In the US-- or any nation, for that matter-- or world history. 
Most important election or electoral decision ever?
- Thread starter Art Vandelay
- Start date
I have to do some thinking about the history of elections, but I'm pretty set on Abraham Lincoln replacing Hannibal Hamlin with Andrew Johnson as the most important electoral decision in United States history.
1865-1965 and beyond would have been so radically different. There would have been no civil rights era in the 1950s and 1960s because the issue would have been settled decades if not a century ago.
From the very beginning of his service in Congress, he was prominent as an opponent of the extension of slavery. He was a conspicuous supporter of the Wilmot Proviso and spoke against the Compromise Measures of 1850. In 1854, he strongly opposed the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise. After the Democratic Party endorsed that repeal at the 1856 Democratic National Convention, on June 12, 1856, he withdrew from the Democratic Party and joined the newly organized Republican Party, causing a national sensation.
In 1861, Hamlin became Vice President under Abraham Lincoln, whom he did not meet until after the election. Maine was the first state in the Northeast to embrace the Republican Party, and the Lincoln-Hamlin ticket thus made sense in terms of regional balance. Hamlin was also a strong orator, and a known opponent of slavery. While serving as Vice President, Hamlin had little authority in the Lincoln Administration, although he urged both the Emancipation Proclamation and the arming of Black Americans. He strongly supported Joseph Hooker's appointment as commander of the Army of the Potomac, which was a dismal failure. In June 1864, the Republicans and War Democrats joined to form the National Union Party. Although Lincoln was renominated, War Democrat Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was named to replace Hamlin as Lincoln's running mate. Lincoln was seeking to broaden his base of support and was also looking ahead to Southern Reconstruction, at which Johnson had proven himself adept as war governor of occupied Tennessee. Hamlin, by contrast, was an ally of Northern radicals (who would later impeach Johnson). Lincoln and Johnson were elected in November 1864, and Hamlin's term expired on March 4, 1865.
Hamlin and Lincoln were not close personally, but had a good working relationship. At the time, White House etiquette did not require the Vice President to regularly attend cabinet meetings; thus, Hamlin did not regularly visit the White House. It was said that Mary Todd Lincoln and Hamlin disliked each other. For his part, Hamlin complained, "I am only a fifth wheel of a coach and can do little for my friends."
With Congress in adjournment from April to Dec 1865, Johnson put his plan into operation. Under provisional governors appointed by him, the Southern states held conventions that voided or repealed their ordinances of secession, abolished slavery, and (except South Carolina) repudiated Confederate debts. Their newly elected legislatures (except Mississippi) ratified the Thirteenth Amendment guaranteeing freedom for blacks. By the end of 1865 every ex-Confederate state except Texas had reestablished civil government.
The control of white over black, however, seemed to be restored, as each of the newly elected state legislatures enacted statutes severely limiting the freedom and rights of the blacks. These laws, known as black codes, restricted the ability of blacks to own land and to work as free laborers and denied them most of the civil and political rights enjoyed by whites. Many of the offices in the new governments, moreover, were won by disenfranchised Confederate leaders, and the President, rather than ordering new elections, granted pardons on a large scale. Southerners, with Johnson's support, attempted to restore slavery in substance if not in name.
In 1866, Congress and President Johnson battled for control of Reconstruction. The Congress won. Northern voters gave a smashing victory -- more than two-thirds of the seats in Congress -- to the Radical Republicans in the 1866 congressional election, enabling Congress to control Reconstruction and override any vetoes that Johnson might impose.
On February 22, 1866, Washington's Birthday, Johnson gave an impromptu speech to supporters who had marched to the Executive Mansion (as the White House was still formally known) and called for an address in honor of the first president. In his hour-long speech, he instead referred to himself over 200 times. More damagingly, he also spoke of "men ... still opposed to the Union" to whom he could not extend the hand of friendship he gave to the South. When called upon by the crowd to say who they were, Johnson named Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, and abolitionist Wendell Phillips, and accused them of plotting his assassination. Republicans viewed the address as a declaration of war, while one Democratic ally estimated Johnson's speech cost the party 200,000 votes in the 1866 congressional midterm elections.
Although strongly urged by Moderates to sign the Civil Rights Bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27. In his veto message, he objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented in the Congress, and that it discriminated in favor of African-Americans and against whites. Within three weeks, Congress had overridden his veto, the first time that had been done on a major bill in American history. The veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, often seen as a key mistake of Johnson's presidency, convinced Moderates there was no hope of working with him. Historian Eric Foner in his volume on Reconstruction views it as "the most disastrous miscalculation of his political career". According to Stewart, the veto was "for many his defining blunder, setting a tone of perpetual confrontation with Congress that prevailed for the rest of his presidency".
Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 that divided the Confederate states (except for Tennessee, which had been re-admitted to the Union) into five military districts. Each state was required to accept the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which granted freedom and political rights of blacks. Each Southern state had to incorporate these requirements into their constitutions, and blacks were empowered with the vote.
The inability of President Obama to gain any kind of cooperation from the opposition party has not been seen since the time of Democrat Andrew Johnson. Johnson's relationship with congress was even worse-- the worst ever-- and the Republicans had both the House and the Senate. The discord between Johnson and the Radical Republicans made Johnson an ineffective President in a time where an effective President working with congress could have changed the course of American history.
The 1864 election was the first time since 1812 that a presidential election took place during a war.
For much of 1864, Lincoln himself believed he had little chance of being re-elected. Confederate forces had triumphed at the Battle of Mansfield, the Battle of the Crater, and the Battle of Cold Harbor. In addition, the war was continuing to take a very high toll in terms of casualties. The prospect of a long and bloody war started to make the idea of "peace at all cost" offered by the Copperheads look more desirable. Because of this, McClellan was thought to be a heavy favorite to win the election.
However, several political and military events made Lincoln's re-election inevitable. In the first place, the Democrats had to confront the severe internal strains within their party at the Democratic National Convention. With the fall of Atlanta on September 2, there no longer was any question that a Union military victory was inevitable and close at hand.
Electoral College votes were counted from 25 states. Since the election of 1860, the Electoral College had expanded with the admission of Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada as free-soil states. As the American Civil War was still raging, no electoral votes were counted from any of the eleven Southern states. Lincoln won the popular vote 55-45% on the strength of the soldier vote and military successes such as the Battle of Atlanta.
Lincoln won with 212 electoral votes to McClellan's 12.
1865-1965 and beyond would have been so radically different. There would have been no civil rights era in the 1950s and 1960s because the issue would have been settled decades if not a century ago.
