Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

Barack Obama is already the President of the United States.

The notion that America will not vote for Obama because the country is fundamentally conservative is patently absurd. America hasn’t voted based on issues in years; it always votes on emotion, and whoever captures the emotion of the day is guaranteed to go over in the general election.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy captured the emotion of the times—an emotion that demanded ”change” even though the country as a whole wasn’t suffering. Eight years later, Richard Nixon seized upon America’s desire for stability in the midst of social chaos and international confusion. Nixon maintained the emotional advantage in his 1972 landslide re-election win.

Four years later, Jimmy Carter exploited America’s desire for decency in post-Watergate Washington. After one term, he lost the emotional advantage to Ronald Reagan, who connected with America’s emotional desire for competence in the White House. Reagan’s emotional appeals—“Morning in America,” etc.—played a major role in his own landslide re-election in 1984.

Moderate George H. W. Bush appealed to those who desired a less partisan nation, defeating a Democrat opponent who seemed to represent hatred of all things Republican. Four years later, Bill Clinton expressed concern for those filled with economic anxiety—and won the White House as a result. The (naïve) belief that things were just fine and dandy in 1996 contributed to Clintons’ easy win over Bob Dole that year.

Emotion led to Al Gore’s defeat in 2000: evangelical voters, disturbed by the behavior of Gore’s 1990s political tag-team partner, rushed to the polls to support George W. Bush, a self-professed “different kind of Republican” whose campaign was a hybrid of Reagan 1980 and Bush 1988. Four years later, America’s desire for security in the face of terrorist threats kept Bush in office.

He who wins the emotions of the day wins the White House. This, of course, is why Obama cannot be defeated.

Obama is not appealing to the intellect of his supporters; rather, he is offering them reassurance that he will heal their emotional wounds. Average Americans are anxious these days—about the war, about the economy, about health care, about the environment—and Obama is promising to remedy these social flaws.

Obama is saying nothing in his speeches—but he doesn’t need to. He has already secured a psychological victory, and that’s all he really needs.

Once a candidate has convinced Americans that he is a good man, he cannot be conquered. Reagan’s enemies threw millions of punches at him, and not one of those punches connected thanks to his emotional connection to the American people. Clinton  successfully beat back his critics through popular appeals (especially during the Lewinsky scandal); Bush did the same for most of the 2000s. When America falls in love, it doesn’t like to fall out, unless there are extraordinary circumstances (Watergate for Nixon, the hostage crisis for Carter, the prolonged Iraq War for Bush).

The senator from Illinois has made millions of Americans believe that he is a fundamentally decent human being. That’s the most important goal of any campaign, and he has achieved it. Americans in all fifty states now seem to believe that he is a man of superior character, regal bearing, humble spirit. He has become what every mother wants their son to be, what every wife wants their husband to be, what every son wants his father to be.

He could very well fail as President, but Americans clearly want to give him the chance to fail. Despite his clear liberalism, he has already won the trust contest. Americans disillusioned (rightly or wrongly) by Bush want a President who they can depend on, whose word is his bond, whose commitment to the people is legitimate. Nothing can stop these Americans from maintaining their negative opinion of Bush….and nothing can stop these Americans from maintaining a positive opinion of Obama.

Is Obama selling the people a bill of goods? Yes—but so many Americans want to make the purchase! They want to see if the claims of hope can be made real. They want to know if the impossible can be made possible.

Reality may hit these people, but it will hit after Obama becomes President. Buyer’s remorse will be as inevitable then as his victory is now. Yes, pro-Obama Americans are operating on emotion—but one cannot be surprised by that, as emotion-based voting is something of a time-honored tradition in this country. That tradition will allow Obama to make history.

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Maybe, just maybe, an overwhelming Barack Obama victory in November could wake conservatives up and force them to confront some harsh truths about where the country really is ideologically.

It has long been my contention that Paul Weyrich’s 1999 observation about America not being a fundamentally conservative country was so true as to be beyond debate. There is no way one can look at some of the depressing political and social trends of the past two decades and conclude that the country is still grounded in “traditional moral values.”

Yet there are those conservatives who insist, contrary to all evidence, that America is still a nation grounded in faith and family, that the liberalism seemingly running rampant throughout America is merely imposed upon America by cultural polluters in Hollywood, academia and the mainstream press. They still regard America as one nation under God.

America is one nation under God…in theory.

In truth, we are one nation under covetousness, one nation under comfort, one nation under ignorance. If Sen. Obama wins by an overwhelming margin, it will prove wrong those conservatives who still believe America is deeply committed to right-wing principles.

Obama is the perfect politician for this generation. His platform is standard-issue progressive boilerplate—a less “aggressive” foreign policy, redistribution of wealth through taxation of “the rich”, expansion of the federal government’s power, etc. Yet, the reality is that an increasing number of Americans seemingly want bigger and bigger government to provide them comfort, ostensibly despise those who have higher incomes, and apparently disapprove of a “confrontational” approach to foreign policy.

Conservatives who still think America is on the right are living in a fictional reality. Average Americans place comfort and “feeling good” over morality, virtue, decency, self-reliance, independence and even patriotism. How else does one explain a majority of Americans being unwilling to throw President Clinton out of office even after he clearly perjured himself? How else does one explain America’s willingness to return the House and Senate to antiwar Democrats only five years after 9/11?

While I’d like to see John McCain win this fall, there’s a part of me that wants to see a landslide Obama win, in the hopes that it will force certain conservatives to realize that the movement has to work a hell of a lot harder to move the country back to the right. Quite frankly, conservatives haven’t been as aggressive as progressives in attempting to influence the country’s direction.

Conservatives often talk about the value of hard work, but the reality is that the hardest workers in the American political business are now on the left. They’ve seized upon the Internet to advance their left-wing vision. They have rapid-response teams that will condemn a Bush idea almost as soon as it’s developed. The left is obsessed with its political goals; the right, sadly, is not.

Progressives are hungry for victory because they’re still embarrassed by 2000 and 2004. Perhaps a 2008 Obama victory will make the right just as hungry, just as sharp, just as determined. It certainly needs to be.

Perhaps an Obama win will force the right to market itself effectively again. Reagan certainly knew how to market conservatism: his speeches were intended to make average Americans—even average Americans who were lifelong Democrats—understand the importance, necessity and righteousness of the concepts that fueled his vision. After listening to the “Great Communicator”, one recognized why it was wise to support limited government, lower taxes, a strong national defense and the protection of the unborn.

Today, it’s impossible for the average person to understand what the Republican Party stands for: right now, there is no one figure who can successfully market conservative principles. However, in Obama, the Democrats have found someone who can easily market progressive principles. After listening to an Obama speech, one has an almost overwhelming urge to support higher taxes, government-rationed health care, and a Pollyanna approach to our enemies.

While there will never be another Reagan, it may take an Obama victory to force the GOP to find Reagan’s true heir. In the early-2000s, some conservatives argued that President Bush would prove to be Reagan’s legitimate successor, but that didn’t exactly work out. Had Bush been as skilled at marketing conservatism as “Ronaldus Magnus”, perhaps the country would have thought twice before falling head-over-heels in love with Obama.

It looks like Obama is the star quarterback who will lead the Democrat team to victory in the fall. Hopefully, his victory will compel the conservative movement to find a new franchise player.

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Mitt Romney endorses John McCain. More from the New York Times and Human Events.

Jessica Peck Corry on whether Barack Obama can move us beyond race.

UPDATE: More from Duncan Currie.

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