The Myth of '08, Demolished (Charles Krauthammer explains rise and fall of BHO)

Real Clear Politics ^ | November 6, 209 | Charles Krauthammer

[Stoat]

WASHINGTON -- Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday's elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008.

In the aftermath of last year's Obama sweep, we heard endlessly about its fundamental, revolutionary, transformational nature. How it was ushering in an FDR-like realignment for the 21st century in which new demographics -- most prominently, rising minorities and the young -- would bury the GOP far into the future. One book proclaimed "The Death of Conservatism," while the more modest merely predicted the terminal decline of the Republican Party into a regional party of the Deep South or a rump party of marginalized angry white men.

 

This was all ridiculous from the beginning. 2008 was a historical anomaly. A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points.

Exactly a year later comes the empirical validation of that skepticism. Virginia -- presumed harbinger of the new realignment, having gone Democratic in '08 for the first time in 44 years -- went red again. With a vengeance. Barack Obama had carried it by six points. The Republican gubernatorial candidate won by 17 -- a 23-point swing. New Jersey went from plus 15 Democratic in 2008 to minus 4 in 2009. A 19-point swing.

[Stoat]

My apologies for the severe editing of this article....this was done in order to remain in compliance with Free Republic rules pertaining to Real Clear Politics.  Please click on the main article link to read the full story.

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Thanks for FredBarnes for the Tweet

[End_Clintonism_Now]

[Stoat]

MyHeritage.org Biography of Charles Krauthammer

Biography of Charles Krauthammer

March 14, 2008| By Nathaniel Ward

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and named by The Financial Times as the most influential commentator in America, Charles Krauthammer challenges conventional wisdom with practically every word he writes. Which is why he has been honored from every part of the political spectrum for his bold, lucid and original writing – from the famously liberal People for the American Way (which presented him their First Amendment Award) to the staunchly conservative Bradley Foundation (which awarded him their first $250,000 Bradley Prize). 

Krauthammer writes a syndicated column for The Washington Post for which he won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. It is published weekly in over 190 newspapers worldwide. He also writes a monthly essay for TIME magazine, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, and is a weekly panelist on Inside Washington and a contributor to FOX News.

For two decades, his influential writings have helped frame the very shape of American foreign policy. He coined and developed The Reagan Doctrine (TIME, April 1985), defined the structure of the post-Cold War world in The Unipolar Moment (Foreign Affairs, Winter 1990/1991), and outlined the principles of post-9/11 American foreign policy in his much-debated Irving Kristol Lecture, Democratic Realism (AEI Press, March 2004).

Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, Krauthammer was educated at McGill University (B.A. 1970), Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in Politics) and Harvard (M.D. 1975). While serving as a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, he published scientific papers, including his co-discovery of a form of bipolar disease, that continue to be cited in the psychiatric literature.

In 1978, he quit medical practice, came to Washington to direct planning in psychiatric research in the Carter administration, and began contributing articles to The New Republic. During the Presidential campaign of 1980, he served as a speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale. He joined The New Republic as a writer and editor in 1981. His New Republicwritings won the 1984 National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism, the highest award in magazine journalism.

From 2001 to 2006, he served on the President’s Council on Bioethics. He is a founding board member of Washington’s Shoresh Hebrew High School, president of The Krauthammer Foundation and chairman of Pro Musica Hebraica, an organization dedicated to the recovery and performance of lost classical Jewish music.

Krauthammer lives in suburban Washington with Robyn, an artist. Their son, Daniel, is a student at Oxford University.

[RobRoy]

Great post. I’m finding I really like Obama now. We really need to support him. I’m gonna get together a bunch of kids in my neighborhood for a nice obama song project and we’ll put it on youtube.

YES WE CAN!

I feel kinda hopey changey!

[Dick Bachert]

Mmmmmm , mmmmm , mmmmmm Barack Hussein Obama is THE ONE.
Just ask your government schooled child!
Under 3 minute video depicting how the Obama cultists resemble the cultists who worshipped that other guy 70 years ago in Germany:
(Accompanied by one of Hitler’s favorite ditties.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u0GJSZttZE&feature=channel_page

[Dick Bachert]

Mmmmmm , mmmmm , mmmmmm Barack Hussein Obama is THE ONE.
Just ask your government schooled child!
Under 3 minute video depicting how the Obama cultists resemble the cultists who worshipped that other guy 70 years ago in Germany:
(Accompanied by one of Hitler’s favorite ditties.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u0GJSZttZE&feature=channel_page

[RobRoy]

Did I really need a sarcasm tag?

;)

Before the election I compared Obama to Hitler. OR, more accurately, I compared his followers to Hitler’s followers. After he had been in office for about 6 months I started comparing him to Mussolini.

But the hitler parallels are striking. Especially when one applies them to his followers. And it was all discussed here in a 1981 (?) after school schedule: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=the%20wave&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

[supremedoctrine]

RobRoy, you always were an idealist.
But at least you recognize that Obama is still the true
Robbin’ the Hood.

[RobRoy]

Is it too late to send him money? I think I could get a second mortgage.

:)

[AnotherUnixGeek]

and fall of BHO

There's been no fall yet. Obama's biggest problem right now is the US economy, and it's likely to have picked up by '12 no matter how much Obama and the Democrats do to it. And the unfortunate fact is that if the election were held today, Obama would probably beat any of the GOP big names - Palin, Huckabee, Romney, Pawlenty.

Palin still has time to overcome the negative story that's been built up around her by the Democrats and the MSM, but she's got a lot of work to do - polls show most Americans don't believe she's qualified. Huckabee and Romney are non-entities, and Pawlenty is unknown to most voters. Obama's image may be cracking and people may finally be noticing his inadequacies, but unless the GOP can field a better opponent than they seem to have right now, he's in the driver's seat.

[supremedoctrine]

I like Krauthammer a lot, but some of us who wasted our youth on the Left, recognized Obama for what he was at the outset, knew EXACTLY what to expect, and felt spookily just how far along we were as a nation into the dreamlike conditions that brought THE ONE
into office. It wasn’t very long after Obama took over the Presidency that some entrepreneur came up with a bumper sticker that proclaimed : One Big Ass Mistake America.
which, when you come right down to it, is exactly the message of Krauthammer’s piece, once you extract all the fancy post-mortem analysis out of it.
And most don’t remember, but I do, a curious piece by Krauthammer halfway through the campaign, before the nominee was decided, where he actually posited the idea that Obama’s time would come, it just wasn’t 2008, but maybe 2012. Nobody seems to have read that but me.
Anyway, the whole point about AVOIDING DAMAGE is to be able to see it before it happens and MAKE SURE IT DOESN’T HAPPEN.
THAT is something that NEVER happens, because few people have the nerve to come up with the force required to scream and warn and stomp our feet, and possibly even initiate the kind of direct action that we are NOW doing with Tea Parties and the like. The protests are coming late, but they are coming.The constituency of protesters is widening
and including a ‘demographic’ which not only crosses ‘party lines’, but threatens to obliterate “Party” as even a usable concept for the future. As someone who is involved, WE are faced with he dilemma of figuring what the best courses of action are, and how to nullify or stop in its tracks any further damage this WH could bring us. THIS is the most difficult project,but it is WE who will ultimately remake America, not the rogues and fools in the WHite House