Lincoln's original Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin, was a longtime abolitionist ally
Hannibal Hamlin (August 27, 1809 – July 4, 1891) was the 15th Vice President of the United States (1861–1865), serving under President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. He was the first Vice President from the Republican Party.From the very beginning of his service in Congress, he was prominent as an opponent of the extension of slavery. He was a conspicuous supporter of the Wilmot Proviso and spoke against the Compromise Measures of 1850. In 1854, he strongly opposed the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise. After the Democratic Party endorsed that repeal at the 1856 Democratic National Convention, on June 12, 1856, he withdrew from the Democratic Party and joined the newly organized Republican Party, causing a national sensation.
In 1861, Hamlin became Vice President under Abraham Lincoln, whom he did not meet until after the election. Maine was the first state in the Northeast to embrace the Republican Party, and the Lincoln-Hamlin ticket thus made sense in terms of regional balance. Hamlin was also a strong orator, and a known opponent of slavery. While serving as Vice President, Hamlin had little authority in the Lincoln Administration, although he urged both the Emancipation Proclamation and the arming of Black Americans. He strongly supported Joseph Hooker's appointment as commander of the Army of the Potomac, which was a dismal failure. In June 1864, the Republicans and War Democrats joined to form the National Union Party. Although Lincoln was renominated, War Democrat Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was named to replace Hamlin as Lincoln's running mate. Lincoln was seeking to broaden his base of support and was also looking ahead to Southern Reconstruction, at which Johnson had proven himself adept as war governor of occupied Tennessee. Hamlin, by contrast, was an ally of Northern radicals (who would later impeach Johnson). Lincoln and Johnson were elected in November 1864, and Hamlin's term expired on March 4, 1865.
Hamlin and Lincoln were not close personally, but had a good working relationship. At the time, White House etiquette did not require the Vice President to regularly attend cabinet meetings; thus, Hamlin did not regularly visit the White House. It was said that Mary Todd Lincoln and Hamlin disliked each other. For his part, Hamlin complained, "I am only a fifth wheel of a coach and can do little for my friends."
Lincoln's racist successor, Andrew Johnson, worked to obstruct and reverse progress
After Lincoln's assassination in April of 1865, President Andrew Johnson alienated Congress with his Reconstruction policy. He supported white supremacy in the South and favored pro-Union Southern political leaders who had aided the Confederacy once war had been declared. With Congress in adjournment from April to Dec 1865, Johnson put his plan into operation. Under provisional governors appointed by him, the Southern states held conventions that voided or repealed their ordinances of secession, abolished slavery, and (except South Carolina) repudiated Confederate debts. Their newly elected legislatures (except Mississippi) ratified the Thirteenth Amendment guaranteeing freedom for blacks. By the end of 1865 every ex-Confederate state except Texas had reestablished civil government.
The control of white over black, however, seemed to be restored, as each of the newly elected state legislatures enacted statutes severely limiting the freedom and rights of the blacks. These laws, known as black codes, restricted the ability of blacks to own land and to work as free laborers and denied them most of the civil and political rights enjoyed by whites. Many of the offices in the new governments, moreover, were won by disenfranchised Confederate leaders, and the President, rather than ordering new elections, granted pardons on a large scale. Southerners, with Johnson's support, attempted to restore slavery in substance if not in name.
In 1866, Congress and President Johnson battled for control of Reconstruction. The Congress won. Northern voters gave a smashing victory -- more than two-thirds of the seats in Congress -- to the Radical Republicans in the 1866 congressional election, enabling Congress to control Reconstruction and override any vetoes that Johnson might impose.
On February 22, 1866, Washington's Birthday, Johnson gave an impromptu speech to supporters who had marched to the Executive Mansion (as the White House was still formally known) and called for an address in honor of the first president. In his hour-long speech, he instead referred to himself over 200 times. More damagingly, he also spoke of "men ... still opposed to the Union" to whom he could not extend the hand of friendship he gave to the South. When called upon by the crowd to say who they were, Johnson named Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, and abolitionist Wendell Phillips, and accused them of plotting his assassination. Republicans viewed the address as a declaration of war, while one Democratic ally estimated Johnson's speech cost the party 200,000 votes in the 1866 congressional midterm elections.
Although strongly urged by Moderates to sign the Civil Rights Bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27. In his veto message, he objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented in the Congress, and that it discriminated in favor of African-Americans and against whites. Within three weeks, Congress had overridden his veto, the first time that had been done on a major bill in American history. The veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, often seen as a key mistake of Johnson's presidency, convinced Moderates there was no hope of working with him. Historian Eric Foner in his volume on Reconstruction views it as "the most disastrous miscalculation of his political career". According to Stewart, the veto was "for many his defining blunder, setting a tone of perpetual confrontation with Congress that prevailed for the rest of his presidency".
Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 that divided the Confederate states (except for Tennessee, which had been re-admitted to the Union) into five military districts. Each state was required to accept the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which granted freedom and political rights of blacks. Each Southern state had to incorporate these requirements into their constitutions, and blacks were empowered with the vote.
The inability of President Obama to gain any kind of cooperation from the opposition party has not been seen since the time of Democrat Andrew Johnson. Johnson's relationship with congress was even worse-- the worst ever-- and the Republicans had both the House and the Senate. The discord between Johnson and the Radical Republicans made Johnson an ineffective President in a time where an effective President working with congress could have changed the course of American history.
Lincoln didn't have to make that switch to win the 1864 election
The 1864 election was the first time since 1812 that a presidential election took place during a war.
For much of 1864, Lincoln himself believed he had little chance of being re-elected. Confederate forces had triumphed at the Battle of Mansfield, the Battle of the Crater, and the Battle of Cold Harbor. In addition, the war was continuing to take a very high toll in terms of casualties. The prospect of a long and bloody war started to make the idea of "peace at all cost" offered by the Copperheads look more desirable. Because of this, McClellan was thought to be a heavy favorite to win the election.
However, several political and military events made Lincoln's re-election inevitable. In the first place, the Democrats had to confront the severe internal strains within their party at the Democratic National Convention. With the fall of Atlanta on September 2, there no longer was any question that a Union military victory was inevitable and close at hand.
Electoral College votes were counted from 25 states. Since the election of 1860, the Electoral College had expanded with the admission of Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada as free-soil states. As the American Civil War was still raging, no electoral votes were counted from any of the eleven Southern states. Lincoln won the popular vote 55-45% on the strength of the soldier vote and military successes such as the Battle of Atlanta.
Lincoln won with 212 electoral votes to McClellan's 12.
Though there have been some important elections, it is ironic and indicative that the most important electoral decision may not have been the vote in a particular election.
It's Time to Retire the Phrase, 'This Is the Most Important Election ...'
CONOR FRIEDERSDORF
MAY 2 2012, 1:36 PM ET
Candidates can be forgiven for misjudging or exaggerating the import of their own electoral contests. Of course Newt Gingrich thought the race he joined was fundamentally transformative. But what inspires pundits to declare that "this is the most important election of our lives"? Dennis Prager is the latest to do so. "The usual description of presidential elections -- 'the most important in our lifetime' -- is true this time," he wrote in his Creator's Syndicate column. "In fact, it may be the most important election since the Civil War, and possibly since America's founding."
