As I follow the current political polling and think about the November election, I'm struggling to try to remember the details of the run up to the 1980 election. My memory, which is growing increasingly foggy about that period, is that we progressive Democrats convinced ourselves that on election day President Carter would win, albeit by a slim few percentage points. Surely, the American electorate wouldn't put the fate of the country into the reactionary hands of Ronald Reagan.
As election night came to a close, progressive Democrats had a bitter pill to swallow. Millions of Americans walked into the polls that day and pulled the Republican lever, maybe with some trepidation, because they were simply tired of the current state of the nation. The 1980 election was in fact a bellwether event, still more so that the Obama election in 2008. The ascendancy of the Republican party and it's efforts to end the New Deal, which may come to fruition in the next 4 years, started that day.
I submit that November 2012 will be another November 1980. While the polls suggest a close race, with Obama slightly ahead, rank and file voters will walk into the polls and, sometimes against their better judgement, they are going to vote for Romney. Simply because they want a change. No matter that it will be the beginning of the end of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
The question is, can Democrats do anything about this? Or is this the natural outcome of a party devoid of courageous leadership and that lacks a consensus on what direction the country should take into the future?
