Bankrupt Republicans and What Else?

This article by John Harwood is very interesting in that it explodes some myths about the size of turnout as being crucial to an Obama victory. The bankruptcy of an ideological conservatism and Republicanism, often accompanied by the corruption, doomed the McCain campaign. He had no message to share. For those that wonder if an Obama presidency is transformative, there is an examination of North Carolina that is instructive. From Harold Ickes, you get a Clinton camp caution as to whether or not an Obama presidency is transformative. With Barack’s notion of change from below, there is even prediction that South Carolina could be the next state to turn blue. RGN

November 10, 2008
THE CAUCUS
Democrats Have G.O.P. to Thank, at Least in Part
By JOHN HARWOOD

The encomiums greeting Barack Obama’s victory last week presented a reverse image of the darts for John Kerry after his 2004 defeat. But Kerry campaign veterans could not help noticing a surprise in the returns.

In the battleground state of Ohio, where Mr. Kerry lost the presidency to George W. Bush, the 2.74 million votes he received almost precisely matched Mr. Obama’s 2008 total. Mr. Obama won because John McCain received 300,000 fewer votes than Mr. Bush did.

That points to a cautionary reminder for Mr. Obama and his team: the election turned partly on what they did right, but also on what Republicans did wrong. And there is no assurance that Democrats will confront a similarly star-crossed opposition in elections to come.

“We should be confident, but not cocky,” said Donald Fowler of South Carolina, a former national Democratic Party chairman. “Several things that worked against them in this campaign could change quickly.”

Among them, Mr. Fowler said of the deeply unpopular Republican incumbent in the White House, “Bush is going to disappear.”

Mr. Obama, a senator from Illinois, inarguably fashioned an impressive victory for any Democrat, much less the first black nominee in American history. His 52 percent share of the popular vote exceeded that of any Democratic candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 — and topped Ronald Reagan’s 1980 majority against Jimmy Carter. With breakthroughs in the South, Midwest and Mountain West, Mr. Obama captured at least nine states carried by Mr. Bush in 2004, with the outcome in Missouri still unclear.

Yet the record-shattering turnout that some observers predicted appears not to have materialized. Curtis Gans of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate projects that, when outstanding votes are tallied, the number of Americans casting ballots will fall short of the 130-million floor predicted by the McCain and Obama campaigns.

Mr. Gans ascribes that shortfall in part to diminished Republican fervor — a “demobilization” that created political openings for Mr. Obama’s disciplined campaign organization. The reasons for that begin with Mr. Bush’s political infirmity, but they do not end there.

Lacking a deep wellspring of support among conservative party regulars, Mr. McCain courted them to win the Republican nomination — in the process weakening his once-formidable standing among independents. He sought to appeal to both factions with his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, and saw most Americans deem her unqualified for the presidency.

The campaign’s unalloyed appeals to cultural populism drove well-educated, high-income voters to the Democratic ticket. Meantime, disarray among Congressional Republicans over the financial bailout package in September compounded injuries Republicans suffered throughout Mr. Bush’s second term to their reputation for pragmatism and competence.

Democrats “benefited greatly from tapping into voters’ frustrations about a very badly damaged Republican brand,” said Mr. McCain’s political director, Mike DuHaime, a former Republican National Committee official.

That created new campaign dynamics for the post-civil rights era in which Deep South states became the Republicans’ redoubt. Instead of distancing themselves from their national ticket, as Democrats have customarily done, the North Carolina candidate for governor Bev Perdue and the Senate candidate Kay Hagan linked themselves to Mr. Obama.

All three won in the Tar Heel state, and Democrats gained a House seat for the second consecutive election. After controlling a majority of North Carolina House seats at the outset of Mr. Bush’s term, Republicans now hold just 5 of 13.

“Without Bush and Cheney and Rove, the Democrats couldn’t have done what they did” in 2006 or 2008, observed David Rohde, a political scientist at Duke University. In his first television advertisement for the Dec. 2 Senate runoff in Georgia with the Republican incumbent, Saxby Chambliss, the Democratic Senate candidate, Jim Martin, promises to “work with Barack Obama to get our economy moving again.”

Democratic veterans warn against assuming the party can sustain such successes against a reinvigorated Republican opposition. “The country remains very evenly divided,” said Harold Ickes, a former deputy chief of staff in the Clinton administration. “The lease on the office space is likely very short.”

Indeed, Mr. Clinton’s experience highlights the risks. The misadventures of his first two White House years helped pave the way for the Republican Revolution led by Newt Gingrich that ousted Democrats from control of Congress.

After four years in the Senate, Mr. Obama may move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with closer ties to the Democratic Congress than Mr. Clinton brought from the Arkansas governor’s mansion. If he gives higher priority than Mr. Clinton did to party-building below the presidential level, Mr. Fowler said, the political breakthroughs may continue.

“If we improve as much between now and 2012 as we did between 2004 and 2008,” Mr. Fowler predicted, “we can win South Carolina.”