American voters have elected a Democratic president who will work with larger Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate in 2009. John Gizzi, who has covered Washington politics for Human Events since 1979, recently discussed the likely political and policy implications with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Kokai: People who are of a conservative bent, looking at the elections, probably are still shaking their heads as they’re hearing us, thinking of the fact that our new administration is going to be a Democratic president with much larger majorities in both chambers. What do you think of those election results?
Gizzi: Well, not exactly what other people would think. The election of Barack Obama was not a surprise. Since World War II, only once has an eight-year presidential term of one party been extended a third time, and that’s when George H.W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan, a very popular president at the time. The economy was going well. I might add this was someone who trailed his Democratic opponent by 17 points during the summer and turned the race around.
Now today we have one of the most unpopular presidents in history, according to the polls. We have an economy that’s down and the Republican candidate, who was, shall we say, controversial in his own party. Given those circumstances, it’s impressive that Sen. [John] McCain drew 47 percent of the vote instead of being blown away by a margin of three to two.
In the House and in the Senate, Republicans wound up [with] about the same number[s] they had after the 1992 elections when they stopped the Clinton health-care program and came within one vote of stopping the tax increase.
Kokai: Any other bright spots you saw on election night?
Gizzi: Yes. In state legislative races around the country, Republicans lost some ground, but it was not the tsunami that Democratic consultant James Carville and others in their party [said] would lock in Democratic majorities after the next Census and resultant reapportionment. Rather, it was a wash. Republicans lost the New York state Senate, and they lost the Ohio House of Representatives, but they also gained the Tennessee House of Representatives. They controlled both houses of the legislature in Oklahoma, and they elected some very fine steeds in the farm team that they have that can race and probably go on to win the Triple Crown.
Kokai: You mentioned that the size of the Republican contingent in the U.S. House of Representatives is about the same as it was after the ’92 election. Those of us who remember … the past know that ’94 was very interesting for Republicans. Is that a sign for optimism?
Gizzi: Once again, it’s been said that history doesn’t repeat itself, it just sounds familiar. I have to say that in 1994, remember, Bill Clinton overreached what he felt was his mandate, pushing for a tax increase, the largest in history; a healthcare plan that would’ve put one-seventh of the economy under state control; a crime bill that was more gun control than crime control; and gays in the military. All of those things churned dislike and animosity among voters, and the turnout was 8 million more than in the previous midterm elections. Of course, [the result was] the historic Republican takeover of the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years.
Now I happen to believe that this president is more cautious and guarded than Bill Clinton was. He’s a student of history. He watched Bill Clinton carefully at that time, and Barack Obama will not proceed as dramatically as Bill Clinton did. It is unlikely Republicans will regain both houses of Congress in 1994. That said, it’s going to take a little bit longer for the Republicans to rebound and come back, and I think they’re settling in for a long period of warfare with the new administration.
Kokai: Turning aside from the partisan labels, what is the situation like today for conservatives, regardless of whether they’re Republicans, or whether they’re fed up with the way the Republican Party went? Is the situation good or bad for the conservative movement?
Gizzi: It will always be more good than it’s bad in the sense that conservatives now have the infrastructure in terms of think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, grass-roots organizational groups such as Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform, and publications such as National Review, The Weekly Standard, and Human Events. These were things that were very rare in the 1960s when the conservative movement was in its embryonic stage. Now with success and with growth sometimes comes the luxury that is a burden, and in this case one finds different factions. You know what I’m talking about: cultural conservatives disagree with economic conservatives, [and] the libertarians are mad at just about everyone.
That said, there are common denominators within the conservative movement, primarily respect for others and individual freedom that have kept the movement alive and prospering. And even when it’s out of office it’s in well-enough fighting trim to be an effective voice of the loyal opposition, very much as conservatives are when they’re out of power in Europe.
Kokai: You mentioned a point I want to get back to now, and this has to do with President-elect Barack Obama. You said you think he’s a more cautious and guarded figure than Bill Clinton was when he came in in 1992. Do you think that means policy-wise he will be not as likely to overreach, or will he just be better about doing it in such a way that people don’t get as alarmed?
Gizzi: One of my colleagues who’s with the BBC shared with me experiences of covering Barack Obama and the other well-known son of immigrants who rose to lead his country: Nicolas Sarkozy. If it were Sarkozy, he would do things dramatically, quickly, catching the world by surprise, delighting everyone, as he did for example in his efforts to free Ingrid Betancourt in Colombia or to be involved in the Georgian controversy earlier this year. Barack Obama is not that way, he noted. Obama for example, backed away with his rhetoric against the North American Free Trade Agreement. He has said on occasion that he would’ve never supported a surveillance measure that included an amnesty — immunity — for telephone companies that participate in wiretapping. He voted for the bill this year.
And even now, his talk about increasing [the] capital gains tax is more muted and nuanced. Even his opposition to the war in Iraq is no longer a cut-and-dried 16-month deadline, but a 16-month deadline but holding open the option of listening to the generals on this, and what they have to say. That’s not the sign of someone who acts boldly and dramatically, and I think in the end he will be less Franklin D. Roosevelt, and certainly less Nicolas Sarkozy.