Political Realignment or Carter?
Is Barack Obama the next Jimmy Carter? A question that has popped in my mind, and I’m not alone.
In the case presented here, it’s a highly partisan question… Democrats talking amongst themselves. Unlike at times the question “Is Barack Obama the next John F Kennedy”, which is one with two meanings, the darker one seeping more into a particular vein in the public conciousness and requiring extra secret service protection, the more pleasant one something to do with Inspirational young leaders — which does have some partisan angle to it I suppose.
To ask “Next Carter?” is to also ask “or The Next Roosevelt?”, in the blatantly partisan “on the verge of a new Democratic Majority” — which is that the Democrats hope for the latter and fear the former. They’re hoping for a “realignment”, buoyed from out of 2006 and running into 2008. Which, I suppose everyone thought was the case in 1974-1976, but alas that was an interlude between the aborted realignment of 1968 and the cemented one of 1980.
The wikipedia article, if you also include the “talk” section for Political Realignments, is fairly useful a staple in showing the limitations and usefulness of the concept. Case in point: 1968?1980? Or, the one that happened in 1896, wherein a 28 out of 36 year Republican presidential dominance was replaced with… a 28 out of 36 year Republican presidential dominance. One that included the “Progressive” and Expansionist Theodore Roosevelt and the Conservative and “Isolationist” Calvin Coolidge. And if you think of it as an epoch changing election that switched political subjects — 1876 is the official date for the more roaming “End of Reconstruction”, whereby the “Solid South” snapped into place by the boots of the “Redeemers” — aka Klansmen. And that brings about the “Realignment” which occured in some manner between that date and … 1994, which makes the whole term useless.
Regarding that period between 1932 and 1968 — useful enough. Sustainable enough that a Democratic Congress existed between 1930 (more or less, albeit very, very, very weakly) and 1994 — sort of buttressed off of the election cycles of 1930 – 1936 and 1958 -1964. And that’s sort of key: those are the elections whose shadow brought to fruition the enactment of the New Deal legislation, your good friend the “Great Society”, and Civil Rights. And once those things were passed or enacted, political alliances largely splintered — the Dixiecrats and the blacks would have to go their separate way, right?
So, I suppose you go from a Congressional victory in 2006 for the Democrats, to a ridiculous Congressional map in 2008, and the balloon is inflated enough to sustain the slight Democratic Congressional buffer zone for when the Republicans get back to winning. Or, maybe the Republicans find another Reagan — or for that matter Nixon — and Obama is the next Carter — who is probably best viewed as a president who experienced previous presidents’ whirlwind.
Of course, the comments section includes someone suggesting that 2004 was a magical realignment year, which was something picked up by none other than Karl Rove. And suggests that party hacks talk like party hacks, and Obama is going to settle in as the next Obama… failed president or successful president or muddled president.