Second Life Shrink

Yes he could

I had been planning to go to bed early on election night, since I had a busy day ahead, and I was, after all, completely confident that Obama would win, but in the event I couldn’t bring myself to retire without seeing at least some of the returns. I ended up staying up until about 1.30, when the result from Pennsylvania came in.

McCain’s fading hopes of victory had rested on the idea that the white working-class voters who supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries would, faced with an Obama candidacy, switch to the GOP, or at least stay at home. If this was going to happen anywhere it would have happened in Pennsylvania, and when even Fox News called the state blue within a minute of the polls closing it was clear that the game was up.

The theory that Obama was going to turn off the Democrat base was based on a complete misunderstanding of what happened in the primary campaign. Those voters who favoured Clinton over Obama did so because they were worried about his electability, not because they thought he was too radical. There was never any significant policy difference between the candidates; if anything Clinton is further to the left. Once Obama was the candidate the party was always going to be behind him, united by a desire to defeat McCain.

Could McCain have done anything to stem the tide? Probably not, given the state of the economy and the electorate’s determination to hold the Republicans responsible for the mess. He must be thinking that he could have played a bad hand a little better though. As McCain gave a valedictory speech to the press on his campaign plane, Joe Lieberman could be seen at his shoulder, like Banquo’s ghost. Might a McCain/Lieberman ticket have prevailed? We’ll never know.

Anyway, that’s all the excitement over for four years at least, and probably for eight. I can get back to blogging about important stuff like Second Life…

A message to my friends in the US of A

[Thanks to Matt Groening.]

A hostage to fortune

I have to admit that it looks as if I was completely wrong about Barak Obama’s electability – there doesn’t appear to be any way that he can lose now. In my defence I would say that I couldn’t have imagined just how badly the GOP would screw up their campaign. With one decision – picking Sarah Palin as his running mate – John McCain threw away the single biggest advantage he had, his ability to criticise Obama’s lack of experience. Palin has done all that could be expected of her, shoring up the core Republican support, but I cannot fathom how McCain’s strategists ever thought she would be able to appeal to voters beyond the conservative base. McCain himself has tried to pose as both the elder statesman with the wisdom to lead, and the iconoclast who would shake up the establishment, and has failed to convince on either count.

The main factor that has helped the Democrats more than might have been anticipated though is the state of the economy. Back in the primary season it did look like there was trouble brewing, but no one foresaw that the federal government would be taking over the banking system. Now that even the Bush administration believes in state intervention in the economy on a massive scale, McCain’s jibes about Obama’s “socialism” don’t carry much weight.

Could the Republicans try to steal the election by outright fraud? Right-wing pundits have been advancing various theories about how the opinion polls could be wrong, and why we shouldn’t be surprised if McCain does much better than is expected, and you don’t have to be too paranoid to see that as an attempt to prepare the public for an unbelievable result. It seems to me though that the trouble this would cause – I would anticipate serious civil unrest if McCain is declared the winner next week – would far outweigh any advantage to the ruling class of keeping Obama out of the White House. Despite all the Republican rhetoric Obama is no radical, and there is no evidence to suggest that his administration would be seriously inimical to the interests of American capital. Some special interests – defence contractors and oil companies foremost among them – may have to trim their profit forecasts a little, but for the bulk of US corporations it will be business as usual. They are likely to be much more worried about the general economic situation than the prospect of an Obama presidency, and anyway, of the two candidates, he seems to have the firmest grasp of what is actually going on, and what needs to be done to keep US capitalism on the road.

I still think Hillary Clinton would have made a better candidate, and a better president, but I doubt I’ll be feeling too disappointed next Wednesday.

View from afar

According to this article in the Guardian yesterday, “People around the world are pinning their hopes on Barack Obama in next month’s presidential election”. Polls in various countries revealed big majorities in favour of Obama – most notably Switzerland, not usually regarded as a bastion of socialism, where 83% preferred Obama, against 7% for McCain.

The surveys also showed that “Only a minority in the countries surveyed describe relations with the US as friendly”, a legacy of the Bush years that US voters will hopefully bear in mind come November. Though of course that information might influence the section of the electorate that McCain is appealing to in a way exactly contrary to the expectation of European leftists like me.

Favorite T

The McCain/Palin campaign has a new tactic; if reality is too uncomfortable, simply create your own alternative world. Glenn Greenwald covers it nicely.

Other news: some Obama supporters don’t like Sarah Palin very much. Now clearly the language is somewhat objectionable (though not to John McCain), but it’s not like they’re issuing death threats or anything. What’s amusing though is how the right-wing bloggers are getting into a lather about how this sort of thing is ignored by the liberal MSM. That’ll be why I had to read about it in that obscure journal the Los Angeles Times.