Interesting how the votes shook out. Democrats elected or re-elected in large number. But simultaneously, many ballot initiatives which would generally previously have been called "typical left-wing fare" struck down: prop 8 in California (no gay marriage); same in Florida (by huge margin); Arkansas now prevents gay couples from adopting. So, is this a left-wing re-centering? A re-assertion of "family values" and "social conservatism" by the American Black voter? New signs of our increasingly conservative view of social mores? Just a mish-mash that doesn't mean anything?
Actually, my best analysis is this: the election doesn't "mean" much about Obama or his policies. It means people are ready to hate George W. Bush, and blame him (and the unitarian-ists, primarily Rove Cheny) for all our current woes. It was a referendum on not-Bush.
It certainly means something. In the least it tells party strategists what issues to stay away from in close races.
Obama is recentering the party.
The republicans in general have brought this on themselves. Note I said "republicans" as in - the people in the party. Not just one person in particular.
It was an anti Bush vote more than anything else. People weren't voting one party or the other, they were voting anti Bush. Even in very conservative Houston, there was massive one party vote. Only a few Republicans survived the putsch. In local races, there was a million votes cast, but the DA race was decided by less than a thousand votes.
The Florida vote on gay marriage was no surprise (lots of conservatives and old folks). The same was true for the gay adoption measure in Arkansas (a very conservative state). The Arizona ban on gay marriage wasn't a shocker, as there is a conservative streak in the state.... but I thought it might fail because western conservatives usually have a libertarian streak.
The California vote, however, stunned me. Why? Well, the fact is that gay marriage has been legal there for several months-- and obviously, society has not crumbled because of it. Also, it was trailing in the polls pretty much up to the night of the election, from what I can tell.
From what analysis I've read, it seems (ironically?) that Obama being on the ballot for President may have led to the California anti-gay-marriage measure passing. Black and Latino Californians came to the polls in record numbers to vote for Obama, but those tradtionally Democratic group are often quite conservative socially, in part for religious reasons. (A lot of African Americans come from the southern baptist traditions, while most Latinos are Roman Catholics).
Although I'm saddened by the overturning of gay marriage in CA as a step backwards, I think it *could* be a good thing for the Democratic party to realize that its future success depends on it standing for something other than defending women's right to abortion and being on the pro-tolerance side of the so called culture wars (of which gay marriage is just a facet). Afte rall, that really is what the Democrats have been about for the past 20 years. The Democrats, if they want this to be something more than a one-off fluke, need to offer the AMerican people a broader, populist vision of the American dream being realizable-- a vision of hope, and a forward-looking vision of change for all Americans.... and they need to be sure that vision is something that can include-- no, not just 'include', but can IMPASSION those Americans religious and social views on things like homosexuality and abortion may be quite different from the liberal base of the party.
Well, Book Guy, it's kind of complex. These gay marriage bans may have all passed. But in Michigan propositions permitting medicinal marijuana and passing funding for stem cell research passed. And pro-life amendments in Colorado and South Dakota were voted down. So you could say that it's just discrimination against gays -- still outright bigotry if you ask me, but this is only a few states, and may not be indicative of the beliefs of the country as a whole.
Was Obama's election just a referendum against Bush? I'm torn. On the one hand it must be; I can't believe we would endorse the last eight years by voting for McCain. But on the other hand, I have to also believe that if the Democratic nominee was white, he or she would have a much easier time of overcoming any prejudice in winning the presidency. Voters knew that repudiating Bush meant they were going to take that last step and elect a black man president.
Book Guy, I could be wrong, but the symbolism of this historic moment in American history (and it is, as much as the Obama haters on the Internet denounce it -- damn bigots) isn't impractical; people around the WORLD were cheering Obama's victory. That has to stand for something momentous, no? My fear, though, is that some people voted for Obama with the enthusiasm we saw Tuesday night, while others who voted for him did so only practically or as a rebuke to Republicans. I fear that we may not be as "united" as many of us right now want to think.
But you raise a great question. Americans are a slippery, inconsistent lot.
