Any time Democrats do well, there are claims that We Are Now All Centrists (although this never seems to happen when Republicans win...), and that partisanship is undesirable. With that in mind, it's worth remembering just how poisoned our national discourse has been by extremist Republicans (who lead the GOP):
What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America's political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer "therapy and understanding" to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was "shrill."
Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they've been banished to the wilderness.
From Paul Krugman's keyboard to the Intelligent Designer's ears....
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Only one catch.
Now Obama has to deliver on the promises he made.
And since he promised just about everything to everybody, that is going to be tough
And if the economy stalls for several business cycles, he is going to be another Jimmy Carter.
But what will really destroy his popularity will be if, after talking to terrorists and trying to kiss their assess, and after relaxing the patriot act, we get hit again on a major scale.
Crowds are fickle. He might even be impeached if that were to happen.
Monsters, yes they are. But that is equally true of the voters who elected them. The voters who, in several states, voted to ban gay marriage. The fact of the matter is that we ALL have the potential to be monsters. In particular, it is when we lose sight of the fact that we might be wrong, when we become convinced that we are completely right and others are completely wrong, that we become monsters.
The reason I think Obama has done so well is that he listens to others rather than demonizing them. I think that he is a pragmatist, who will seek to do what will work rather than follow the True Ideology. Just as we can all be monsters, we all also have the potential to follow our better instincts. There was a very moving piece on the CNN web site by George Wallace's daughter yesterday on why her father probably would have supported Obama:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/03/wallace.kennedy.obama/index.html
What we need as a country is healing, not purges.