Republicans were going to rule forever. Conservatism was the wave of the future. And then something went wrong in November 2006; and political pundits almost had to think.
What changed?
Some easy answers first.
- "Next election will go the same way as the last" is more likely to be true than "Six months from now, weather in the Northern US will be exactly the same as it is today." But it's not nearly as safe an assumption as "I don't have to check; I know the gun's not loaded."
In 1964, conservative Republicans went down to eternal defeat. Barry Goldwater was defeated by a far wider margin than either Al Gore or John Kerry. It was obvious the conservative wing of the Republican Party would never field a Presidential candidate again -- let alone get one into the White House. Wasn't it?
- American history has political cycles. When liberals have ruled for a while, enough people get annoyed with what it has done and not done for conservatives to win. Then, after a while, voters get fed up with the conservatives. And if both major parties are more or less in the center, whichever party has ruled recently gets booted out.
These cycles are of varying length; but odds are liberal Democrats will take the White House and Congress next election and then run the Federal Government for at least the next twenty years.
- Getting bogged down in a war makes the President and his party less popular.
- Some Republican candidates who could have gotten re-elected or elected with a bit of thought decided they could run in their sleep.
None of these things are new.
What might be new: Members of the President's party were more deferential to him longer than is usual in US political history.
One set of Democratic activists thought there ought to be a Democrat running in every Congressional District, no matter how firmly Republican it might be. They didn't quite make that goal; but there were Democratic candidates in some unlikely races. And when some Republican candidates had to withdraw, or managed to turn away the voters, the Democratic candidates won.
What is certainly new -- some technology, and some uses of technology (including gadgets which have been around for at least a few years.)
Phone banking used to require renting phone equipment and finding space to house it. This election season, I got invitations to bring my cell phone into someone's living room and make calls for candidates in various parts of the US. I don't have a cell phone, but apparently enough people did. And maybe in a few years I'll be told "If you don't have a cell phone, my kids have a few extras."
Information on record is easier to find. Data I used to get from The Almanac of American Politics is now freely available on the web -- and updated much more often than every even-numbered year.
Other information is also easier to dig up -- and to spread. On March 28, 2:30 PM Central Standard Time (CST), DailyKos community member anthonyLA commented on a photo on Howard Kaloogian's campaign website. (Kaloogian was running in a California special election.) The photo was supposed to be proof that downtown Beirut was peaceful.
There were subtle details (for example, signs in Turkish rather than Arabic) which cast some doubt on the photo's authenticity.
On March 29, 2006 at 10:25:29 AM CST, jem6x said "It is indeed a street in the bustling Istanbul suburb of Bakirkoy..."
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I'm not sure when newspapers, TV, and radio got the news. The first three pages of Google results were all blogs or other online venues, and I wasn't patient enough to continue looking.
This past election, a number of candidates had their campaign mistakes shown in web videos; mostly on YouTube. YouTube is reportedly more picky about what it allows to be shown; but other video sites will fill the vacated niche.
It's not just that amateurs and semi-pros can now get some news as easily as professional reporters for older media. They can also get news the older media's pros aren't aware of.
They're more likely to tell what they learn. They don't see themselves as part of the same community as the politicos. They're unlikely to consider themselves part of an elite entitled to knowledge which isn't shared with mere citizens.
And they don't have to go through editors.
Ten years from now, an eleven-year-old might derail someone's campaign.
Summing up: Ten years from now, liberal Democrats will be in charge. They'll continue to be in charge; but they'll have started to become complacent.
The way campaigns "have always been run" will be Howard Dean's way and the Democratic Netroots way -- for both parties.