Bush Supporters' Aftermath Thread IV

But, if he can handle the temporary discomfort, a new and happy world awaits.

Quote:

The results also suggest that a significant political realignment may be at hand.

Better hold it on talk of realignment.

Read this one, I liked it. Jonathan Raban on Barak Obama.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/08/obama-race-democrats-us-elections

Thanks McT...it is a very good piece.

November 08, 2008, 0:00 a.m.

Triumph of Temperament, Not Policy
Law professor vs fighter pilot.

By Michael Barone

The Democrats’ victory " and Barack Obama’s " was overdetermined and underdelivered.

Overdetermined: Huge majorities believe the country is on the wrong track and disapprove of George W. Bush; voters prefer generic Democrats over Republicans by 10 percent or more. But Obama beat John McCain by (at this writing) just 52 to 46 percent, running 2 points ahead of Bush in 2004 and 1 point behind George H.W. Bush in 1988. Democrats fell short of the 60 votes they need to stop filibusters in the Senate and made more modest gains in the House than the leading prognosticators expected.

To be sure, Obama ran a skillful campaign. Just as he capitalized on Hillary Clinton’s weakness in party caucuses (she won more votes and delegates than he did in primaries), so in the general election he used his unprecedented ability to raise money by breaking his promise to take federal funds and by disabling the address verification system that would have screened out many illegal credit card contributions.

Such actions by a Republican, as Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz has argued, would have gotten scathing coverage from mainstream media. Not so for Obama. His campaign outspent McCain’s vastly on ads and organization in target states. That probably switched 1 percent or 2 percent of the vote in five key states " Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Indiana " which meant that Obama won a solid 364 electoral votes rather than a Bush-like thin majority of 278. All of which shows a certain ruthlessness. But ruthlessness is a useful quality for a president (see Roosevelt, Franklin; Reagan, Ronald).

Do Obama and the Democrats have a mandate? Obama got a larger percentage than any other Democrat since 1964, and Democrats have congressional majorities comparable to those in Bill Clinton’s first two years. But their policies of protectionism and greater taxes on high earners seem ill-suited to a country facing a recession (see Hoover, Herbert). The public fisc does not appear to be overflowing enough to finance refundable tax credits, government health insurance or universal pre-kindergarten.

The half of the electorate that doesn’t remember the 1970s may be more open to big government than those of us who do. But “open to” does not equal “demand.” The decisive shift of public opinion came when the financial crisis hit. McCain approached it like a fighter pilot, denouncing Wall Street, suspending his campaign, threatening to skip the first debate. Obama approached it like a law professor, cool and detached. Voters preferred law professor to fighter pilot. This was a triumph of temperament, not policy.

Are we seeing a political realignment? Certainly some of the ingredients are there. As presidents, Reagan and Clinton attracted young voters to their parties; G.W. Bush signally failed to do so. Obama, before he has started governing, has inspired fervent, even quasi-religious devotion from the young and has brought millions of them into the electorate.

Judging from the polls and from my first look at the election returns, I believe he has attracted to his party many affluent, highly educated voters in metro areas running south from Philadelphia to Charlotte, N.C., and Tampa, Fla., and west to Denver and the Pacific. Democrats directed much rhetoric toward the white working class, but failed to win most of its votes. Instead, they assembled what you might call a top-and-bottom coalition: affluent suburbs plus blacks in central cities.

The Democrats have always been a party of unlikely coalitions, capable of expansion when their leaders perform well, susceptible to disarray when they falter. The roughhewn John Murtha helps bring the designer-dressed Nancy Pelosi to power; the African-American quasi-academic Obama inspires millions in the highest- and lowest-income ZIP codes. And, as McCain handsomely acknowledged, there is something genuinely thrilling in the spectacle of Americans electing a black president.

But presidents can build majority coalitions only through performance (see Bush, G.W.). As president, Obama faces daunting problems. How to fix a financial system no one seems to fully understand. How to defeat terrorist enemies sheltered in the territory of our putative ally Pakistan. How to live up to the high expectations so visible in the cheering and tearful faces in those crowds in Berlin, Invesco Field and Grant Park " after a victory that was thrilling, but not quite what the Democrats hoped for.

Now here's a good article ... and Barone compares Obama to Roosevelt and Reagan:

Quote:

November 08, 2008, 0:00 a.m.
[..] Do Obama and the Democrats have a mandate? Obama got a larger percentage than any other Democrat since 1964, and Democrats have congressional majorities comparable to those in Bill Clinton’s first two years. But their policies of protectionism and greater taxes on high earners seem ill-suited to a country facing a recession (see Hoover, Herbert).

The decisive shift of public opinion came when the financial crisis hit. [..] This was a triumph of temperament, not policy.

Judging from the polls and from my first look at the election returns, I believe he has attracted to his party many affluent, highly educated voters in metro areas running south from Philadelphia to Charlotte, N.C., and Tampa, Fla., and west to Denver and the Pacific. Democrats directed much rhetoric toward the white working class, but failed to win most of its votes. Instead, they assembled what you might call a top-and-bottom coalition: affluent suburbs plus blacks in central cities.

a victory that was thrilling, but not quite what the Democrats hoped for.

It is certainly true that Obama attracted many new affluent, highly educated voters to the Democratic ticket. It is not true, however, that he assembled "a top-and-bottom coalition" - however much such a coalition would play into the stereotypes of Democratic voters conservatives hold dear.

