I woke up this morning in a bit of a euphoric daze. I guess it still hadn't completely sunk in that Obama had won the election. Maybe it still hasn't. But it sure feels good for once.
I thought I might never see America elect a non-white President in my lifetime. Now I see that after 8 years of the worst administration in American history, including the destruction of New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast, when about 80% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track and we're bogged down in foreign wars that we have no real justification
for starting, with the country being in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, with the Republicans being responsible for many of the nation's woes and relying on the dismal campaign efforts of a man whose own party loathes him and whose running mate is best described as "N.R.A. Barbie", a black Democrat with truly inspiring eloquence and charisma can actually be elected to the highest office in the land by a margin of 52% to 46%. So is there really a Bradley effect?
Let's compare that to the results of the Carter/Reagan election, where Carter was a less than popular President facing a popular challenger. Carter was hobbled by the Iranian hostage crisis, an energy crisis that included lines at gasoline stations, and a general economic downturn.
Reagan won 50.7% of the vote, Carter won 41%.
Well, maybe we should compare the electoral college votes.
Obama 349 votes (with 3 states yet to finalize results)
McCain 148 votes so far.
Reagan 489 votes
Carter 49 votes
I don't know, it's a tough comparison. You have to take into account the fact that Bush himself isn't running. Carter was blamed by voters directly for the problems of his era, McCain was merely perceived as planning to continue many of Bush's policies. You could argue that made it much, much tougher for Carter. But Reagan, while good with one-liners, was nowhere near as eloquent as Obama. The "Great Communicator" most frequently communicated half-truths or outright lies, and relied on zingers to win his debates as I recall. He was not known for his intellectual prowess. The following quotes describe Reagan as many contemporaries perceived him, rather than the mythology that's now prevalent:
"Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears."
--British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
"an amiable dunce"
--Clark Clifford (former Defense Secretary)
"He has the ability to make statements that are so far outside the parameters of logic that they leave you speechless"
--Patti Davis (formerly Patricia Ann Reagan) talking about her father, The Way I See It
"What planet is he living on?"
--President Mitterand of France poses this question about Reagan to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau.
And then there are his own words:
"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk."
--Ronald Reagan (Republican candidate for president), quoted in the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, February 15, 1980. (In reality, the average nuclear reactor generates 30 tons of radioactive waste per year.)
"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?"
--Ronald Reagan, campaign speech, 1980
"...a faceless mass, waiting for handouts."
--Ronald Reagan, 1965. (Description of Medicaid recipients.)
"Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close."
--Ronald Reagan to aide Stuart Spencer, 1966
(Quotes snagged from The Ronald Reagan Years - The Real Reagan Record Copyright © 2003 by Mark Tracy ... he snagged them from Reagan's Reign of Error by Mark Green & Gail MacColl, and The Clothes Have No Emperor by Paul Slansky, books which I own and greatly enjoyed reading, by the way)
Of course, Margaret Thatcher later changed her opinion of Reagan, at least publicly, as many people have over the years. That's part of what happens when leaders are lionized as much as Reagan in an effort to solidify and extend the gains their political party has made during their administration. But during the Carter/Reagan campaign, he was not perceived as he is now. The "Reagan Legacy" was yet to be established.
