What it all means; or, some bombastic post-election post

By non sequitur

First of all: brilliant, if uncomfortably true (and somewhat similar to what I wrote yesterday).

The Republican/right-wing spin seems to be that McCain only lost because of the financial that hit in September--when he was actually ahead in the polls! He had to deal with an unpopular incumbent, and then when the banks looked like they might fail, he couldn't get out from under that. But the fact that he did so well even against such "strong headwinds" just goes to show what a deeply conservative country this remains.

Sorry, I should have warned you to pick up your feet. Of course McCain enjoyed a post-convention bounce in the polls in early September; even Walter Mondale managed that. Of course there's a legitimate argument to be made that Bush is so unpopular because of his incompetence, not because of the substance of his policies, but on Iraq and his handling of the economy I don't think the two can be meaningfully separated. And one can't help but wonder why all those Congressional Republicans are going down in flames if voter dissatisfaction is aimed solely at a feckless executive branch.

I think Justin Webb has done a superb job of covering the election for the BBC, and I mostly agree with his analysis (or, perhaps more accurately, I fervently hope it's true). I quoted some of it last night in comments to Michael's live-blogging post, but the same argument is stated well in this column in The Times (which I saw via Webb's link on his BBC blog). The key point (and the part I most hope is true) comes at the end:

Democratic presidents such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy had united the liberal North with the poor and dispossessed whites of the deep South. After the Civil Rights Act this link was broken. And Democrats struggled without this source of southern support.

Yet slowly what one might term a mass chattering class has emerged to make a northern liberal candidate like Mr Obama viable as they had not been since Kennedy. A record number of Americans now complete high school or go to college. There are 7.3 million American millionaires, and more than half the country now considers itself middle class and is working less and enjoying more leisure time. Even to be competitive with these voters the Republicans had to select an unconventional candidate. And still he lost.

We have reached the end of the Southern Strategy and that changes American politics profoundly.

The big themes of Republican politics - cut income tax, fight crime, reform social security, outlaw abortion, support marriage - no longer cut it politically. The Democrat tunes play better.

Tax cutting has lost its edge because 29 million Americans pay no income tax at all and because the Democrats have learnt how to blunt the message. Success has made crime less of a preoccupation. And the desperate need for Republicans to win votes among women makes their stance on abortion a serious problem.

The Republicans were forced to select a maverick because they did not have an electable mainstream Republican candidate. This was because the mainstream Republican agenda is no longer a winner.

Welcome to a new American president. Welcome to a new American politics.

I certainly hope so. In any case, today certainly feels good. Enjoy it with some appropriate music.

(But why is it suddenly winter? And what's with those boots?)