In fact, contrary to what you might think reading Barone, Obama did better among low-income white voters than among middle- and high-income whites. He got 47% of the vote of whites with less than a $50,000 income, and 43% of those making more than that.

What does that mean for the purported failure, per Barone, of the Democrats to appeal to the white working class?

Have now heard from George. He is on furlough from A2K and so the eye-poking will have to wait.

Bush is less popular than Nixon in final days
By POLITICO STAFF | 11/10/08 1:11 PM EST Text Size:

With 71 days left in office, President Bush is less popular than President Nixon was at the time of his resignation, according to data released Monday by CNN and Opinion Research Corporation.

The new poll, taken Thursday through Sunday, showed an approval rating of 24 percent and a disapproval rating of 76 percent.

CNN released a chart showing presidential "disapproval" ratings in CNN or Gallup polls for each president dating back to Harry Truman. This list shows the percentage of Americans who disapproved of the way each president was handling his job.

Do you think it was a bad idea to promote home ownership? Or just a bad idea to promote home ownership for minorities? That was the central thesis of his speech. Certainly few at the time -- without the benefit of Monday morning quarterbacking -- would have thought so.

Where Was Sen. Dodd?
Playing the Blame Game On Fannie and Freddie

By Al Hubbard and Noam Neusner
Friday, September 12, 2008; A15

Taxpayers face a tab of as much as $200 billion for a government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the formerly semi-autonomous mortgage finance clearinghouses. And Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has the gall to ask in a Bloomberg Television interview: "I have a lot of questions about where was the administration over the last eight years."

We will save the senator some trouble. Here is what we saw firsthand at the White House from late 2002 through 2007: Starting in 2002, White House and Treasury Department economic policy staffers, with support from then-Chief of Staff Andy Card, began to press for meaningful reforms of Fannie, Freddie and other government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs).

The crux of their concern was this: Investors believed that the GSEs were government-backed, so shouldn't the GSEs also be subject to meaningful government supervision?

This was not the first time a White House had tried to confront this issue. During the Clinton years, Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Treasury official Gary Gensler both spoke out on the issue of Fannie and Freddie's investment portfolios, which had already begun to resemble hedge funds with risky holdings. Nor were others silent: As chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan regularly warned about the risks posed by Fannie and Freddie's holdings.

President Bush was receptive to reform. He withheld nominees for Fannie and Freddie's boards -- a presidential privilege. While it would have been valuable politically to use such positions to reward supporters, the president put good policy above good politics.

In subsequent years, officials at Treasury and the Council of Economic Advisers (especially Chairmen Greg Mankiw and Harvey Rosen) pressed for the following: Requiring Fannie and Freddie to submit to regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission; to adopt financial accounting standards; to follow bank standards for capital requirements; to shrink their portfolios of assets from risky levels; and empowering regulators such as the Office of Federal Housing Oversight to monitor the firms.

The administration did not accept half-measures. In 2005, Republican Mike Oxley, then chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, brought up a reform bill (H.R. 1461), and Fannie and Freddie's lobbyists set out to weaken it. The bill was rendered so toothless that Card called Oxley the night before markup and promised to oppose it. Oxley pulled the bill instead.

During this period, Sen. Richard Shelby led a small group of legislators favoring reform, including fellow Republican Sens. John Sununu, Chuck Hagel and Elizabeth Dole. Meanwhile, Dodd -- who along with Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the top four recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions from 1988 to 2008 -- actively opposed such measures and further weakened existing regulation.

The president's budget proposals reflected the nature of the challenge. Note the following passage from the 2005 budget: Fannie, Freddie and other GSEs "are highly leveraged, holding much less capital in relation to their assets than similarly sized financial institutions. . . . A misjudgment or unexpected economic event could quickly deplete this capital, potentially making it difficult for a GSE to meet its debt obligations. Given the very large size of each enterprise, even a small mistake by a GSE could have consequences throughout the economy."

That passage was published in February 2004. Dodd can find it on Page 82 of the budget's Analytical Perspectives.

The administration not only identified the problem, it also recommended a solution. In June 2004, then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Samuel Bodman said: "We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision."

Bush got involved in the effort personally, speaking out for the cause of reform: "Congress needs to pass legislation strengthening the independent regulator of government-sponsored enterprises like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, so we can keep them focused on the mission to expand home ownership," he said in December. He even mentioned GSE reform in this year's State of the Union address.

How did Fannie and Freddie counter such efforts? They flooded Washington with lobbying dollars, doled out tens of thousands in political contributions and put offices in key congressional districts. Not surprisingly, these efforts worked. Leaders in Congress did not just balk at proposals to rein in Fannie and Freddie. They mocked the proposals as unserious and unnecessary.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said the following on Sept. 11, 2003: "We see entities that are fundamentally sound financially. . . . And even if there were a problem, the federal government doesn't bail them out."

Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), later that year: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

As recently as last summer, when housing prices had clearly peaked and the mortgage market had started to seize up, Dodd called on Bush to "immediately reconsider his ill-advised" reform proposals. Frank, now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said that the president's suggestion for a strong, independent regulator of Fannie and Freddie was "inane."

Sen. Dodd wonders what the Bush administration did to address the risks of Fannie and Freddie. Now, he knows. The real question is: Where was he?

Al Hubbard was director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president from 2005 to 2007. Noam Neusner was a speechwriter and communications director in the Bush administration from 2002 to 2005.