post-election thoughts, maps, reservations, and cause for hope

I, along with millions of Americans, and people across the world, let out a collective sigh of relief on Tuesday night when we learned that Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States. That was followed by elation, overwhelming emotion, and a stirring sense of watching history in the making.

Let there be no doubt: the election of the first African American president in and of itself is indeed something worth celebrating, for the historical relationship between whites and blacks is at the core of this nation's self identity. I don't for a minute suggest that this breakthrough symbolizes an "end to racism" or the beginning of a "post-racial America". Far from it, I imagine that the dialogue on race will only grow louder now that an African American has been thrust into a position of such power and visibility. But that's a good thing, in my opinion.

This is a joyous day for black children across America, who will now be able to see in their president a role model that they can emulate. It is also a joyous day for children of every color. White children who grow up during the Obama era will grow up with a completely different framework with which to view race and power.

Even the conservative media echo chamber seems to be taking a step back to let this moment play out with the respect it deserves, before jumping back into inevitable partisan rancor.

For those of us who intensely followed the horserace, there is a great feeling of a burden lifted. 2000 and 2004 saw us going into election night buoyed with confidence from the polls only to see the rug pulled out from under us. So even though recent polls have pointed towards an Obama landslide, we held our breaths, knocked on wood, and knew that we couldn't rest easy until the moment of truth. What a feeling of relief, then, when the polls turned out to be correct.

Seeing those once-"red states" turn blue on the map was exciting. Florida and Ohio offered particular symbolic redemption after the injustices of 2000 and 2004. Iowa made a nice addition to the Democratic stronghold of the upper Midwest. Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada showed that, thanks to demographic change, the Mountain West is increasingly friendly terrain. Virginia and North Carolina, which polls had been hinting at for some time now, were welcome addition to the Democratic column for the first time since 1964 (and 1976, respectively). Same for Indiana, which was probably the biggest surprise. The polls right before the election were predicting it would narrowly go to McCain, but Obama eeked out a narrow victory. And his strength came not just from the state's urban and black strongholds, but from white and rural counties too.


The NY Times has a map showing the change in voting patterns in each county in the country. What happened in Indiana is incredible. Nearly every county is colored a shade of dark blue, meaning that Obama gained more than 15 points over Kerry. Even in counties that McCain still carried, Obama increased his numbers. And that was pretty much the pattern across the entire nation, with a few regional exceptions which I will discuss in a moment.


In huge swaths of the country Obama out-performed Kerry by significant numbers. This is true in both blue states and red states. Even staunch red states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, and even Utah saw Obama close the gap. Obama increased Democratic margins in the Northeast, the Midwest, the Mountain West, the West Coast, the Southwest, Texas, The Mid Atlantic, and the Southeast.

Some regional patterns of note: The southern Californian counties of San Bernardino, San Diego, and Riverside typically vote for Republicans, but this time they voted for Obama. Even staunchly conservative Orange county voted for McCain only a few points more than Obama. In Texas, Kerry won only the heavily Hispanic counties along the Mexico border and Austin, but this time Obama won Houston and Dallas. In 2004 every county in Utah went for Bush, but this year Obama won two counties and almost pulled even in Salt Lake City. Obama won Washoe County, Nevada's second most populous county, which no Democrat has done in years. And I was personally pleased to see that Centre County, Pennslvania, where I lived from 2006 to 2008, broke from its Republican past to vote for Obama. No doubt the good students at Penn State played a role in making that happen.


Perhaps the most interesting pattern to emerge from the map of change in voting patterns is the relatively small, regionally confined swath of states that voted MORE Republican this time around, compared to 2004. It consists of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and parts of Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, and West Virginia. So, basically, the Ozarks and Southern Appalachia. I don't want to suggest that everyone who voted for McCain is a racist, because that's obviously not true. But I think it's safe to say that if ingrained resistance to the idea of an African American president based primarily on race exists in any part of the country, it exists here. This isn't a huge surprise, but it is interesting to see the pattern jump out so clearly on the map.

