For me, the 2008 political election represents something unique, something that comes along only several times in a century: not a political re-alignment (1896, 1932, 1980), but the herald of a new coalition congealing together in preparation for a future watershed election. That this nascent grouping managed to succeed in an election is highly atypical; it may be the first time in American politics since Andrew Jackson won the popular vote against John Quincy Adams in 1824 (but
not the election) that this has occurred. The Obama coalition is new, different from either the solidly reliable New Deal coalition of decades past or the half-Dixiecrat, half-soccer mom coalition that got Bill Clinton (but not Democrats) elected in 1992.
What are the component elements of this coalition? Certainly not the same as before; we lost the white vote fairly substantially (though we did win it by a greater margin than any Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976), and the white working class vote by a high percentage - the unions are no longer a reliably Democratic electorate, and really haven't been since Nixon began crusading on backlash politics in the 60's. We drew in the youth vote in larger numbers than any candidate since McGovern - those being the
only voting bloc he won - and many of these young and first-time voters, though not all, can be counted on in the future to turn out for Democrats. Latinos also swept us to victory in states like Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, and the Democratic Party has these to thank for opening up the mountain west for the first time in decades. If the party of William Jennings Bryan (loathe though I am to mention his name) can begin to compete on a regular basis, we can perform like his adversary McKinley and completely lock the deep south out of national politics. This, however, will require a slight shift in our politics, but none which are insufferable:
* Social libertarianism, as opposed to social liberalism, needs to become the order of the day. Many conservative voters in the west lack the race-based resentments of their southern counterparts, and only reject the Democratic Party out of a distaste for what they consider to be its governmental paternalism. Sarah Palin appealed fiercely to these people - it is why the Republicans nominated her - for her 'outdoorsy' attitudes. If, in our social policy, we combine a respect for and enforcement of minority rights with logical extrapolation from these positions (de-emphasizing and even opposing gun control would help greatly here), we stand a chance to solidify Obama's gain in the west. We would do well to adopt the rhetoric of freedom and individual liberty, and co-opt it from the evangelical populists in the south who no longer really believe in it anyway.
* We must begin to think seriously about nominating more minorities to a national ticket - chiefly, Mexican-Americans and other Latinos. For I am willing to bet that if we do not, then the Republicans will, and possibly in the form of Mel Martinez. We must not forget that, aside from immigration issues, Latinos tend towards social conservatism, and gave Bush over 40% of their votes in 2004, the highest showing for a Republican in this grouping in decades. I may very well be castigated for it here, but I believe that it would be strategically advantageous for Obama to run alongside a Latino Democrat in the 2012 general election - he will not alienate any more white ethnic voters than he already does, and he will make tremendous gains among this demographic should he put one on the ticket.
* Much of the Republican success in the western United States began with the so-called 'Sagebrush Rebellion' -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagebrush_Rebellion - when local industrial interests united under the Republican banner in an effort to procure private ownership of government land to develop it, despoiling the local environment and truncating its natural resource base in the process. To counteract this trend, I think it would be both economically and politically advantageous for the incoming Obama Administration to center the nation's alternative energy efforts in this region, building solar and wind farms in the vast empty quarters of the region, and, yes, nuclear power plants where environmentally feasible. This could go a long way in shoring up the Democratic vote in these regions.
If the Democratic Party can secure the western vote and retain their eastern and midwestern bases, they can effectively ignore the south for years to come.
What say you? Is my strategy feasible, or do you disagree?
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