Last night at about 9:30pm I switched off my TV, fired up the computer, and got back to my incredibly more interesting game of Spore (fyi - best game ever). The inevitable Obama victory had been declared and I had no real interest in seeing pundits preen for the cameras.
Still, after an hour or so of fierce interspecies warfare (damn those neighboring predators!) I was sucked back in to the world of politics via my obsession with blogs. Just when I thought I was out, I go looking for more punishment. In reading the various reactions the following thoughts swam through my head:
1) Shit.
2) There are two types of Obamacons. One that I think has a place in the conservative movement going forward and the other I think has so abandoned conservative principles as to make their return to the conservative fold almost impossible.
The first is typified by Ross Douthat, Megan McArdle and the crew over at C11, from Ross:
Like many conservative writers, my good opinion of Barack Obama diminished somewhat over the course of the campaign. Part of this was the inevitable hardening of the partisan arteries that takes place during a Presidential year, but part of it was that Obama’s particular gifts - his combination of charisma and thoughtfulness, and his ability to project sympathy for positions he does not himself hold - created unreasonable initial expectations for the kind of actual compromises he might make with conservatives. You start with the fact that he seems to understand your side of the argument, and the next thing you know you’re imagining scenarios in which he moves the Democratic Party to the center on abortion, or comes out against race-based affirmative action, or offers some other grand, conciliatory gesture that you’d like to see American liberalism make.
None of this was ever terribly plausible, of course, given Obama’s actual record - and it was especially implausible in a year when running as a “generic Democrat” has such obvious upsides. Obama moved to the center on issues where Democrats more or less have to be move to the center - making hawkish gestures on foreign policy, promising middle-class tax cuts, etc. - but there was never any way that he was going to live up to the hopes of the various conservatives who said favorable things about him in the early going (unless they engaged in outright self-deception, as some did). Unlike previous Democratic nominees, Obama was operating in an environment where his side had the upper hand on almost every issue, and there was actually more risk than reward involved in straying too far off the liberal reservation. And the campaign he ran reflected that reality, rather than living up to its initial promise to transcend the left-right divide.
Then there are those who post videos like this (unfortunately we no longer link to his site):
The sheer joy certain “conservative” pundits took in abandoning deep rooted conservative principles to support Obama betrayed, I believe, their utter unconservative nature. I am willing to believe that after the disastrous incompetence of the last eight years of Republican government that a principled conservative could, reluctantly, come to support Obama. I cannot believe that someone who claims to want conservative government would throw their support to Obama with such emotional ferocity so as to overlook the very liberal policies that will be enacted by an Obama administration.
3) This election has highlighted the lie that is Andrew Sullivan’s “Conservatism of Doubt.” Andrew abandoned all “doubt” and any pretence of conservatism in his emotional support of Obama and his disgraceful attacks on Sarah Palin. Andrew is perhaps the worst kind of intellectual - the preening pundit ruled almost entirely by his emotions. His commentary was insightful when it was confined to longform journalism but blogging has destroyed his perspective.
4) We will hear in the coming weeks that this election represents a Reaganesque shift towards the left. A watershed moment in liberal politics that will usher in a generation of liberal policies. I disagree. I think more than anything this election shows that what the majority of Americans want in their government is competence. The governing Republicans managed to tarnish the reputation of conservatism as a competent steward of our nation. Americans want a government that will keeps things steady, and in a choice between the calm, even keeled campaign run by Obama and the frenetic, often times lost, campaign of McCain the choice was easy.
5) California voted against Prop 4: Parental Notification for Abortions and for Prop 8: Banning Gay Marriage. The end result is the exact opposite of what I would want the law to be. Still I’m glad that federalism is still alive in this country and that states can still decide certain issues for themselves. The fact that Californians were able to overturn a law imposed on them by judicial fiat gives me hope for my home state. The fact that they can’t seem to grasp that young women need more support in life changing decisions than an underpaid doctor and Planned Parenthood saddens me.
6) Thank GOD Franken looks to be losing.
7) Thank GOD Dole lost – that ad was shameful and represented everything I despise about the modern Republican Party.
8) What the hell is wrong with Alaska? Stevens? Are you kidding me?
9) Its looking like we won’t have to face a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. Hopefully this will curb some of the more excessively liberal policies an Obama/Pelosi/Reed triumvirate will try to enact.
10) Politics aside, it truly is wonderful to see a black man be elected President. Although I am not naive enough to think that this one event will heal all racial divides or that race hucksters like Jesse Jackson will disapear, it is still an example of the greatness of American society that race is no longer an impediment to the most powerful position in the world.
Jamie posted this at 12:19 PM EST on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 as Conservatism, Politics, DON'T PANIC