The attractive outsider figured out the new primary system better than many old Pols. He put great effort into the Iowa caucuses and won 9 of the first 10 primaries. He was quite a contrast to Nixon and the coalition of Southern Democrats and Northern republicans who had ruled Congress- ""I’ll never lie to you, I am an engineer, not a wheeler-dealer". There was a small racial factor too. We saw the white Southern backlash that Nixon and Wallace had nurtured. Here was a racially progressive Southern governor. Yes, I mean the man from Plains, GA.
Consider this table listing Democrats in the House & Senate from 1974-1980
Composition of Congress 1972-1980
Democratic control peaked in 1976 and declined only slightly in 1978. The gas lines and the image of an ineffective dour President changed that.
The 1974 midterm election brought in many progressive Democrats. Nixon had resigned, the Vietnam War was disgraced. The Old Bulls, Southern democrats who controlled all the major house committees, men like Wilbur Mills (AR), Bob Poage and Wright Patman (TX), and Edward Herbert (LA) were forced from their powerful chairmanships, President Gerald Ford vetoed more than 60 bills. Ford’s media image was that of a stumbler. Carter carried the solid South, even states like Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas. He didn’t carry Virginia or California. But his victory was skin deep- he got 50.08% of the vote and only 297 electoral votes.
Carter was/is a bright and decent man but had a terrible temperament for the Presidency, and was obsessed with details (see his recent White House diaries). He had the worst advisers of recent Democratic Presidents. Jimmy Carter and Tip O'Neill were like oil and water, didn't work well together. Congress created the department of Energy in 1977. Carter stuck his neck out on energy, and put solar panels on the White House. Secretary of energy James Schlesinger, former CIA head and secretary of Defense, didn't work well with Congress. Carter’s ideas about getting away from imported oil were good, but badly presented. He lacked FDR’s cheery "We can lick the bastards, but it will require sacrifice". Carter was seen as preachy, preaching some kind of pointless sacrifice.
Barack Obama was an unknown African-American state senator whose 2004 Democratic keynote speech made him famous overnight. People liked the image of Obama - uniter; many were distressed by Kerry's inept campaign and suspicious of Hillary Clinton, favored for the 2008 nomination. Again, early primary victories were very important. Again, there was a small racial boost – wouldn’t it look good to have an African-American president?
Obama got on better with Pelosi than Carter had with Tip O’Neill. Obama, Reid and Pelosi knew that healthcare reform was important. However, they stumbled in two big ways:
- Average people never understood the bill. Tea partiers made a big deal hollering, "read the bill" & claiming all sorts of crazy things. Even today, few Democrats can explain the bill or even try to.
- Republicans have a point when they say that the process was terrible. It was. Obama fought the last war, determined to avoid the Clintons’ mistake of trying to shove a preformed HCR plan down Congress’ throat. HCR & economic policy are the two areas where Obama has accomplishments or beachheads (they can be erased), and are widely misunderstood. Obama’s cool temperament has a good side, but his tendency to work for compromise behind the scenes hurt him and is inappropriate when you have a shaky ramshackle beachhead. Obama’s bad economic advisers wanted a larger stimulus than the $787 billion package that they got; they believed that this package would bring employment down to 8%, a serious underestimate. They didn’t want to upset Wall Street; many Americans sensed this. If he had a more realistic projection, Obama may have been willing to go to the mat for a bigger stimulus, even if he failed- maybe. I’m afraid that he’s too worried about the bad side of being seen to fail.
Obama’s election campaign got a small racial boost; but within days of the 2008 election, lawsuits were filed claiming that he was born in Kenya, the big monster had come out of hiding. Big league racial hatred contributed in a major way to mistrust and demonization of Obama.
Don’t underestimate the significance of the recent election. The Rs have far fewer seats than the Democrats did in 1976, but they will gerrymander Congressional districts to spring forward in the next election; they are very well financed. Obama’s attempt to straddle the Afghan war will fail and may provoke a 2012 primary challenge.
On the good side, the Republicans got a majority of whites but not of blacks, Latinos or Asians. If Obama and progressive Democrats can make inroads into the white female vote, he may rise again. Being a deficit hawk won't help Obama with the female vote; women are much more aware of the suffering of the poor and sick. Reagan was Hoover with a smiling face, as Tip O’Neill repeatedly said. That smile was critical. Boehner, McConnell, Hailey Barbour, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, they are Hoover with a snarling, militaristic face. Hoover had his faults, but was no militarist and took heat for delivering food surplus to the newly formed Soviet Union, because people were starving there. Is there a Republican who might become a smiling Hoover? Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee are possibilities; Obama would do better against Huckabee than Rubio.
I recommend Paul Krugman's recent essay, http://www.nytimes.com/... Healthcare was and is very important. As a practicing doctor, I can tell you about the disgraceful side of American medicine. There are two sides. Evan Bayh represents the thinking of those who had big majorities back in the 1970s and couldn't see that the world is different today. The old ways, the tax cuts, they won't work. Texas politicians are talking about dropping Medicaid. Let the bastards (my home state) secede from the union, but don't let them screw the poor if they stay in.