Is Our Long National Nightmare Finally Over?
From Publius of Obsidian Wings:
Obsidian Wings: More Iowa: Random Iowa observations below the fold.... I tried to limit myself to non-obvious points... pardon the lack of polish.
Obama’s Ceiling:... Mathematically, [Obama's] victory has no significance. Politically, it’s too early to know.... But that said, the way he won tends to vindicate his candidacy’s argument... makes his case... that he possesses the most potential energy – i.e., he has the most potential to forge new political coalitions. In short, he risks a low floor, but promises a high ceiling. The way he won tonight... support[s] the latter... he expanded the pie, bringing in young and independent... [and] previously disengaged voters....
Am I Part of the Problem?: Many others have noted the ridiculousness of the Iowa caucuses... an event... whose importance is predicated entirely on the presumption of post-election spin and hype.... I have an easy defense though... it is THE story, so of course I’m going to write about it.... I contribute to the very post-election hype that I criticize and that allows it to exist... a classic collective action problem, from the media/blogger perspective.... [F]ix it... [by] changing... structural conditions... fight very hard to end Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.
Hillary Ain’t Out: Obama’s win may well prove enormously significant. But don’t for a second think that Hillary is anywhere close to beaten.... money... organizational support... 49 states left to go... even though it’s the worst possible result for her... the Iowa loss now allows Clinton to play the underdog role, and shifts a lot of the spotlight (and scrutiny) toward Obama. It’s still obviously better to win. But the narrative will shift.... [T]he story will shift... to “can she fight back?” Doing well in later contests will allow her to seize the “Comeback Kid” mantle, which is the media’s favorite of all....
Change: For reasons I’ve stated with considerable snark, I don’t think Iowa shows us all that much.... Like any good, card-carrying liberal blogger, I’m skeptical of mindless praise of bipartisanship and unity and all that. But that said, the years 1994-2008 have been a nasty political era... there’s a broad sense of institutional failure, fueled in large part by Bush’s colossal failures and incompetence.... Though it might be hokey, Huckabee and Obama’s “Come Together” rhetoric works because (1) there is a thirst for it; and (2) they are more credible messengers because they haven’t been on the national scene. Accordingly, their victory tends to vindicate Mark Schmitt’s argument that Obama’s bipartisan rhetoric should be understood as an offensive political weapon rather than Broderish high wankery. (I’ve got a much longer post on this point in the queue).
Obama’s Code: I’m watching Obama’s acceptance speech as I type – and it’s very good. I’ve read a good bit about how Obama doesn’t really emphasize race and racial issues on the stump. But in listening to the beginning of the speech, I realize that maybe he does.... [H]e speaks with the cadences and phrase repetitions of black preachers... he uses language... simultaneously... (1) calling for political unity; (2) echoing the language of the civil rights struggle. In other words, he’s speaking to African-Americans without whites necessarily realizing it. Consider the following passage for instance, which I’ve already seen 5 times....
They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together. But on this January night at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do.
True, he did mention Selma tonight. But take that for it’s worth. Note too that this passage is the intended soundbite, and it seems to work both ways...
Kudos to the Democratic caucus-goers of Iowa. They had a choice of at least five candidates--Obama, Edwards, Rodham Clinton, Richardson, Dodd--whom I or people I know and totally respect both know well and think would be likely to make superb presidents. A plurality chose Obama, with Edwards and Rodham Clinton gaining substantial support as well. This is a good situation--every serious Republican policy person I know would give at least one organ of generation and one eye and one toe to have in their current mix a candidate half as qualified as the least qualified of these three.
This is also a day which makes Thaddeus Stevens and Frederick Douglass kiss the sky and shout hosannas--a day for which they worked but did not believe would ever come. A day when the corn-fed white voters of a state--or at least the Democratic Party's enthusiastic faithful of a state--choose a Black man, Barack Obama, as the one whom they think is most qualified to be President of the United States of America.
This is a sign that our longest and deepest national nightmare may finally be coming to an end.
Thaddeus Stevens and Frederick Douglass would be ecstatic on the one hand, but on the other hand they would be sad that their party--the Republican Party--is MIA. And they would rain down curses on Richard Nixon, William Rehnquist, and Barry Goldwater, who turned the Republican Party into the misbegotten monster it is today, a monstrous horror that led Colin Powell in 1996 to recoil and give up before he started in his attempt to do on the Republican side what Barack Obama is doing on the Democratic side today.
On the other hand, maybe our long national nightmare is not over. Remember John McCain's line about Chelsea Clinton--that she "is so ugly because her father is Janet Reno." Didn't do McCain any harm in the Republican Party. Didn't do McCain any harm with America's establishment press corps. It was bad enough watching the Freak Show in the press and the Republican Party go after the sleazy hick from Arkansas with the zipper problem and his cold castrating l------ b---- of a wife. Are we now ready for the to go after the Muslim terrorist n----- from Chicago?