I think the main point is that we are still a moderately right of center country, and that most Americans are getting more hostile to politicians. I think more than anything else the last two elections have been referendums on the party in power, rightly or wrongly viewed as the Republicans (obviously rightly in 2006 as far as the national government goes, arguable in 2008 since Democrats have held the legislature for several years now). In any case Obama was smart and did what Clinton did, ran as a centrist. As far as the ballot measures I've made this argument for years now, people will not accept social change dictated from a court. Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, so I guess that whole abortion argument is over now, right? In California especially the public had spoken clearly prior to this election. In the 2000 primary election, Proposition 22 was adopted by a 60-40 margin. That meant that the California law explicitly defined the union of a man and a woman as the only valid or recognizable form of marriage in the State of California. Yet the courts still felt it within their power to invalidate the statute and quite literally re-define marriage. What you saw was a reaction to a political (I include judges in this when they legislate outcomes from the bench) class that no longer sees itself bound by the rule of the people through democratic means.
In the long run this is probably a good thing. I've often argued that it does the country no good for the Democrats to be pulled so far to the left and to engage in a demonization campaign against people who simply don't agree with their philosophy. Now the Democrats will actually have to take responsibility for running the government, and I think that the decisions they make will be nowhere near the rhetoric we've heard for the last few years. This is probably going to be good for the country in the long run. I do think however we're going to get some very bad short term decisions, and a few very bad long term decisions along with the re-centering of the Democrats.
Well, I mostly agree, except that Americans don't seem to understand, that what appellate courts do -- 100% of the time; by definition -- is identify and define laws, and essentially "legislate from the bench." It's their job. They so seldom EVER "interpret law" on a single case and let it go. Instead, they DEFINE, for future generations, the rules to fill in the gaps where the legislatures were incompetent.
The idea that a "judge shouldn't legislate from the bench" is like the idea that a "Senator shouldn't make up legislation from the floor." With a few modifications to the specifics, and a few vocabulary changes, that sentence is exactly what they DO. What they're SUPPOSED to do.
BG, there is a difference between interpretation, based on text, precedent, common law, and legislative intent, and wholesale invention. The intent of Prop 22 could not have been more clear. Now prop 8 is part of the state constitution, and not subject to judicial review (assuming my understanding of California's process is correct).
As for incompetent legislators I agree, as politicians they feel they can evade responsibility by being vague enough to require litigation to define exactly what the mess they wrote means, thus ceding their power to the courts, in which case why are we paying them?
Yeah, why ARE we paying the legislators. I just went through three weeks of hell-to-pay attempts at interpretation (by which canon?) of the RICO statute. In the end I (and the rest of my Criminal Law class) agreed that it's am ess and should be repealed, stricken, or just plain deleted somehow. Last day, the prof pulls out a magazine interview in which the esteemed Alan Dershowitz refers to it as "a burp." He may be all washed up about certain points of overly liberal politics, but I have to concede that he knows more about law than I do. So, I'm going to use his highly technical term:
Prop 8 was a burp. An emotional outburst, not a carefully considered piece of legislation.
This of course addresses in no way whether the courts "should" legislate, or "merely interpret," and what the distinctions between the two are. I don't disagree, AN, that there's a MAJOR distinction between tasks appropriate to legilatures as opposed to courts. I just wanted to point out, that most American citizens "don't get it" when they say they don't "want courts to legislate." Sure, their point may be accurate, to some highly technical interpretation of the term "legislate," but that's not the term they're thinking of. What they want, is for courts to just "get out of" any business of interpreting law; this desire is preposterous in any common-law jurisdiction.
So, for example, when a lower court "interprets" that Roe v. Wade denies access to voluntary abortion in (for example) Mississippi, the anti-abortion people say the court isn't "legislating" but rather "interpreting." Then, a year later, when a similar question arises in a more liberal jurisdiction, the same people object to how a court is "legislating" if it decides that Roe v. Wade allows access to medically necessary abortion. They use different terms ("legislating," implying inappropriately; versus "interpreting" appropriately) depending on whether the political upshot favors or opposes them. Yet, as in my example, most of the acts are identical and not mutually exculsive, IF you understand the proper role of the courts.
Deciding about laws from the bench? How can this possibly be a problem?
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Guess that's why parody and MisterGay are so quiet.
Obama is recentering the party.
The republicans in general have brought this on themselves. Note I said "republicans" as in - the people in the party. Not just one person in particular.
The California vote, however, stunned me. Why? Well, the fact is that gay marriage has been legal there for several months-- and obviously, society has not crumbled because of it. Also, it was trailing in the polls pretty much up to the night of the election, from what I can tell.
