aberman's blog

A new report from Rasmussen states that "Two days after Barack Obama became the first African-American to be voted into the White House, the percentage of black voters who view American society as fair and decent jumped 18 points to 42%".  As there are approximately 28 million African-Americans, that 18 percent translates to about 5 million people. This change will be--by far--the most important positive aspect for conservatism to come out of this election,  Certainly the numbers may not be stable.   Certainly a yes/no question hides as much as it reveals.  But look at the potential implications:

The belief that America is unfair motivates much of the liberal agenda including an activist court system, affirmative action, unions,  large government handouts, and taxes on the rich.  Conservatives value fairness, but also heavily value other concerns such as tradition, liberty, and stability.  It is easier to balance fairness with other concerns if you believe that your country is fair than if you believe your country is unfair.

Today, five million African-Americans are far more open to conservative thinking than they were just two weeks ago.  We should welcome our new allies and work hard to make them a permanent part of our movement.

I've been wondering why I'm not as devastated as I thought I would be just 24 hours ago.  Here's what I'm thinking:
 

Obama's Mandate:

Consider the following points:

1. The Republicans in Congress showed no leadership or vision whatsoever, and our Republican President has an approval rating in the low twenties.  Yet Obama won moderately and Democrats made only moderate congressional  gains.  It was the landslide that wasn't.  What does that say about Obama's mandate?
2. Though Obama expressly came out against proposition 8, Californians simultaneously voted overwhelmingly for Obama and banned same-sex marriage. What does that say about Obama's mandate?
3. McCain was tied with Obama until the financial crisis hit.  McCain then proceeded to act very erratically and impetuously, suspending his campaign to go back to Washington and coming out with several seemingly random proposals for the economy.  Obama did basically nothing and gained in the polls. What does that say about Obama's mandate?

Answering these questions collectively, it seems to me that Obama has the following mandate:

1.     Fix the Economy.
2.     Look calm, cool, collected, and thoughtful.  Above all, don't do anything rash.

That is the 'change' the electorate is really looking for.  A good economy and no rash behavior.  Not a great basis on which to justify any hard-left turns, is it?

Obama's Weakness:

Nobody is great at everything.  Obama is a great speaker and thinker, but one can look at his record in the legislature and even at the Harvard Law Review for guidance as to what he actually *does*.  The answer is:  not that much.  In the Philosopher-King department, George Bush was too much King and not enough Philosopher.  Obama will be too much Philosopher and not enough King.  Fine with me.

A Historical Analogy for the Wosrt-Case Scenario:

Finally, to those who think America will become irreparable after Obama-- I have a historical analogy.  New York City once elected a thoughtful, calm, and charismatic big-time Liberal who put a moderate face to the public yet had ties to the radical left and even to the New York wing of Chicago-style black-power movements.  Really a good likable guy, but had the completely wrong ideology. He governed as a big-government leftist and New York City looked horrendous at the end of his tenure.  Yet after David Dinkins came a new mayor by the name of Rudolph Guliani.  And he changed everything.

Even though McCain was obviously better informed on foreign policy, people watching the first debate saw Obama act and talk in a Presidential fashion and saw McCain not look at him.  That gave Obama the boost in the polls.  In other words, people care about what they care about and Obama had a better feel for that then McCain.

Sarah Palin was very effective in the second debate even though many people gave Joe Biden the win.  She did well enough to rehabilitate her image amongst the conservative base who had been told they should be embarrassed to support her.  Just as important, she spent the debate attacking Obama and praising McCain, i.e., focusing on the real subjects.

In this third debate, the early results are that it was boring, kind of a wash, but McCain was disrespectful to Obama by saying 'That One.'  That clearly was a mistake.  On the other hand, McCain did a few things early on which may have resonance later:

1. He talked about his bipartisan record and asked people to go to the internet to look.
2. He talked about Fannie and Freddie.

Neither of these things could possibly matter in an insta-poll.  But enough talk about Fannie and Freddie may start to really hurt the Democratic Brand at a time when it really deserves to be hurt.  At the same time, talking about his bipartisan record isn't a debate winner, but it may improve his standing amongst the swing voters.   Branding oneself as someone with a history of doing things in a bipartisan way may be very effective in a crisis situation.

Obama can call for change, but he has presented no evidence that he has the experience needed to lead in a crisis situation.

McCain hasn't presented that either.  The difference is, of course, that McCain has the experience and can back it up.  He has a history of pushing forward legislation while working with both Democrats and Republicans.  There's plenty of video of senators praising how he's worked with them.  Bill Clinton talked on the View about how he worked with John McCain.

