Davos Newbies

Joe Klein is absolutely on song:

Pundits tend to be a lagging indicator. This is particularly true at the end of a political pendulum swing. We’ve been conditioned by thirty years of certain arguments working–and John McCain made most of them last night against Barack Obama: you’re going to raise our taxes, you’re going to spend more money, you want to negotiate with bad guys, you’re associated somehow–the associations have gotten more tenuous over time–with countercultural and unAmerican activities.

Again, these arguments have “worked” for a long time. The Democrats who got themselves elected President during most of my career were those most successful at playing defense: No, no, I’m not going to do any of those things! And so the first reaction of more than a few talking heads last night was that McCain had done better, maybe even won, because he had made those arguments more successfully than he had in the first two debates. I disagreed, even before the focus groups and snap polls rendered their verdict: I thought McCain was near-incomprehensible when talking about policy, locked in the coffin of conservative thinking and punditry. He spoke in Reagan-era shorthand. He thought that merely invoking the magic words “spread the wealth” and “class warfare” he could neutralize Obama.

But those words and phrases seem anachronistic, almost vestigial now. Indeed, they have become every bit as toxic as Democratic social activist proposals–government-regulated and subsidized health care, for example–used to be. We have had 30 years of class warfare, in which the wealthy strip-mined the middle class. The wealth has been “spread” upward. The era when Democrats could only elect Presidents from the south, who essentially promised to take the harsh edge off of conservatism, is over. Barack Obama is the most unapologetic advocate of government activism since Lyndon Johnson–which is not to say that his brand of activism will be the same as Johnson’s (we’ve learned a lot about the perils of bureacracy and the value of market incentives since then)–and he seems to be giving the public exactly what it wants this year. Who knows? Maybe even the word “liberal” can now be uttered in mixed company again.

Journalism is, naturally, about the past. We are much better at reporting things that have happened than in predicting the future. We never seem so foolish or obnoxious, especially on TV, as when we accede to the constant demand for crystal-balling. But the obvious danger inherent in journalism is that we tend to get trapped in the assumptions of the past. Too often this year, my colleagues–especially those who are older than me, but also my fellow baby boomers–have seemed a bit moldy in our questioning of politicians: What are you going to do about budget deficits? What are you going to do about entitlement programs?

These are valid questions, but less relevant in a financial crisis that will probably lead to a severe recession–and especially after 30 years of government neglect of its basic responsibilities. We need to spend money now to create jobs, to keep up with the rest of the world on alternative energy and high-tech infrastructure…Oh, and by the way, if government activism is now back on the table, we can begin to talk about the real answers to our entitlement problems: Medicare and medicaid can only be solved when they’re included in a comprehensive, regulated and managed universal health insurance system.

The point is, this is a very good year to be Senator Government. Ronald Reagan used to say that the most frightening nine words in the English language were “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” That is no longer true. This year, the most frightening eight words are “I’m John McCain and I approved this message.”

We can begin writing the ecstatic posts about what it will be like to have an Obama presidency, but it will be equally fascinating — and certainly very satisfying — to see the Republican party torn apart by its losses in November.

I think the GOP will go through something like the journey through the wilderness experienced by Britain’s Conservative party following Tony Blair’s election in 1997. Blair won after 18 years of Conservative rule (Mrs Thatcher followed by John Major). Labour supporters had been confident that Neil Kinnock would win in 1992, but they were cruelly disappointed (echoes of Kerry’s loss in 2004). Blair won an overwhelming majority in 1997, with the most Labour seats in party history. The Conservatives ended up with the fewest seats since 1906.

Now you’d think that after such a crushing defeat the Conservatives would undergo a root and branch reform of the party. But joy it was to be a Labour supporter in those years. The Conservatives decided that the party’s problem was that it wasn’t Thatcherite enough. They picked the 36-year old William Hague as Major’s successor, but however new an image Hague tried to convey, no one bothered to rethink the policies the electorate had rejected. When Labour had a second landslide win in 2001, the Conservatives continued to delude themselves, picking the nonentity Iain Duncan Smith as party leader. He didn’t last long. Duncan Smith was replaced by the genuinely scary Michael Howard. Labour won a third election in 2005, although with a reduced majority.

Only after a third consecutive election defeat did the Conservatives figure out that the problem wasn’t that they were insufficiently conservative, or that the party’s message wasn’t getting through. The party needed to rethink its core philosophy as thoroughly as Blair and Gordon Brown had rethought Labour in the first half of the ’90s. It’s conceivable that under David Cameron the Conservatives will return to power in 2010 (although I hope the plaudits for Gordon Brown’s leadership in the current financial crisis brings him and Labour back up in the polls).

So what might this mean for the Republican party after November 4? If the leaders of the party had any sense, they would find a way back to the center of American politics. I’m happily confident, however, that the “lesson” that will be taken from the failure in 2008 will be that John McCain was never a true believer on the right, that he failed to be aggressive enough against Obama, that more red meat was needed for success. As high as her unfavorables may be in the electorate, as much as her feebleness as a national candidate has been exposed, Sarah Palin has captured the hearts of the base. She’ll figure she’s in good shape for 2012. It’s conceivable that Mitt Romney will try a comeback for the next election. Certainly, economic issues will remain highly salient. But just like this time, Romney will run to the right to please the party.

An Obama administration will unquestionably face a very difficult economic environment. Perhaps the cycle will turn sufficiently in four years that he will be well poised for re-election. I can’t pretend to any crystal ball. But the demographics of the nation are moving strongly in favor of Obama and the Democrats. The last four years have exposed to most people the bankruptcy of the Republican right wing philosophy. We can count on the Republicans themselves not to understand the new reality until they lose at least two elections.