So even though Carter's administration faced adversity and he was unpopular as a sitting President, how is it that a buffoon like Reagan was able to make comparable gains in the popular election to the Obama/McCain election and even greater electoral gains? Was it that the direct impact of gas lines on voters caused them such inconvenience that, blaming Carter, they were motivated to vote for Reagan? Or was it that the content of a campaign is less important than its presentation? Both Obama and McCain's campaigns were, after all, largely devoid of substantive discussion of important issues after all. One could attribute Reagan's success to his folksy style, much as one could attribute the campaign success of George W. Bush to the fact that people preferred sitting down and drinking a beer with him over Al Gore in the 2000 election. Reagan and George W. Bush have many similarities, both were prone to making imbecilic statements, both were contemptuous of the poor, both promoted enormous diversions of wealth into the pockets of the rich, in fact it could be argued that the George W. Bush presidency was in every way a pure continuation not merely of Reagan's policies but his personality as well. The only thing missing to complete the equation is the alzheimer's. The 1980 public rejection of Carter may be seen as a rejection of intellectualism in favor of careless assertiveness of the frat-boy variety. For Reagan, serendipity intervened in the form of the economic collapse of the Soviet Union, effectively providing him with a legacy on a silver platter. For George W. Bush, his intellectual and policy successor, no such free ride has been provided. With his administration facing a list of end-term woes even worse than Carter's, Americans seem to have turned in yet another about-face, rejecting the doctrine of careless assertiveness that Reagan introduced in favor of the clear intellectualism of Obama. In a sense, we are back to Carter after a long and painful stint of Reagan-Bush, with a playful intermission of Clinton to stabilize our nerves. It is very much like theater.
But the question isn't answered yet of whether there actually is a Bradley effect. I don't know whether we can answer that given the extreme circumstances that have brought about this change in American leadership. With such compelling issues of the economy, war, and growing Chinese and resurgent Russian challenges to U.S. global dominance facing America, it's hard to say whether the issue of race, albeit an issue which clearly motivates some voters, is important enough to sway them more than other, actually relevant issues. One would be better equipped to search for evidence of the Bradley effect in more tranquil times, though in retrospect I have begun to wonder if such times ever last long enough for such a measurement to be taken.
The momentous election held yesterday and this consideration of its importance has caused me to think of what momentous events have occurred in my lifetime, of the horrors and glories that have transpired in this and every age, and so I think to wrap this up I'll just list the ones I recall as earth-shaking moments. Let them remind anyone who reads this of how dynamic a place the world really is, even if it is dangerous as all hell, and that there is never any shortage of spectacles on the way to make life more interesting. In no particular order:
Berlin Wall dismantling begins
Indonesian Tsunami devastates Southeast Asia
Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans
Israel drops 3 million cluster bombs on residential areas of southern Lebanon, August 2006 war
Velvet Revolution, Prague, Czechoslovakia
Orange Revolution, Ukraine
Rose Revolution, Georgia
World Trade Center attacked, Sept. 11, 2001
Soviet Union dissolves
Czechoslovakia divides itself into separate Czech and Slovak Republics
Genocidal wars fragment Yugoslavia
Genocidal war in Darfur, Sudan
Rwandan Genocide
U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, followed by second invasion of Iraq
First Gulf War, followed by Iraq embargoes
Iran/Iraq war kills millions
Vietnam War (started before I was born but ended after)
Apartheid falls in South Africa
Control of Hong Kong returned to China by Britain
Tienanmen Square massacre
Germany reunited
Lebanese Civil War
European Union formed
Euro adopted as E.U. currency
Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 1979
Hezbollah formed
Hamas formed
India detonates its first nuclear device
U.S. invades Somalia, withdraws in defeat
Ethiopia invades Somalia with U.S. encouragement
Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan
U.S. bombing of Libya kills much of Moammar Qaddafi's family, Qaddafi himself is unharmed
Qaddafi's Libya reconciles with West, France pledges to assist in building a Libyan nuclear reactor
Polish Solidarity movement begins
Watergate break-in occurs
Chernobyl reactor meltdown occurs
Mt. St. Helens erupts
Deep Throat appears in theaters
Northridge quake, Reseda, Los Angeles, 1994
S.A.R.S. appears
A.I.D.S. appears
Avian Flu appears
Colony Collapse Disorder affects many of the world's bees
Israel invades Lebanon, 1982
Beirut barracks bombing kills hundreds of U.S. marines
The list could go on forever. This is just a small sampling of what's occurred in my lifetime, and there's much, much more to come just around the corner. If you're ever bored, just think about it. It's literally terrifying how quickly and dramatically the world moves. And it's getting faster.