBS,
Rhetorically it was certainly better than Obama’s, but it remains to be seen what if anything at is implemented as all of the number crunchers have noted that neither of the candidates numbers really jived with what is possible. I would agree with your sentiment on seeing Hillary’s generation firmly outside the White House, but again I wonder if it will be? A union brother forwarded an email pointing out that many of Obama’s advisors had places within the Clinton administration. So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Very true yourcousin on both points. That said Obama has also brought some new stuff to the mix. What’s the atmosphere like where you are?
Omar, that’s pretty good. I still find it near unbelievable that he pulled this off.
Now lets award the prizes for far-seeing wisdom; come on down Richard Aldous ‘Palin a masterstroke for Republicans’ and Eoghan Harris ‘McCain will win it’ ‘Obama would be in the SWP in Ireland’ ‘Bill O’Reilly is the most astute political analysist in America.’
That, thank whatever, I missed. They’re pathetic. Well paid and pathetic. Great idea Omar. If you have more write em up and I’ll put it up as a post.
Locally labor was in a huge fight over a few ballot issues. The number one being a referendum about making Colorado a Right to Work state. The campaign was the costliest in campaign in state history. It was coupled with two other anti-union issues. We were able to defeat two out of the three (including Right to Work) so we were thrilled about that on the job site. Although I doubt that’s what you were interested in. There is a feeling of “We did it” and a renewed faith in the Democrats as agents of change. Some people were estatic and high fiving while others were still lamenting a lack of a third party (take a guess which group I was in). But all in all people were thrilled but also anxious about what next, how is Obama going to actually change things? Namely the economy and I for one am curious about how he’ll handle Russia. I think the missile shield was a stupid idea but Russia is quickly turning itself into a threat once again. Also the fact that Obama just picked Rahm Emanuel for his team makes me raise an eyebrow.
But I digress, oddly enough while the Dems romped home here in the National races the state house races actually resulted in the presumptive Speaker of the house being unseated in Grand Junction (western Colorado) so that would be a blow to the state party and probably the only feather the GOP will be able to stick in their cap from this election. Also locally there were a multitude of ballot issues which clogged up the ballot and the majority of these were trounced. So we find ourselves with a “Change has come” rhetoric, but with no new money to implement change.
Wow! Great stuff yc and actually I think most here would be very interested in that detail. So more please. I share your feelings about a third party but I’m a strong believer in use what one has. Interesting about the dems – any progressives there?
Ah Christ, you asked for it. So much of the story is not so much detail as backfill. For starters one should understand that Colorado was founded as a mining state. So while the settler spirit remains and some ignorant fools try to delude themselves into thinking we’re a cattle town (fuck you very much National Western Stock Show) the basis of the state was mining. This is only brought up because of the precedence it sets politically for the state which went for the Populist party in 1892 (the whole “Cross of Gold” speech four years later from the Dems) and which gave birth to the Western Federation of Miners which in turn gave birth to the IWW. This led to a series of fairly brutal labor wars in the early twentieth century which were a mix bag for outcomes. Probably the most famous now would the Ludlow massacre which took place in 1914. IE in Colorado both labor and business were organized to the extreme in the early twentieth century up until mid century. This eventually led to the Colorado Labor Peace Act which was heavily tilted against unions requiring a super majority to form a closed shop. This was basically a compromise between a regular state and a Right to Work state. And things were then left well enough alone as labor went into its decline and Reagan knocked a bunch of unions out in the eighties.
Outside of Denver this has always been a Republican state. We’ve had a number of conservative Dems take the governorship over the years, such as Dick Lamm (may not seem conservative but look at his stance on immigration) and Roy Romer, but the state houses have usually always been controlled by Republicans. There was usually always a state senator trying to get a Right to Work bill passed at least once every session but they were always contained by the Dems and some of the more moderate of their colleagues who reasoned that labor was dying just fine on its own and didn’t need any help. Things went along this way until 2006 when then Governor Bill Owens term limits expired. He had been tipped early on as a possible cabinet member for Bush until it came out that he was having the State Patrol drive him up to see his mistress and illegitimate love child on the weekends. Though this didn’t really cause too big of a stir locally. Although I would gleefully point out that when his portrait was hung in the capitol they painted his left hand in his pocket so that no one could see the his wedding ring ( I wonder why). And yes his wife divorced him as soon as he left office.