Clearly it's difficult to run as a Maverick while touting one's experience.  But Obama can't present anything to anyone except words at this point.

Here's an answer she could give:

 You know, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Foreign Policy.  Joe Biden has 30 years more experience than I do on it.  John McCain has 30 years more experience than I do on Foreign Policy.  And Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has about 2 whole years more foreign policy experience than I do.

But let me say this.  Here's what I've done as Governor of Alaska:....

I see this argument all the time.  I know you can't stand it yourself:

"50,000 people die every year from car accidents. Why do we spend so much time worrying about terrorism?"

"Which kills more people every year, High Fructose Corn Syrup or Terrorism?"  (Bill Maher)

Smoking kills more people.... yada yada yada.

Here's a quick response:

 "Heart disease kills 20 times more people than murder.  Why do we spend so much money on police?"

Of course, some on the far Left would agree.

(The actual numbers are 400,000 per year vs. under 18,000 per year.)

Cost of Bailout:  up to 1 trillion dollars.

Value of offshore oil deposits now opened up for exploration.  Up to 10 trillion dollars.

Net gain to the United States:  Trillions of dollars.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080923/ap_on_go_co/offshore_drilling

I don't have to fill this one in, I just think this is a good question to pose to Obama supporters or undecideds.

Professor Jonathan Haidt has two interesting articles on morality and Democrats and Republicans. He is, of course, coming at this from the Left and edge.org is the intellectual elite playground par-excellance, but his articles are both fair and extremely interesting and can provide genuine insight into what is going on today.

Succinctly, he claims that those on the Left have a view of morality that is almost exclusively based on harm/care and fairness/reciprocity.  If an action doesn't harm others, you can do it, and people should treat each other fairly. Haidt calls this a two-foundation morality and claims that the most academic conceptions of moral psychology and moral philosophy is based on just these two foundations. Conversely, he claims that the Right has a view of morality that includes three additional foundations:  ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity.

Here is his distinction:
 "...We call these three additional foundations the binding foundations, because the virtues, practices, and institutions they generate function to bind people together into hierarchically organized interdependent social groups that try to regulate the daily lives and personal habits of their members. We contrast these to the two individualizing foundations (harm/care and fairness/reciprocity), which generate virtues and practices that protect individuals from each other and allow them to live in harmony as autonomous agents who can focus on their own goals"

Now, how might these alternative conceptions of morality play out?  Someone on the Left would view love of country as not particularly moral-- being part of the unused ingroup/loyalty moral foundation-- and even immoral if patriotism led to preferencing citizens of one's own country over anothers.  Hence, to the Left, immigrants should be able to vote in our elections, we should defer to international organizations, and our use of energy is not a problem because it is expensive, rather it is a problem because we are taking more than our fair share.

In other words, the Left looks at the Right as using a decision making process that contains Voodoo, while the Right looks on the Left as not caring about things that the RIght considers important.

Now, bring this around to the candidates.  McCain's motto is 'Country First.'  This is clearly in the 'ingroup/loyalty' zone and therefore not understandable to the Left.  When Barack Obama goes to Germany, the Left applauds it while the Right scratches it's head:  Doesn't he realize he's running for President of America?

This also gives an interesting texture to Laura Ingraham's comments on why the intellectual elite has problems:
"Populism rests on two great insights. First, it understands that the people (taken as a whole) are often wiser and more prudent than the elites. Average people are almost always respectful of tradition, while elites tend to act like an angry mob trying to tear down the old idols."

If you think about it, most Americans use some aspect of all five moral foundations in their decision making.  This gives them an advantage over many elites who, while perhaps having much more studying under their belt, have spent their lives filtering their experience through only two moral foundations.  Of course they are going to get things wrong.
 

It's very simple:  Sarah Palin knows how to exploit voter dissatisfaction with the powers-that-be, even if the powers-that-be are in her own party.  Specifically, she directly took on the cozy relationship between oil companies and the Alaskan government, reforming the government and getting a much better deal for Alaskans, as well as negotiating a pipeline. John McCain has been arguing for reform of corrupt institutions such as Fannie and Freddie for years as well as decrying the cozy relationship between them and government.  Meanwhile, Obama took more money from Fannie Mae than anyone except Chris Dodd the head of the banking committee, even though his only relationship to the banking committee was lying about being on it to a crowd in Israel a few months ago. Oh, and Joe Biden is Mr. Credit-Card Debt.

The ads and speeches practically write themselves, don't they?