January 17: Day 75 of the 2012 Campaign

I realize that I pay more attention to this blog that most people do, having both to write it and to read it. But there are compensations, e.g., I get to read the comments. This post is about one particular comment, which was made to a post a long time ago and which I have just discovered. It is also about the question of what the 2010 election meant and what it is coming to mean.

So, a little background first. The maker of the comment is Bo DiMuccio, a friend of mine from my Pennsylvania days and a "friend since high school" of my son, Dan. Bo has a Ph. D. in political science from a very prestigious university (even though it is in California, which is not the way to an Oregonian's heart)and when he read my post about the likely effects of the 2010 election, he raised some questions I have not heard anyone else raise.

My goals for this post include: a) thanking Bo for raising the questions, b) summarizing the questions as I understand them, c) responding to the questions as best I can, and d) opening the forum for other readers who, I know for certain, have political views and may, just speculating here, be looking for a place to post them. I want to extend my remarks on only one of those goals. When I say I want to respond, I don't want to be heard to say I want to support or oppose them. I don't want to do either of those. I want to extend the implications so we can all look at them and see how we feel about them.

When I was in grad school (in that state just north of California) I either knew a guy or heard a story about someone who made decisions by flipping a coin. He wasn't simpleminded; quite the contrary, he was quite sophisticated. He knew that he had more definite feelings about what to do than he was able to access directly. So he would toss the coin and call "heads or tails," as everyone does, and then pay attention particularly to how he felt about the outcome. He might have thought he was fine with either option, but he noticed that when it came up "tails," he was disappointed. That surprised him. He hadn't known that he really preferred the "heads" option. But now that he knows it, there is no reason not to choose it.

My response to Bo's questions is like that. I'm going to toss my coin in this post and then see how I feel about it. I hope I will also discover how Bo feels about it and possibly how others of you feel about it as well.

So what did Bo actually say? He said he thought my explanation--that the same discontents that drove Democrats and Independents to the polls in 2008 to elect a bunch of Democrats drove Republicans and Independents to the polls in 2010 to elect a bunch of Republicans--was extreme. He wondered whether I really thought there was NO repudiation of the first Obama biennium. I think it's a good question and it isn't a question that is being asked among the people I talk to routinely, so I value it quite a bit.

I think the best short answer I can give the question is "No," but if I had a few more words under the word cap, I think I'd say, "Maybe a little." First, there is no question at all that a lot of people who were enthusiastic about Obama the candidate, full of promises and charisma, were not so enthusiastic about Obama the president, working to fulfill those promises and playing second fiddle to a lot of Democratic Senators with even less charisma than Joe Biden. In short, Obama the President really didn't turn so many people on. So far, I'd call that a reaction to the change in style.

I don't think I'd say that the 2010 vote was a repudiation of the work of the first two years. People really want a healthcare law. The polling on that was overwhelming. They aren't sure they like this particular healthcare law and a lot of people were turned off by the spectacle of Senate venality. My favorite is Senator Ben Nelson's agreement to vote for the healthcare bill provided all the states except his had to pay for it. Go Ben!

I think a lot of people are unhappy that the economy has begun so very slowly to turn around. You can tell that partly because only 11% of the people thought Obama was Muslim when he was inaugurated and by the end of this election cycle, 18% thought he was Muslim. What else, I say, trying to hit just the right tone of irony, would account for the lackluster performance of the economy?

It is also true that the Republicans scared the crap out of a lot of voters by threatening the imminent collapse of the Republic if the healthcare bill passed. The worst of those, I think, was the transformation of Earl Blumenauer's (D- Portland)proposal for early end-of-life discussions with physicians into "death panels."

I think people began to worry that Obama was going "too far," even though "too far" was arrived at by adding up the federal actions taken in a substantial variety of settings and many of which would have had to be done by a Republican administration as well. If the loss of early enthusiasm and the rising wariness about our prospects could be called "repudiation," then I'd have to agree with Bo that there was some. And there will be more under all scenarios whatsoever--except a rapid acceleration of the economy leading to an unprecedented pace of hiring. And that's not going to happen.

The model underlying Bo's question is a beauty. Of all the things he said, I am most pleased by that. What part simple off-year turnout and what part policy repudiation? Thanks, Bo. Stay tuned. I'm still working on it.