That's a sweeping claim!
Why does he think the contest between Obama and Romney is possibly more important than the elections that brought us Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Reagan? "Election Day 2012 will not be a presidential election. It will be a plebiscite. Americans will not only be voting for a president .... They will be participating in a plebiscite on the definition of America," Prager wrote. "If Americans reelect the Democrat, Barack Obama, they will have announced that America should be like Western European countries -- governed by left-wing values. Americans will have decided that America's value system -- 'Liberty,' 'In God We Trust,' 'E Pluribus Unum' -- should be replaced. The election in November is therefore a plebiscite on the American Revolution."
I emphatically disagree. I don't think the average swing voter is deciding whether they want to preserve or abandon traditional American values. Were Obama voters asked, "Do you favor liberty and the American Revolution?" the "yes" vote would win in a landslide. Even if Obama wins, I very much doubt Prager himself will concede that he has a mandate to transform America into France.
Of course, Prager was claiming that another election was the "most important" as recently as ... 2010:
Take Rush Limbaugh.
His assessment of Election 2012:
Bill O'Reilly says 2012 is the most important election of our lifetime. He thought the same thing in 2008.
Michael Barone declares 2012 the most important election in "everyone's lifetime." He thought Election 2004 was the most important "in generations" too.
Are these pundits trying to boost voter turnout for the candidate they favor by exaggerating the import of the election? Are they so lacking in perspective that they really believe the present moment is more important than most of American history? I don't know why they've reached these conclusions, just that they're almost always wrong.
In 2008, Reason magazine surveyed various contributors about the presidential election being held that year. One of the questions posed: "Is this the most important election in your lifetime?"
Several of the answers were instructive:
What those answers have in common is a modesty that explains why, four years later, none of them looks silly or discrediting. Is Election 2012 the most important in American history? Not unless the outcome largely determines whether we have a civil war. The most important since 1860? Almost certainly not. The most important in our lifetime? Odds are against it, and even if it turns out to be so, we can't reliably predict that going in. If anyone tells you that "this is the most important election..." best to keep your wits, secure your wallet, and insist that at best they're guessing -- whereas at worst they're repeating what they've promiscuously said about bygone elections too.
CONOR FRIEDERSDORF
MAY 2 2012, 1:36 PM ET
Candidates can be forgiven for misjudging or exaggerating the import of their own electoral contests. Of course Newt Gingrich thought the race he joined was fundamentally transformative. But what inspires pundits to declare that "this is the most important election of our lives"? Dennis Prager is the latest to do so. "The usual description of presidential elections -- 'the most important in our lifetime' -- is true this time," he wrote in his Creator's Syndicate column. "In fact, it may be the most important election since the Civil War, and possibly since America's founding."
That's a sweeping claim!
Why does he think the contest between Obama and Romney is possibly more important than the elections that brought us Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Reagan? "Election Day 2012 will not be a presidential election. It will be a plebiscite. Americans will not only be voting for a president .... They will be participating in a plebiscite on the definition of America," Prager wrote. "If Americans reelect the Democrat, Barack Obama, they will have announced that America should be like Western European countries -- governed by left-wing values. Americans will have decided that America's value system -- 'Liberty,' 'In God We Trust,' 'E Pluribus Unum' -- should be replaced. The election in November is therefore a plebiscite on the American Revolution."
I emphatically disagree. I don't think the average swing voter is deciding whether they want to preserve or abandon traditional American values. Were Obama voters asked, "Do you favor liberty and the American Revolution?" the "yes" vote would win in a landslide. Even if Obama wins, I very much doubt Prager himself will concede that he has a mandate to transform America into France.
Of course, Prager was claiming that another election was the "most important" as recently as ... 2010:
Next Tuesday, November 2, 2010 is not Election Day. It is Referendum Day. It may be commonplace for commentators to announce that every election is "the most important election in our lifetime" or something analogous. But having never said that of a presidential election, let alone an off-year election, this commentator cannot be accused of crying wolf when I say that this off-year election is not simply the most important of my lifetime.
It is the most important since the Civil War.
And he is hardly unique in promiscuously assigning historic import to Republican electoral victories.It is the most important since the Civil War.
Take Rush Limbaugh.
His assessment of Election 2012:
Romney is going to have to point out that this election is not about just defeating Obama, it's about holding back the hordes. It's about turning back the tide of the worldwide left that wants to essentially get rid of capitalism -- individualism, rugged individualism, liberty, whatever -- and replace it with a command-and-control central authority that they run... This is an ideological battle. And that's what the Tea Party's all about, and that's what conservatism's all about.
Here's what he said about the 2010 mid-terms:No more RINOs, no more moderates, no more Republicans-In-Name-Only. They are killing us. They are why we're where we are. We could blow the most important election cycle in decades if we win these races but have more of the same kind of leadership, a leadership typified by our presidential campaign.
Said Limbaugh in 2000: "No question about it. This is the most important election in our history."Bill O'Reilly says 2012 is the most important election of our lifetime. He thought the same thing in 2008.
Michael Barone declares 2012 the most important election in "everyone's lifetime." He thought Election 2004 was the most important "in generations" too.
Are these pundits trying to boost voter turnout for the candidate they favor by exaggerating the import of the election? Are they so lacking in perspective that they really believe the present moment is more important than most of American history? I don't know why they've reached these conclusions, just that they're almost always wrong.
In 2008, Reason magazine surveyed various contributors about the presidential election being held that year. One of the questions posed: "Is this the most important election in your lifetime?"
Several of the answers were instructive:
"It's not, since the ideological and policy differences between Reagan and Carter (for one example) were much bigger than between the two current candidates."
"No. There's too little difference between the major party candidates for there to be much riding on this election. It's really only a matter of if you want a huge federal government undertaking grand leftist programs, or if you want a huge federal government undertaking grand rightist programs."
"The importance of this election can only be determined in retrospect."
"Elections are vastly overrated as a means for restraining government abuses. The more people who believe that the 2008 election will end the abuses of the Bush era, the easier it will be for the next president to perpetuate Bush's noxious principles and precedents."
"The 2000 election was the most important election of my lifetime, but nobody knew it at the time. Since I don't know the future this year either, I can't answer the question."
"Ask me on my deathbed."
"How can one know? That will depend entirely on what the next president decides to do. But, yes, it might potentially be the most important election given all the disastrous policies that are now back on the table..."
"I'm not convinced that many elections in the United States are that important, but the tragicomedy of American life is that we have a generally representative government, which is a damning comment on us. Elections can be more or less interesting but this one, despite the trappings of generational and ideological shifts, is not."
"Of course not."
"Nah, it's Coke vs. Pepsi. Though I'd prefer not to have Pepsi's finger on the nuclear button."