There's no doubt that racists still exist in this country, and I imagine that they will become more vocal as the reality of a black president sets in. We already saw racists coming out of the woodwork during the campaign. They were the people at McCain-Palin rallies shouting "Osama Obama", "terrorist", "anti-Christ", and "Muslim". Of course, "Muslim" should not be seen as a pejorative. There's nothing wrong with being Muslim in America, as Colin Powell so elegantly stated, rather than just explaining that the jeer was wrong because Obama is, in fact, a Christian. But it's clear that anyone calling Obama a Muslim in 2008 meant to degrade and deride him. I think what we saw in 2008 is that racists are still in full force, but that many of them are too embarrassed to admit it openly. So instead of deriding Obama as a black person, they call him a Muslim. Is the fact that even the most racist Americans feel enough public shame that they feel the need to disguise their racism a good sign? I don't know. It does mark a difference from the 60s, when racists had no shame in declaring their prejudices. But it shows that we still have a long way to go.

Fortunately, Obama has shown that he could win a clear majority without the vote of racists. The Republican party is in crisis, and Republican moderates from the Northeast, Midwest, and West are ceding power to their party's extremist rightwing, which is increasingly regionalized.

As a Democrat, I welcome this move. But it is also somewhat bittersweet. I'm not a kneejerk partisan, and there are many Republicans whom I respect: Lincoln Chafee, Arlen Spector, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel, Dick Luger. I am excited by some of the new faces in the Republican party, like Bobby Jindal and Sashi McEntee, the Republican daughter of Muslim immigrants from Sri Lanka who ran for my local state senate distrct in Marin County. The Republican party in places like the Bay Area and Northeast is an entirely different beast than the national Republican party that is now retrenching in the South. If the GOP wants to survive, it needs to adapt to America's changing demographics. Right now it is stuck in the past, rehashing old culture war issues that the majority of Americans no longer want to fight.


So what happens now? While Democrats clearly have reason for elation and relief, we also have reason for restraint, and trepidation. Obama is inheriting the presidency when the United States is in the worst condition since 1932 when FDR took office. I can't even begin to imagine the burden he must be feeling. I don't envy him the job of trying to set this country right.

I'm so glad to see the joy and hope being expressed all across the world, but at the same time I'm worried that too many people will be let down when the reality sets in.
This country (and world) is probably going to be in a recession for several years. We probably won't emerge out of it during Obama's first four years. We certainly won't be able to solve the energy crisis, or the climate change crisis, or the health care crisis, in four years. These are problems that will take decades. And Americans have a short attention span.

There are so many important things that need funding: infrastructure, schools, regulatory bodies, global and domestic poverty alleviation, disease prevention, cancer and AIDS research, green energy development, social safety nets. But Bush has bankrupted us. Figuring out how to pay for everything is going to be very difficult indeed. I personally wish Obama hadn't promised 95% of Americans a tax cut, because we really can't afford tax cuts right now. But he made that promise, and if he breaks it he will not have any chance of reelection in 2012 (George HW Bush proved that in 1992).

I'm actually more hopeful on the foreign policy front than the domestic front. I do believe that we will be able to wind down the war in Iraq responsibly, and be mostly out in a few years. I think Obama will inspire a new era of cooperation with the rest of the world, strengthening old alliances in Europe, and building new ones in places like Indonesia, India, Africa, and China.
I'm a bit worried about Obama's somewhat hardline rhetoric in Afghanistan. History shows that foreign armies cannot occupy Afghanistan. I don't think expanding our ground army there will accomplish the goal of rooting out Al Qaeda. I think the battle against terrorism will not be won with military strength but over the long run with development, aide, and by mitigating the worst effects of American globalization and hegemony.

I'm hoping that Obama was just talking tough on Afghanistan in order to win the general election, and that when it comes to making actual decisions he will be more measured. I do have confidence that he will not make any decisions with haste, or "from the gut". He has proven himself to be thoughtful and open to different points of view. That gives me hope.

And hope really is the theme of the day. Some people derided Obama's message of hope as empty rhetoric, but I think it's the perfect message for this day. Our problems are immense, and they will not be solved overnight. But I feel hope that we will finally have someone in the White House who will set us, slowly but surely, in the right direction.

We've been given an opportunity. Now let's make the best of it...