Month: November 2008

A Yorkshire terrier named Loki plays with a ball through the fallen leaves at the Olympia Park in the southern German city of Munich on November 2, 2008. By Joerg Koch/AFP/Getty Images.

Jeffrey Hart, one of the intellectual founders of modern American conservatism, founder of the Dartmouth Review, and a private source of much intellectual solace these past few years, makes it all explicit:

Republican President George W. Bush has not been a conservative at all, either in domestic policy or in foreign policy. He invaded Iraq on the basis of abstract theory, the very thing Burke warned against. Bush aimed to turn Iraq into a democracy, “a beacon of liberty in the Middle East,” as he explained in a radio address in April 2006.

I do not recall any “conservative” publication mentioning those now memorable words “Sunni,” “Shia,” or “Kurds.” Burke would have been appalled at the blindness to history and to social facts that characterized the writing of those so-called conservatives.

Obama did understand.

In his now famous 2002 speech, while he was still a state senator in Illinois, he said: “I know that a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, of undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without international support will fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than the best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I’m not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”

Burke would have agreed entirely, and admired the cogency of so few words. And one thing I know is that both Nixon and Reagan would have agreed. Both were prudential and successful conservatives. But all the organs of the conservative movement followed Bush over the cliff—as did John McCain.

A last look back.

A reader writes:

I voted yesterday at the Montgomery County, Ohio, board of elections building in downtown Dayton and it will an event I will remember for a long time.  It took 3.5 hours of waiting in three separate areas until my number was called.  I was number 23XX and the queue was moving in groups of ten. When my number was called and I was sitting at the desk of one of the poll volunteers I had a few minutes to ask her impressions. She said that the day before some 3,000 people came out to vote but she was shocked by Saturday’s turnout.  She went on to say that the Red Cross has donated cots so the polling volunteers have something to sleep on, so I guess they’re staying overnight in the building.

Then to top it off, when I get to a makeshift booth I was next to a blind guy who kept asking where the lever was to make his selection.  The lady with him explained that there is no lever and then he responded that this is the first time he has voted in 30 years.  By the time I finished, I met back with my wife.  She said the election officials were handing out numbers in the 8000 range.

On Tuesday, I’ll be opening up the blog all day to you, the readers, until the polls close. Call it: The View From Your Election. Send me anecdotes, stories, and photos that capture what your election day was like. Keep them short if you can, and no photos in polling places. But let’s have a record of what the day will be like, in all its varieties.

I have a pre-election essay in the Sunday Times of London today that contemplates the enormous expectations a president Obama would face if he is elected president next Tuesday. Money quote:

The reason for the wave of optimism behind Obama – just look at the massive crowds across the country this past year – is almost entirely due to the profound national demoralisation of the recent past. Iraq and Afghanistan, Katrina and the financial meltdown, torture and religious extremism: all these have led many Americans to the brink of despair about their own country. A historically unprecedented number of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track and view Obama as the vehicle to repair it.

Among the most enthusiastic Obama supporters, there are tinges of hero worship and aspirations beyond anything any human being can deliver. And the hostility born of dashed expectations is always the worst. People expecting a messiah will at some point be forced to realise they have merely elected a president.

No president will be able to wave the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan away with some kind of magic wand – there are few good options in either conflict, and many potential perils. No president will be able to end a recession with deep roots or alter market confidence in a single speech.

No president can change the Earth’s climate in four or eight years. And when Obama’s limitations emerge, as they will, there is a danger that the powerful expectations of his young base may turn to tears. This is always the risk with political “movements”. They conjure up utopias that can simply never happen.

Between the roiling and increasingly bitter rapids on the right and the left, can Obama maintain a steady course? We cannot know, of course. But the evidence of the past year is encouraging.

What has been truly amazing is the preternatural calm and moderation Obama has shown throughout this volatile and emotional campaign. He has managed to get to the brink of the White House by beating some of the most formidable political machines in America – the Clintons and the Roves – without intensifying the conflict or polarising the country himself.

He seems able to absorb these currents without further disturbing them. Of course, this is much harder in office than in opposition. In office, you have to make decisions that delineate winners and losers rather than make speeches onto which everyone can project their interests. But Obama seems unafraid of his enemies, undeterred by his rivals, and able somehow to stay healthy and cheerful.

His temperamental edge is complemented by his organisational and managerial skills. The most seasoned political observers have been struck by the meticulous professionalism of his campaign; and there has never been a fundraising machine as innovative or as successful as his in the history of American politics.

The whole thing here.

(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty.)

A strong new ad by the No On 8 campaign:

Pennsylvania:

Chuck Todd explains the math:

David Frum makes his case:

I do not fear Barack Obama. I even rather like him. I certainly feel I have much more in common with him than I do with John McCain. To lead this country, though, I prefer the man who has seen more and suffered more and felt more. For all his faults, it is John McCain who is the more universal man.

Frum’s 2005 book was called "The Right Man: An Inside Account Of The White House." It was about Bush.

After eight years of a president whose fiscal policies have made Ted Kennedy look like Herbert Hoover, we are reduced to this:

Since September 30, the day the national debt hit the $10-trillion mark for the first time, the government has run up over $500 billion in new debt. That’s more than the federal deficit for the entire 2008 fiscal year, which ended September 30. And it’s the most rapid increase in the national debt ever: over half a trillion dollars in less than a month – 23 days to be exact.

On the day President Bush was sworn in, the debt stood at $5.7 trillion. Less than eight years later, it’s within days of having swelled $5 trillion dollars on his watch – an embarrassing milestone for a president who considers himself a conservative and an advocate of fiscal discipline.

The CBO estimates that McCain’s abandonment of his own record of fiscal discipline to make the Bush-Cheney tax cuts permanent would mean a bigger increase in the debt over the next four years. In terms of adding debt, McCain promises to be the real heir to Bush and borrow more money than an opponent regularly derided as the most liberal Senator.

If you care about balanced budgets and reducing debt, you have a fundamental duty to punish the current GOP. That includes McCain and Palin.