"No. There's too little difference between the major party candidates for there to be much riding on this election. It's really only a matter of if you want a huge federal government undertaking grand leftist programs, or if you want a huge federal government undertaking grand rightist programs."
"The importance of this election can only be determined in retrospect."
"Elections are vastly overrated as a means for restraining government abuses. The more people who believe that the 2008 election will end the abuses of the Bush era, the easier it will be for the next president to perpetuate Bush's noxious principles and precedents."
"The 2000 election was the most important election of my lifetime, but nobody knew it at the time. Since I don't know the future this year either, I can't answer the question."
"Ask me on my deathbed."
"How can one know? That will depend entirely on what the next president decides to do. But, yes, it might potentially be the most important election given all the disastrous policies that are now back on the table..."
"I'm not convinced that many elections in the United States are that important, but the tragicomedy of American life is that we have a generally representative government, which is a damning comment on us. Elections can be more or less interesting but this one, despite the trappings of generational and ideological shifts, is not."
"Of course not."
"Nah, it's Coke vs. Pepsi. Though I'd prefer not to have Pepsi's finger on the nuclear button."
What those answers have in common is a modesty that explains why, four years later, none of them looks silly or discrediting. Is Election 2012 the most important in American history? Not unless the outcome largely determines whether we have a civil war. The most important since 1860? Almost certainly not. The most important in our lifetime? Odds are against it, and even if it turns out to be so, we can't reliably predict that going in. If anyone tells you that "this is the most important election..." best to keep your wits, secure your wallet, and insist that at best they're guessing -- whereas at worst they're repeating what they've promiscuously said about bygone elections too.
The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime
By Bruce Walker
February 27, 2012
Is this the most important election of our lifetime? If it is, then for conservatives like me, it will have been the ninth or tenth such election in recent memory.
Were all those elections so vital? Some were important, but not in the way we often think. There was a joke after the 1964 election which went something like this:
"Everybody told me in 1964 that if I voted for Goldwater, there would be riots in the streets and we would be stuck fighting a bloody land war in Asia. Well, I voted for Goldwater... And they were right!"
The elections between 1964 and 1980, in retrospect, seem fuzzy and trivial. What did it matter in 1968 that Nixon beat Humphrey? Nixon legitimized two vile Marxists empires ("Only Nixon can go to China."). He created an FDR-like alphabet soup of domestic agencies which plague us to this day. Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun, author of Roe v. Wade, to the Supreme Court. Nixon committed American boys to fighting a no-win war in Vietnam. Oh, and Nixon tarred conservatives with his own scandals.
Did it matter that Carter beat Ford in 1976? Ford gave us the dumbest economic plan imaginable with his WIN, or "Whip Inflation Now," buttons. Ford obscenely refused to meet with Alexander Solzhenitsyn out of fear of offending Stalin's successors. Ford also appointed John Paul Stephens to the Supreme Court.
Would America have been clearly better if Bush beat Clinton in 1992? Bush had twiddled while the People's Republic crushed a national uprising which would have been truly important. He broke his "read my lips" no-tax pledge. His sole real accomplishment was putting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, but before Bush did that, he put the odious David Souter there.
Yes, McGovern, Carter, and Clinton were dreadful, but at least they were not "our" candidates. Without becoming overly cynical, every presidential election is touted as vital to the survival of America. Surely everyone is saying that about 2012 as well -- but is it all that important?
Ending the threat of socialized medicine is vital, but if the Supreme Court does not strike major portions of the law down before November, the next president will be able to repeal the law only with sixty Republicans in the Senate, so the Senate races are as important as the presidential race.
Obama is tinkering with big cuts in national defense, but every other conventional military threat is mousy compared to our armed forces: that is not because of weapons, but because we have easily the best-trained, most battle-hardened, and most motivated conventional militaries around today -- or, for that matter, at any time in modern history. A nuclear Iran would be horrific, but that issue will be resolved one way or the other before January 2013.
The proportion of Americans living off government is near some "tipping point" in which the workers are outnumbered by the loafers, but actually that tipping point was reached decades ago. The cure is to do what Reagan did and create opportunities for ordinary Americans to begin to succeed again, and that, like repealing ObamaCare, requires a true conservative majority at the federal level, not just winning the White House.
Is the world slipping off into global chaos? Will our debt crush us to death? Yes, if we do nothing, but House Republicans can already decline to raise the debt ceiling. The residual wealth of our nation is as vast as our natural entrepreneurial spirit. The remarkable thing about our nation when it recovers is how much faster and more grandly we restore the dream of our nation when we want to do so.
So is this election the most important in our lifetime? It can be if a ticket of strong conservatives leads the Republican Party in November to a big enough victory to push dramatic changes through Congress (especially the Senate). That is the key. Obama already is a spent force, a puerile nonentity whose legacy will last as long as Carter's legacy lasted after Reagan began to lead us.
The Goldwater nomination in 1964 was a victory, even as the left tried to persuade us that it was not. The left was the vast part of America to see in 1980 that Reagan would not only sweep to the Republican nomination, but sweep into the White House as well. The truly important presidential elections are those in which Americans can embrace robust conservatism. If that happens in November, this could be truly be the most important election in our lifetime - but only if that happens.
By Bruce Walker
February 27, 2012
Is this the most important election of our lifetime? If it is, then for conservatives like me, it will have been the ninth or tenth such election in recent memory.
Were all those elections so vital? Some were important, but not in the way we often think. There was a joke after the 1964 election which went something like this:
"Everybody told me in 1964 that if I voted for Goldwater, there would be riots in the streets and we would be stuck fighting a bloody land war in Asia. Well, I voted for Goldwater... And they were right!"
The elections between 1964 and 1980, in retrospect, seem fuzzy and trivial. What did it matter in 1968 that Nixon beat Humphrey? Nixon legitimized two vile Marxists empires ("Only Nixon can go to China."). He created an FDR-like alphabet soup of domestic agencies which plague us to this day. Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun, author of Roe v. Wade, to the Supreme Court. Nixon committed American boys to fighting a no-win war in Vietnam. Oh, and Nixon tarred conservatives with his own scandals.
Did it matter that Carter beat Ford in 1976? Ford gave us the dumbest economic plan imaginable with his WIN, or "Whip Inflation Now," buttons. Ford obscenely refused to meet with Alexander Solzhenitsyn out of fear of offending Stalin's successors. Ford also appointed John Paul Stephens to the Supreme Court.
Would America have been clearly better if Bush beat Clinton in 1992? Bush had twiddled while the People's Republic crushed a national uprising which would have been truly important. He broke his "read my lips" no-tax pledge. His sole real accomplishment was putting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, but before Bush did that, he put the odious David Souter there.
Yes, McGovern, Carter, and Clinton were dreadful, but at least they were not "our" candidates. Without becoming overly cynical, every presidential election is touted as vital to the survival of America. Surely everyone is saying that about 2012 as well -- but is it all that important?
