Wow, this election is astounding in all ways.
Since virtually everyone is talking about the historic meaning of Obama as the first African-American president, I am not going to dwell on that specific historical marker and instead note a couple of other significant changes that are worth considering.
The complete transformation of Virginia into a Democratic state is a stunning repudiation of nasty and incompetent politics. This is the culmination of a long series of events. Gilmore will finally be put to pasture as not just because he is a hack, but because he was part of a brand of fiscally irresponsible Republicanism that first rocked the Commonwealth and then, in different but just as irresponsible hands, the federal government. Warner's win for the Senate seat marks the final embrace of centrist competence coupled with a nuanced sense of social responsibility and economic development. (Webb's win over Allen two years ago had a similar meaning, coupled with firm but responsible resolve in foreign policy). Adding in Nye's victory in Virginia Beach demonstrates a similar move, as voters reject the old Republican model that Thelma Drake demonstrated so clearly by bringing Dick Cheney to town to help campaign.
Another significant switch is the (most welcome) end of the baby boomer dominance of national politics. It is possible that in four years Hillary Clinton will attempt to resurrect the corpse of this political era, but the massive public shift to Obama as a repudiation of the Bush administration and the political style he represented (which was forged in the 1960s cultural wars) that McCain-Palin attempted to use to win is important in many ways. Perhaps the biggest is that the current political era might actually focus on the current political and economic problems facing the nation rather than the divisions of the civil rights and Vietnam eras that have continued to shape political discourse for far too long.
This is a historically significant victory of secularism in American politics. Obama is not areligious, of course, but he is not an overtly religious emoter like Clinton, and he is not a theocrat like G.W. Bush or Palin. Indeed, Palin's rise and fall as the candidate of the American theocracy is a sharp sign that the vast majority of the country rejects this approach. Bush's win in 2004 was often attributed to the Christian Right voters motivated in Ohio and elsewhere, but such religious voters have not sustained themselves as a political force.
Related to this is the public rejection of the McCarthyite tactics highlighted by Palin, Elizabeth Dole, who accused Kay Hagan of being anti-god, and by Republican operatives like Nancy Pfotenhauer, who spoke of "Real Virginia," anti-Americanism, socialism, and other fatuous senselessness. This divisive and stupid language had the obvious effect of convincing voters to reject Republicanism in huge numbers. The rewriting of the electoral map to put Virginia, North Carolina, and the "heartland" of the U.S. in the Midwest should be interpreted as a clear sign that the intolerant climate fostered over the last eight years and unleashed in the last campaign is not actually representative of what the United States thinks, wants, or supports.
Since virtually everyone is talking about the historic meaning of Obama as the first African-American president, I am not going to dwell on that specific historical marker and instead note a couple of other significant changes that are worth considering.
The complete transformation of Virginia into a Democratic state is a stunning repudiation of nasty and incompetent politics. This is the culmination of a long series of events. Gilmore will finally be put to pasture as not just because he is a hack, but because he was part of a brand of fiscally irresponsible Republicanism that first rocked the Commonwealth and then, in different but just as irresponsible hands, the federal government. Warner's win for the Senate seat marks the final embrace of centrist competence coupled with a nuanced sense of social responsibility and economic development. (Webb's win over Allen two years ago had a similar meaning, coupled with firm but responsible resolve in foreign policy). Adding in Nye's victory in Virginia Beach demonstrates a similar move, as voters reject the old Republican model that Thelma Drake demonstrated so clearly by bringing Dick Cheney to town to help campaign.
Another significant switch is the (most welcome) end of the baby boomer dominance of national politics. It is possible that in four years Hillary Clinton will attempt to resurrect the corpse of this political era, but the massive public shift to Obama as a repudiation of the Bush administration and the political style he represented (which was forged in the 1960s cultural wars) that McCain-Palin attempted to use to win is important in many ways. Perhaps the biggest is that the current political era might actually focus on the current political and economic problems facing the nation rather than the divisions of the civil rights and Vietnam eras that have continued to shape political discourse for far too long.
This is a historically significant victory of secularism in American politics. Obama is not areligious, of course, but he is not an overtly religious emoter like Clinton, and he is not a theocrat like G.W. Bush or Palin. Indeed, Palin's rise and fall as the candidate of the American theocracy is a sharp sign that the vast majority of the country rejects this approach. Bush's win in 2004 was often attributed to the Christian Right voters motivated in Ohio and elsewhere, but such religious voters have not sustained themselves as a political force.
Related to this is the public rejection of the McCarthyite tactics highlighted by Palin, Elizabeth Dole, who accused Kay Hagan of being anti-god, and by Republican operatives like Nancy Pfotenhauer, who spoke of "Real Virginia," anti-Americanism, socialism, and other fatuous senselessness. This divisive and stupid language had the obvious effect of convincing voters to reject Republicanism in huge numbers. The rewriting of the electoral map to put Virginia, North Carolina, and the "heartland" of the U.S. in the Midwest should be interpreted as a clear sign that the intolerant climate fostered over the last eight years and unleashed in the last campaign is not actually representative of what the United States thinks, wants, or supports.
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