From what analysis I've read, it seems (ironically?) that Obama being on the ballot for President may have led to the California anti-gay-marriage measure passing. Black and Latino Californians came to the polls in record numbers to vote for Obama, but those tradtionally Democratic group are often quite conservative socially, in part for religious reasons. (A lot of African Americans come from the southern baptist traditions, while most Latinos are Roman Catholics).
Although I'm saddened by the overturning of gay marriage in CA as a step backwards, I think it *could* be a good thing for the Democratic party to realize that its future success depends on it standing for something other than defending women's right to abortion and being on the pro-tolerance side of the so called culture wars (of which gay marriage is just a facet). Afte rall, that really is what the Democrats have been about for the past 20 years. The Democrats, if they want this to be something more than a one-off fluke, need to offer the AMerican people a broader, populist vision of the American dream being realizable-- a vision of hope, and a forward-looking vision of change for all Americans.... and they need to be sure that vision is something that can include-- no, not just 'include', but can IMPASSION those Americans religious and social views on things like homosexuality and abortion may be quite different from the liberal base of the party.
Was Obama's election just a referendum against Bush? I'm torn. On the one hand it must be; I can't believe we would endorse the last eight years by voting for McCain. But on the other hand, I have to also believe that if the Democratic nominee was white, he or she would have a much easier time of overcoming any prejudice in winning the presidency. Voters knew that repudiating Bush meant they were going to take that last step and elect a black man president.
Book Guy, I could be wrong, but the symbolism of this historic moment in American history (and it is, as much as the Obama haters on the Internet denounce it -- damn bigots) isn't impractical; people around the WORLD were cheering Obama's victory. That has to stand for something momentous, no? My fear, though, is that some people voted for Obama with the enthusiasm we saw Tuesday night, while others who voted for him did so only practically or as a rebuke to Republicans. I fear that we may not be as "united" as many of us right now want to think.
But you raise a great question. Americans are a slippery, inconsistent lot.
In the long run this is probably a good thing. I've often argued that it does the country no good for the Democrats to be pulled so far to the left and to engage in a demonization campaign against people who simply don't agree with their philosophy. Now the Democrats will actually have to take responsibility for running the government, and I think that the decisions they make will be nowhere near the rhetoric we've heard for the last few years. This is probably going to be good for the country in the long run. I do think however we're going to get some very bad short term decisions, and a few very bad long term decisions along with the re-centering of the Democrats.
The idea that a "judge shouldn't legislate from the bench" is like the idea that a "Senator shouldn't make up legislation from the floor." With a few modifications to the specifics, and a few vocabulary changes, that sentence is exactly what they DO. What they're SUPPOSED to do.
As for incompetent legislators I agree, as politicians they feel they can evade responsibility by being vague enough to require litigation to define exactly what the mess they wrote means, thus ceding their power to the courts, in which case why are we paying them?
I actually think they do support it, but their focus groups have shown them that it's a losing issue, even in Cali.
Prop 8 was a burp. An emotional outburst, not a carefully considered piece of legislation.
This of course addresses in no way whether the courts "should" legislate, or "merely interpret," and what the distinctions between the two are. I don't disagree, AN, that there's a MAJOR distinction between tasks appropriate to legilatures as opposed to courts. I just wanted to point out, that most American citizens "don't get it" when they say they don't "want courts to legislate." Sure, their point may be accurate, to some highly technical interpretation of the term "legislate," but that's not the term they're thinking of. What they want, is for courts to just "get out of" any business of interpreting law; this desire is preposterous in any common-law jurisdiction.
So, for example, when a lower court "interprets" that Roe v. Wade denies access to voluntary abortion in (for example) Mississippi, the anti-abortion people say the court isn't "legislating" but rather "interpreting." Then, a year later, when a similar question arises in a more liberal jurisdiction, the same people object to how a court is "legislating" if it decides that Roe v. Wade allows access to medically necessary abortion. They use different terms ("legislating," implying inappropriately; versus "interpreting" appropriately) depending on whether the political upshot favors or opposes them. Yet, as in my example, most of the acts are identical and not mutually exculsive, IF you understand the proper role of the courts.
Deciding about laws from the bench? How can this possibly be a problem?