Ending the threat of socialized medicine is vital, but if the Supreme Court does not strike major portions of the law down before November, the next president will be able to repeal the law only with sixty Republicans in the Senate, so the Senate races are as important as the presidential race.
Obama is tinkering with big cuts in national defense, but every other conventional military threat is mousy compared to our armed forces: that is not because of weapons, but because we have easily the best-trained, most battle-hardened, and most motivated conventional militaries around today -- or, for that matter, at any time in modern history. A nuclear Iran would be horrific, but that issue will be resolved one way or the other before January 2013.
The proportion of Americans living off government is near some "tipping point" in which the workers are outnumbered by the loafers, but actually that tipping point was reached decades ago. The cure is to do what Reagan did and create opportunities for ordinary Americans to begin to succeed again, and that, like repealing ObamaCare, requires a true conservative majority at the federal level, not just winning the White House.
Is the world slipping off into global chaos? Will our debt crush us to death? Yes, if we do nothing, but House Republicans can already decline to raise the debt ceiling. The residual wealth of our nation is as vast as our natural entrepreneurial spirit. The remarkable thing about our nation when it recovers is how much faster and more grandly we restore the dream of our nation when we want to do so.
So is this election the most important in our lifetime? It can be if a ticket of strong conservatives leads the Republican Party in November to a big enough victory to push dramatic changes through Congress (especially the Senate). That is the key. Obama already is a spent force, a puerile nonentity whose legacy will last as long as Carter's legacy lasted after Reagan began to lead us.
The Goldwater nomination in 1964 was a victory, even as the left tried to persuade us that it was not. The left was the vast part of America to see in 1980 that Reagan would not only sweep to the Republican nomination, but sweep into the White House as well. The truly important presidential elections are those in which Americans can embrace robust conservatism. If that happens in November, this could be truly be the most important election in our lifetime - but only if that happens.
The Most Important Election of Our Lives
The campaign is down to its last twenty-four hours. And if you’re reading this blog item, you’ve probably made up your mind about whether you support President Obama or Mitt Romney. But you might not feel good about that choice. And you might be wondering whether the hassle of voting is worth it. If so, I can give you one reason why you should.
This could be the most important election of your lifetime.
The stakes of an election aren’t always apparent in advance. In 2000, most so-called experts spent the campaign marveling at the lack of difference between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Then Bush got elected and enacted his tax cuts. Then 9/11 happened. And then the U.S. invaded Iraq. We can’t rerun history. But if the Palm Beach County ballots had looked a little different and Gore had become president, the eight years that followed probably would have unfolded differently.
This time around, nobody should be confused. The differences between Obama and Romney are not ambiguous—not even now, after Romney’s post-convention attempt to act like the more moderate, more sensible Republican many of us once thought he could be. The gap between what Obama and Romney believe—and between what each man proposes to do—is larger than it has been for any election I can remember.
Think about some numbers.
Eight to ten million. That’s the number of people who would lose eligibility for food stamps under the Ryan budget, which Romney praised and pledged to sign. Keep in mind that, in the wake of welfare reform and the decline of cash assistance from the federal government, food stamps have become the primary source of support for low-income people. At least a quarter would be children.
Two hundred thousand and 10 million. That’s the number of kids who’d lose Head Start and the number of college students who’d see Pell Grants decline by $1000, according to official administration estimates, under the Ryan budget that Romney effectively endorsed—unless Romney decided to spare those programs, forcing deeper cuts to other programs.
Fifty-two million. That’s how many people could lose health insurance if Romney repeals Obamacare and enacts his plan for Medicaid. In case it’s not self-evident, that’s a lot of people—about one-sixth of the entire American population.
Eight-hundred billion. That's the ten-year cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes over $250,000. It's a tax cut that benefits only the wealthy; offsetting the cost is a big reason why so many other cuts would have to take place.
The numbers are not precise; each depends on a set of assumptions about policy and, in some cases, the economy. But they give you some idea of the magnitude of the choice voters are facing. And the numbers alone don’t tell the full story.
For more than a hundred years, this country has been trying to manage and tame capitalism, not to undermine it but to save it, by protecting people from its caprice and excess. This crusade advanced in three great waves, pushed along by three of our greatest presidents—Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. The changes Romney has proposed would touch, and undermine, accomplishments that trace back to each of these eras. They would alter the social contract, as it has existed for generations, touching the middle class just as surely as they would touch the poor.
But could Romney actually accomplish all of that? Would he even try? Smart, thoughtful conservatives like David Brooks, Ross Douthat, and David Frum have suggested the answer to both questions is "no," grasping at leaks from Romney advisers and pointing to Romney’s record in Massachusetts, where he worked with a Democratic legislature. Broadly speaking, they share Romney's goals of smaller government and more conservative social policies, while dissenting from more extreme Republican positions. I can understand why they would want to believe Romney would govern in a similar way—and I would like to believe they are right.
But the simplest explanation for Romney’s behavior, the only one fully consistent with his persona as governor of Massachusetts and his persona(s) as candidate for the presidency, is that he will respond to the political pressure around him. And for the next four years, it's safe to assume, the pressure around him would come more from the right than the left. House Republicans have already voted for the Ryan budget. They have no incentive not to do so again. The Senate might resist, particularly if Democrats maintain control, but, at best, they’d succeed in moderating the conservative agenda. And an agenda only half as bold as the one I described above would still have dramatic effects. It would still be, to use Romney's own term, "severely conservative."
BUT ON TUESDAY VOTERS won’t only be determining the future of the welfare state—or reproductive rights or any of other vital policy areas in which Obama and Romney have such stark differences. They’ll also be rendering a verdict about the importance of candor in presidential campaigns.
We shouldn’t be naïve about this. All politicians say misleading things. And that includes President Obama. He never misses a chance to quote the headline on Romney’s infamous op-ed, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” even though Romney didn’t write the headline and Obama himself ended up putting the companies through bankruptcy. Obama’s ads have attacked Romney for outsourcing at Bain, even though much of the outsourcing took place after Romney left—and the long-term, macroeconomic effects of outsourcing are a matter of legitimate debate. Obama routinely attacks Romney for threatening to leave seniors at the mercy of insurance companies, even though Obama’s own health care plan relies heavily on private insurance to provide coverage to non-elderly Americans.
But even when Obama’s claims have gotten specific facts wrong, they have told a larger story about policy that’s true. Romney really did say he opposed direct government loans to get Chrysler and General Motors through bankruptcy. Without those loans, the companies, and the entire auto industry, likely would have collapsed. Romney may not have been in charge of all the outsourcing deals in Obama’s ads, but he was among the early developers of the practice at Bain—and, as president, Romney would enact policies that reward outsourcing without adequate protection or help for those who lose their jobs. And, yes, Obamacare relies on private insurance to deliver coverage to non-elderly Americans. But Obamcare regulates those plans extensively, giving Americans security they don’t have now. Romney’s Medicare plan, by contrast, would likely undermine the security seniors have, by taking away the kind of security only a government program (or an extraordinarily well regulated system of private insurance) can provide.