Oh yes, 2006 and the midterm elections. By this point Bush fatigue was setting rather hard and the Dems took both houses of the state house (lower-House of Reps, higher-senate) with slim majorities in the upper house and a comfortable majority in the upper house. On top of this the Democrats took the governship with a man named Bill Ritter. A pro-life former DA who had run once before against Owens and who was slaughtered. The Dems were desperate to find another candidate but couldn’t and so ran with him and oddly enough won. They were helped in this by the fact that the Republicans were split by two referendums (C and D on the ballot) which were pro business but were government spending and so opposed by a grouping of Republicans. In this group was the Republican candidate for governor. So business sided with the Dems and the Dems won.
Given this new majority a couple members of the house took Ritter at his word (he said he wanted to reform the Labor Peace Act during his campaign) and introduced a bill which would have made it easier for unions to organize. This set off a hailstorm of abuse from business and the press (both major papers in Denver are anti-labor) it was the first crisis of the governorship. Though the bill passed both houses Ritter vetoed it saying that while he agreed with the substance he didn’t like the way things had developed with the bill. Later he tried to makes amends by doing an Executive order allowing state employees to organize, something which the former governor had done away with. This, although largely symbolic was too much for some elements in the Republican party who then got together and launched a petition to get Right to Work on the ballot. This was headed up by a city council member from Aurora (East Denver suburb), a Nephew of the infamous Coors family and Jake Jabs(the fucker).
This set off a series of counter measures by Labor. The local government which was Democratic but took the stance of opposing all Labor issues and had a fence post stuck up their ass. Though at the eleventh hour the union boss who’d gotten the measures on the ballot lost his nerve and pulled them in return for 3 million dollars (although in the end it was only 2.5 million with less than a month left until the election) to fight 47 (the Right to Work amendment) from government and (some) business bodies.
And even though local unions started ponying up cash early in the year we didn’t see anything until mid to late September. This was infuriating to many of us since there were anti union adds being run for months with no response. But when we finally got yard signs out, they got put out everywhere. There are laws which strictly enforced about where you can and cannot put political yard signs. But at least this time the cops were standing in solidarity with labor and on every major road and offramp all throughout the working class neighborhoods. During the entire election I only saw two bill boards that were pro-47, and one of those was outside a Republican headquarters. Though I was unhappy with the fact that we let the pro-47 camp have the ideological field as we retreated behind a mantra of, “business and labor need to work together, 47 is divise and bad for local economy”. While they were able to hammer on about worker’s rights and freedom. Though you have to love the party of Reagan singing the hymn of rights and freedoms for working people.
One of the interesting subtexts of the amendment fight was how the unions have been totally gutted of rank and file intitiative and “advisors” ran the thing. I suppose this is the natural outgrowth of the specialty market of political advisors. Seriously, due to the fact that the local for northern Colorado didn’t have a staffer in the local they had our political guy move his book up there so that there would be a staffer from the Regional Council up there to keep tabs on them. But once again I’m on a side tangent. Our mantra was thought up by polling groups and consultants.
Here we don’t have Reagan Democrats, we just Reaganites and they don’t even bother with the Dems. There are quite a few Republican brothers in our ranks. To see how hardcore the Republican camp is here I would point out retiring Congressman Tom Tancredo and local ex-House Rep. Douglas Bruce. Take note of the Tax Payer Bill of Rights (TABOR) link early in the article as an example of the mind set of Republicans here. I would also note that Focus on the Family is headquartered in Colorado Springs (a city about an hour south of Denver). I would also point out that the Reform Party pulled 11% in the 4th Congressional District in 2006 due to the fact that many Republicans were disillusioned by the Bush policies. We also have a shit load of independents which also helps explain the vacillation between Dems and Republicans for office both locally and nationally.
