The Times They Are A-Changing

Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.

“I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.” Thus wrote President-elect Barak Obama in Audacity of Hope.

Two days ago, we witnessed the truth of the first sentence, as people of “vastly different political stripes” came together to elect the most liberal, least experienced, and least known President in the history of the nation. Over the next four years, we will discover how true the second sentence is.

The post-mortem of this election will go on for months, if not years. Volumes will be written about why Obama won and why McCain lost – which voting blocs went which way and why, what campaign mistakes were made by the losing side, and what brilliant strategies contributed to the win. There is no question that Obama ran a brilliant campaign. He is, without a doubt, the most charismatic speaker to hit the political scene in a very long time. He can talk about “hope,” and “change,” and “yes, we can,” and “we can get there,” and create an enormous amount of enthusiasm in his audience without ever specifying exactly what we’re hoping for, what we’re going to change and how, what it is that we can do, and where it is that we’re going.

In this year of the perfect political storm, with the economic meltdown being the final, insurmountable wave that sank the Republican ship, a sufficiently large number of people simply didn’t care about those questions. It was enough that he was handsome, articulate, and charismatic. It was enough that he was different from anyone else in the race. They were like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland who sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Of course he could attend Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church for twenty years, but not know about his radical anti-American views. Of course he can lower taxes on all but the wealthiest 5%, introduce billions in new government programs, and reduce the federal deficit at the same time. Of course we can achieve energy independence without increasing our own domestic oil production. "Yes, we can!"

None of it mattered in the end. The press was all too happy to let him skate on the inherent contradictions of his message, and those who had already made an emotional decision to support the young, handsome, charismatic, articulate Senator who made them feel good when he spoke simply weren’t interested in digging out the facts for themselves. They rejected the known quantity of John McCain for the "blank screen" of Barak Obama on which they could project their desire that he would somehow magically make things all better. Talk about an audacity of hope!

So now, we will find out the hard way just what kind of President he will be. I've often said that once the ballots are all counted, the American people pretty much get the government they deserve. Thankfully, it looks like the Democrats will not have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, so there will still be a need for compromise in the Obama administration. If Obama is smart enough to surround himself with smart, experienced people – people who will explain to him that America must be governed from the center, not from either political extreme – and if he listens to them, he may have a successful presidency. I hope he is successful, because, for better or for worse, he’s now my President, and for the sake of the country I have to wish him success – because an unsuccessful presidency could cause enormous damage that could take a generation or more to undo.

Thanks for listening.