Romney, meanwhile, has been saying things that are just flatly untrue, specifically and generally—whether it’s taking quotations (like Obama’s “you didn’t build that”) grotesquely out of context or making claims about policy (like suggesting Obama got rid of work requirements in welfare) that independent fact-checkers found to be clearly false. Romney has blamed Obama for running high deficits in the present, even though they are more the result of Bush-era policies, and suggested the auto industry rescue encouraged Chrysler and GM to outsource jobs to China, even though both companies are creating jobs here and the rescue itself probably saved a million American jobs. Romney has said he has a plan to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions, even though repeal of the Affordable Care Act would eliminate the guarantee of comprehensive benefits that will begin in 2014, and he has demonized Obama for taking $716 billion from Medicare, even though Ryan's own budget—which Romney praised and said he would sign—did the same. Romney has told a newspaper that "no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda," even though he'd said previously he would sign Republican bills restricting abortion rights and has pledged, repeatedly, to appoint conservative judges and justices who would, among other things, support overruling Roe v. Wade.
The dishonesty is of a piece with his cavalier attitude towards providing actual policy proposals that outside analysts can evaluate. This is the fourth presidential campaign I’ve covered as a regular policy reporter and I can’t recall a major candidate, from either party, who provided less information or answered fewer questions than Romney has. John McCain’s 2008 campaign didn’t have a reputation for policy heft. But when McCain put out his health care proposal, it was an actual plan with real numbers. And he dispatched his advisers to talk about it. Liberals like me didin't love the plan itself, but at least we had a common frame of reference for debating it. Romney, by contrast, refuses to answer questions and, with only a few exceptions, has not even made advisers available for serious on-the-record interviews. Would Romney’s plan provide assistance for everybody, or just those who pay taxes? How much would it cost? These are basic, fundamental questions and nobody from the Romney campaign has answered them. (Those of us writing about it have been left to read between the lines of carefully worded campaign blog posts and columns by well-connected conservative writers.)
It’s not an isolated example. Here we are, a day left in the campaign, and Romney still hasn’t told us how he’d offset the cost of his massive tax cut—except to say he’d do it through deductions without raising taxes on the middle class, an approach that independent analysts have said is mathematically impossible. Romney still hasn't provided details on his "five-point plan" to boost the economy, even though his central claim as a candidate is that he'd do more to improve growth. Romney still hasn’t told us which programs he’d cut in order to cap non-defense federal spending at 16 percent, even though independent analysts have suggested doing so would require draconian cuts few Americans would find acceptable. Even in the spotlight of a nationally televised debate, when confronted with these questions, Romney wouldn't answer.
Romney’s distortions and evasions have been so frequent, and so central to his campaign, that the blogger Steve Benen created a weekly feature on them called “Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity.” Last week, in its 41st edition, included 33 separate items. And it’s not just liberal writers who have noticed. Paul Ryan’s infamous convention speech was something of a watershed moment: Confronted with multiple and obvious distortions, the media reacted by reporting that Ryan was not telling the truth.
And yet Romney and his advisers haven’t stopped or apologized. On the contrary, they have all but declared that deception is their plan, reveling in the disapproval of elites. Back in the spring, one top Romney advisor foretold the moment when, after the primaries, the campaign would “etch-a-sketch” Romney’s persona from conservative to moderate. Then, in the late summer, another Romney advisor declared that "we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers."
The message couldn’t be clearer. Romney and his advisers don’t care about consistency, transparency, or candor. And they think they can get away with it. Are they right? We’ll find out on Tuesday night.
FOR PROGRESSIVES, I KNOW, getting riled up to vote against Romney is easy. But getting riled up to vote for Obama? For many, that’s still difficult. And I suppose I can understand why. The 2008 election was about ending a dreary, dreadful period of conservative governance. It was also about electing the first African-American president—and imagining the agenda he might enact. Four years later, the Bush Administration is a distant memory, an African-American is already the president, and the agenda Obama enacted feels inadequate. He didn’t do enough to boost the economy. He didn’t get a public option in health care reform. He didn’t enact cap-and-trade.
The shortcomings are real enough. And some, like the failure to do more for homeowners and the ambivalence towards Wall Street, seem to reflect clear misjudgments from the president. But the ledger has another half. The Recovery Act saved the country from a depression, saved millions of jobs, and laid the groundwork for a green economy. Financial reform, however weak, established new rules for lending and banking that, at the very least, should protect consumers from fraud. The auto industry rescue saved a vital piece of American manufacturing, while sparing the Midwest from outright economic catastrophe. Health care reform, notwithstanding its many flaws, will make insurance available to nearly everybody, make coverage more secure for those who have it, and begin the hard work of making medical care less expensive. It's also what Senator Tom Harkin memorably called a "starter home," with a good foundation and room for expansion—in other words, a policy approach that progressives can improve and expand over time. The same is true for Obama's other reforms, just as it was for signature liberal policies like Social Security when they first became law. And the best ideas Obama has put forward for the next four years, like the American Jobs Act, adopt the same approach he took in the last four.
By any reasonable standard, no president since LBJ accomplished as much on domestic policy. And LBJ didn’t have to contend with the same political obstacles. The public wasn’t as skeptical of government. Conservatives didn’t have (quite) as much power to obstruct. Obama made plenty of mistakes, about policy and about tactics, but he also fought the good fight—and, more important, he did so when it was difficult. He didn’t let the auto industry die, even though the polls said it would be unpopular. He didn’t let Republicans roll him on food stamps on Medicaid, even though it would have helped him achieve an elusive spending deal. He didn’t drop health care reform—not in January, 2009, when advisers warned him it would be difficult; not in August, 2009, when the Tea Party protests exploded; and not in January, 2010, when Scott Brown’s election made enactment seem impossible.
Obama staked his political life on these gambits. With this election, progressives can help decide whether he made the right bet. And if they don't? The damage to progressive causes could last a long time.
Change in American politics is difficult, because the constitution divides power among three branches of government. Progressive change is almost impossible, because the big money in politics typically lines up on the other side. If progressives don’t reward Obama for what the positions he took—if they don’t turn out for him on election day—future reformers will take notice. And when they confront similar situations, when the polls start to look bad and advisers tell them to back off an important goal, they won't push forward defiantly. They'll buckle.
But the most important reason for progressive to go to the polls on Tuesday is the simplest. They need to make sure the accomplishments of the first term stay on the books, because the lives of real people depend upon them. I’m thinking of people like Caleb and Stacy Lihn.