Bush’s time in office was probably the biggest thing which pushed us into the blue column. The lack of heavy industry really meant that Hillary was not a huge runner here and people like my father who are NRA Republicans voting Democrat for probably the third time in their life (the first was Jimmy Carter’s second term and Kerry). He would rather take another four years of Republican rule than take another four of the Clinton’s whom he despised (and I share his sentiments). McCain might’ve done alright had he been the 2000 McCain but his choice of Palin turned off the independents and the economy just slaughtered him here.
Having the convention here also helped but there was still an odd mix of ideologies and loyalties at play here. While not common it was not unheard of to see yard signs for Dems on the ticket all the way up until the president which would have a McCain sign. It was also common to see Republican yard signs with other signs supporting new school bonds (ie more government spending). What is odd is that almost all of the referendums failed including some pretty bland ones which just goes to show the idiosyncrasies of our state which were succinctly stated by the Rocky Mountain News as, “‘Yes We Can’ and ‘No We Won’t'”. I just heard today that a repeal of Affirmative Action was just defeated by a hair’s breadth. Locally the Dems had a tougher time in spite of the convention and trying to ride on Obama’s coattails. The Jefferson County commisioner seat went to a Republican after the Greens candidate polled over 10%. That was the only local Green on my ballot so I couldn’t about other areas. The Greens did run on the national tickets but even Nader outpolled them and they did not pose a threat to Congressional races.
In the national races the Dems not only retained their seats but also took a seat off of retiring Senator Wayne Allard as Mark Udall (Formerly a House Rep.) took it by a convincing margin. His tune of energy independence struck a note with Coloradans as did his easy going persona. Also his support of the war in Iraq also came to his aid as he could point to a record of supporting the troops. His opponent was a fairly hardcore Republican opponent Bob Schaeffer who hails from a political dynasty in Ohio came off as not only an asshole but someone who would’ve sailed to election back in 2000. He had big oil connections and had gone to Iraq not to support the troops but to make oil deals. His campaign had attempted to brand Udall as a “Boulder Liberal” but that fell flat as even Schaeffer attempted to go green and Udall could point to his failure to support the troops as a member of the House of Reps (national, not state house). Schaeffer had voted time and time again against the Veteran’s Administration (ie the people who take of vets once they get home) time and time again even as he voted to send them to war. The aforementioned 4th District also fell to a new Democrat (I can’t remember her name offhand).
As for progressives. Well define progressive? Udall probably counts as one for his stance on energy, but his support of the war knocks him out in my opinion. Though he’s taken alot of heat for his support of unions and hasn’t flinched so he got my vote. The rest while not bad aren’t anything special. Locally things are even worse. There are at least two house reps who aren’t bad, they support labor steadfastly which is not something which can be taken for granted as many a state rep and city council member who is a proud Democrat shits on us on a regular basis. Indeed just a couple of days ago a state rep came up to BS with my foreman and I. He was prior to his election a union electrician and confided in us that he has been trying to get a prevailing wage bill passed but couldn’t even get it on the floor as the Democratic leadership was squashing it in committee. But such is life.
I’m calling it good here as it has taken me quite awhile to amass this much info. Don’t know if this was what you were looking for but hopefully this suffices.
Do you mind if I put this up as a post yourcousin?
No, but it should probably be cleaned up a bit first.
Leave it to me if that’s okay?
go to town
Will do, many thanks… it’s great…
And hey, it’s almost, almost, the IWW post as well
[...] check out his intermittent but informative blog here) which is a follow-on from thoughts of his on this post and gives an insight into the issues that face progressives/leftists in the US electoral [...]
Hey man, blame the British.