You may remember the Lihns from the Democratic convention, when Stacy spoke about their baby girl, Zoe, who was born with a congenital heart defect. Zoe has had two open surgeries, with a third likely to follow. Someday she might need a transplant. Her medical bills are well into six figures and were on their way to exhausting a lifetime cap on benefits, a common feature even among relatively generous insurance policies, until the Affordable Care Act became law. Eventually the Lihns got a letter, from their insurance company, stating that the lifetime cap was gone. “Like so many moms with sick children,” Stacy said, “I shed tears and I could breathe easier knowing we have that net below us to catch us if we fall.”
There are literally tens of millions of Americans whose well-being is as dependent upon Tuesday’s vote as the Lihns is. They are the students who need government assistance paying for college. They are the working moms and dads who need food stamps to put dinner on the table. They are senior citizens, and their families, who need Medicaid to pay for long-term care. They are the janitors who need a union and the miners who need a safe workplace, the parents that need training for a new job and the kids who need a better public school.
Hope and change? In 2008, it was an aspiration. In 2012, it is a work in progress. On Tuesday, we'll find out if the progress continues.
The campaign is down to its last twenty-four hours. And if you’re reading this blog item, you’ve probably made up your mind about whether you support President Obama or Mitt Romney. But you might not feel good about that choice. And you might be wondering whether the hassle of voting is worth it. If so, I can give you one reason why you should.
This could be the most important election of your lifetime.
The stakes of an election aren’t always apparent in advance. In 2000, most so-called experts spent the campaign marveling at the lack of difference between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Then Bush got elected and enacted his tax cuts. Then 9/11 happened. And then the U.S. invaded Iraq. We can’t rerun history. But if the Palm Beach County ballots had looked a little different and Gore had become president, the eight years that followed probably would have unfolded differently.
This time around, nobody should be confused. The differences between Obama and Romney are not ambiguous—not even now, after Romney’s post-convention attempt to act like the more moderate, more sensible Republican many of us once thought he could be. The gap between what Obama and Romney believe—and between what each man proposes to do—is larger than it has been for any election I can remember.
Think about some numbers.
Eight to ten million. That’s the number of people who would lose eligibility for food stamps under the Ryan budget, which Romney praised and pledged to sign. Keep in mind that, in the wake of welfare reform and the decline of cash assistance from the federal government, food stamps have become the primary source of support for low-income people. At least a quarter would be children.
Two hundred thousand and 10 million. That’s the number of kids who’d lose Head Start and the number of college students who’d see Pell Grants decline by $1000, according to official administration estimates, under the Ryan budget that Romney effectively endorsed—unless Romney decided to spare those programs, forcing deeper cuts to other programs.
Fifty-two million. That’s how many people could lose health insurance if Romney repeals Obamacare and enacts his plan for Medicaid. In case it’s not self-evident, that’s a lot of people—about one-sixth of the entire American population.
Eight-hundred billion. That's the ten-year cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes over $250,000. It's a tax cut that benefits only the wealthy; offsetting the cost is a big reason why so many other cuts would have to take place.
The numbers are not precise; each depends on a set of assumptions about policy and, in some cases, the economy. But they give you some idea of the magnitude of the choice voters are facing. And the numbers alone don’t tell the full story.
For more than a hundred years, this country has been trying to manage and tame capitalism, not to undermine it but to save it, by protecting people from its caprice and excess. This crusade advanced in three great waves, pushed along by three of our greatest presidents—Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. The changes Romney has proposed would touch, and undermine, accomplishments that trace back to each of these eras. They would alter the social contract, as it has existed for generations, touching the middle class just as surely as they would touch the poor.
But could Romney actually accomplish all of that? Would he even try? Smart, thoughtful conservatives like David Brooks, Ross Douthat, and David Frum have suggested the answer to both questions is "no," grasping at leaks from Romney advisers and pointing to Romney’s record in Massachusetts, where he worked with a Democratic legislature. Broadly speaking, they share Romney's goals of smaller government and more conservative social policies, while dissenting from more extreme Republican positions. I can understand why they would want to believe Romney would govern in a similar way—and I would like to believe they are right.
But the simplest explanation for Romney’s behavior, the only one fully consistent with his persona as governor of Massachusetts and his persona(s) as candidate for the presidency, is that he will respond to the political pressure around him. And for the next four years, it's safe to assume, the pressure around him would come more from the right than the left. House Republicans have already voted for the Ryan budget. They have no incentive not to do so again. The Senate might resist, particularly if Democrats maintain control, but, at best, they’d succeed in moderating the conservative agenda. And an agenda only half as bold as the one I described above would still have dramatic effects. It would still be, to use Romney's own term, "severely conservative."
BUT ON TUESDAY VOTERS won’t only be determining the future of the welfare state—or reproductive rights or any of other vital policy areas in which Obama and Romney have such stark differences. They’ll also be rendering a verdict about the importance of candor in presidential campaigns.
We shouldn’t be naïve about this. All politicians say misleading things. And that includes President Obama. He never misses a chance to quote the headline on Romney’s infamous op-ed, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” even though Romney didn’t write the headline and Obama himself ended up putting the companies through bankruptcy. Obama’s ads have attacked Romney for outsourcing at Bain, even though much of the outsourcing took place after Romney left—and the long-term, macroeconomic effects of outsourcing are a matter of legitimate debate. Obama routinely attacks Romney for threatening to leave seniors at the mercy of insurance companies, even though Obama’s own health care plan relies heavily on private insurance to provide coverage to non-elderly Americans.
But even when Obama’s claims have gotten specific facts wrong, they have told a larger story about policy that’s true. Romney really did say he opposed direct government loans to get Chrysler and General Motors through bankruptcy. Without those loans, the companies, and the entire auto industry, likely would have collapsed. Romney may not have been in charge of all the outsourcing deals in Obama’s ads, but he was among the early developers of the practice at Bain—and, as president, Romney would enact policies that reward outsourcing without adequate protection or help for those who lose their jobs. And, yes, Obamacare relies on private insurance to deliver coverage to non-elderly Americans. But Obamcare regulates those plans extensively, giving Americans security they don’t have now. Romney’s Medicare plan, by contrast, would likely undermine the security seniors have, by taking away the kind of security only a government program (or an extraordinarily well regulated system of private insurance) can provide.
Romney, meanwhile, has been saying things that are just flatly untrue, specifically and generally—whether it’s taking quotations (like Obama’s “you didn’t build that”) grotesquely out of context or making claims about policy (like suggesting Obama got rid of work requirements in welfare) that independent fact-checkers found to be clearly false. Romney has blamed Obama for running high deficits in the present, even though they are more the result of Bush-era policies, and suggested the auto industry rescue encouraged Chrysler and GM to outsource jobs to China, even though both companies are creating jobs here and the rescue itself probably saved a million American jobs. Romney has said he has a plan to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions, even though repeal of the Affordable Care Act would eliminate the guarantee of comprehensive benefits that will begin in 2014, and he has demonized Obama for taking $716 billion from Medicare, even though Ryan's own budget—which Romney praised and said he would sign—did the same. Romney has told a newspaper that "no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda," even though he'd said previously he would sign Republican bills restricting abortion rights and has pledged, repeatedly, to appoint conservative judges and justices who would, among other things, support overruling Roe v. Wade.
The dishonesty is of a piece with his cavalier attitude towards providing actual policy proposals that outside analysts can evaluate. This is the fourth presidential campaign I’ve covered as a regular policy reporter and I can’t recall a major candidate, from either party, who provided less information or answered fewer questions than Romney has. John McCain’s 2008 campaign didn’t have a reputation for policy heft. But when McCain put out his health care proposal, it was an actual plan with real numbers. And he dispatched his advisers to talk about it. Liberals like me didin't love the plan itself, but at least we had a common frame of reference for debating it. Romney, by contrast, refuses to answer questions and, with only a few exceptions, has not even made advisers available for serious on-the-record interviews. Would Romney’s plan provide assistance for everybody, or just those who pay taxes? How much would it cost? These are basic, fundamental questions and nobody from the Romney campaign has answered them. (Those of us writing about it have been left to read between the lines of carefully worded campaign blog posts and columns by well-connected conservative writers.)
It’s not an isolated example. Here we are, a day left in the campaign, and Romney still hasn’t told us how he’d offset the cost of his massive tax cut—except to say he’d do it through deductions without raising taxes on the middle class, an approach that independent analysts have said is mathematically impossible. Romney still hasn't provided details on his "five-point plan" to boost the economy, even though his central claim as a candidate is that he'd do more to improve growth. Romney still hasn’t told us which programs he’d cut in order to cap non-defense federal spending at 16 percent, even though independent analysts have suggested doing so would require draconian cuts few Americans would find acceptable. Even in the spotlight of a nationally televised debate, when confronted with these questions, Romney wouldn't answer.
Romney’s distortions and evasions have been so frequent, and so central to his campaign, that the blogger Steve Benen created a weekly feature on them called “Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity.” Last week, in its 41st edition, included 33 separate items. And it’s not just liberal writers who have noticed. Paul Ryan’s infamous convention speech was something of a watershed moment: Confronted with multiple and obvious distortions, the media reacted by reporting that Ryan was not telling the truth.
And yet Romney and his advisers haven’t stopped or apologized. On the contrary, they have all but declared that deception is their plan, reveling in the disapproval of elites. Back in the spring, one top Romney advisor foretold the moment when, after the primaries, the campaign would “etch-a-sketch” Romney’s persona from conservative to moderate. Then, in the late summer, another Romney advisor declared that "we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers."
The message couldn’t be clearer. Romney and his advisers don’t care about consistency, transparency, or candor. And they think they can get away with it. Are they right? We’ll find out on Tuesday night.
FOR PROGRESSIVES, I KNOW, getting riled up to vote against Romney is easy. But getting riled up to vote for Obama? For many, that’s still difficult. And I suppose I can understand why. The 2008 election was about ending a dreary, dreadful period of conservative governance. It was also about electing the first African-American president—and imagining the agenda he might enact. Four years later, the Bush Administration is a distant memory, an African-American is already the president, and the agenda Obama enacted feels inadequate. He didn’t do enough to boost the economy. He didn’t get a public option in health care reform. He didn’t enact cap-and-trade.
The shortcomings are real enough. And some, like the failure to do more for homeowners and the ambivalence towards Wall Street, seem to reflect clear misjudgments from the president. But the ledger has another half. The Recovery Act saved the country from a depression, saved millions of jobs, and laid the groundwork for a green economy. Financial reform, however weak, established new rules for lending and banking that, at the very least, should protect consumers from fraud. The auto industry rescue saved a vital piece of American manufacturing, while sparing the Midwest from outright economic catastrophe. Health care reform, notwithstanding its many flaws, will make insurance available to nearly everybody, make coverage more secure for those who have it, and begin the hard work of making medical care less expensive. It's also what Senator Tom Harkin memorably called a "starter home," with a good foundation and room for expansion—in other words, a policy approach that progressives can improve and expand over time. The same is true for Obama's other reforms, just as it was for signature liberal policies like Social Security when they first became law. And the best ideas Obama has put forward for the next four years, like the American Jobs Act, adopt the same approach he took in the last four.
By any reasonable standard, no president since LBJ accomplished as much on domestic policy. And LBJ didn’t have to contend with the same political obstacles. The public wasn’t as skeptical of government. Conservatives didn’t have (quite) as much power to obstruct. Obama made plenty of mistakes, about policy and about tactics, but he also fought the good fight—and, more important, he did so when it was difficult. He didn’t let the auto industry die, even though the polls said it would be unpopular. He didn’t let Republicans roll him on food stamps on Medicaid, even though it would have helped him achieve an elusive spending deal. He didn’t drop health care reform—not in January, 2009, when advisers warned him it would be difficult; not in August, 2009, when the Tea Party protests exploded; and not in January, 2010, when Scott Brown’s election made enactment seem impossible.
Obama staked his political life on these gambits. With this election, progressives can help decide whether he made the right bet. And if they don't? The damage to progressive causes could last a long time.
Change in American politics is difficult, because the constitution divides power among three branches of government. Progressive change is almost impossible, because the big money in politics typically lines up on the other side. If progressives don’t reward Obama for what the positions he took—if they don’t turn out for him on election day—future reformers will take notice. And when they confront similar situations, when the polls start to look bad and advisers tell them to back off an important goal, they won't push forward defiantly. They'll buckle.
But the most important reason for progressive to go to the polls on Tuesday is the simplest. They need to make sure the accomplishments of the first term stay on the books, because the lives of real people depend upon them. I’m thinking of people like Caleb and Stacy Lihn.
You may remember the Lihns from the Democratic convention, when Stacy spoke about their baby girl, Zoe, who was born with a congenital heart defect. Zoe has had two open surgeries, with a third likely to follow. Someday she might need a transplant. Her medical bills are well into six figures and were on their way to exhausting a lifetime cap on benefits, a common feature even among relatively generous insurance policies, until the Affordable Care Act became law. Eventually the Lihns got a letter, from their insurance company, stating that the lifetime cap was gone. “Like so many moms with sick children,” Stacy said, “I shed tears and I could breathe easier knowing we have that net below us to catch us if we fall.”
There are literally tens of millions of Americans whose well-being is as dependent upon Tuesday’s vote as the Lihns is. They are the students who need government assistance paying for college. They are the working moms and dads who need food stamps to put dinner on the table. They are senior citizens, and their families, who need Medicaid to pay for long-term care. They are the janitors who need a union and the miners who need a safe workplace, the parents that need training for a new job and the kids who need a better public school.
Hope and change? In 2008, it was an aspiration. In 2012, it is a work in progress. On Tuesday, we'll find out if the progress continues.
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