A Dagger To the Heart of the Democratic Party - Once Bitten, Twice Shy

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-greener/a-dagger-to-the-heart-of_b_690094.html?utm_source=web&utm_medium=twitter

Barack Obama may have taken the literary triumphs of "Change We Can Believe In" and the stirringly inspirational, "We are the ones we have been waiting for" and turned both poignant sentiments into sharp daggers pointed right at the heart of the Democratic Party. Once bitten, twice shy.

Following FDR, the closest we shall ever come to an American President for life, until Barack Obama in 2008 only two Democrats were able to get a majority of the popular vote in a Presidential election. This is not an insignificant failure. It covers 15 elections and 64 years. In a more current perspective, imagine if the Democrats failed to get half the Presidential vote in another election until the year 2072. Yes, Truman won after FDR, but with 49% of the vote. JFK was the next Democrat elected President in 1960, but also with only 49% of the popular vote. Following the Kennedy assassination, Lyndon Johnson won in a landslide with 61% and twelve years later, on the heels of the Nixon scandal and resignation, Jimmy Carter was elected with exactly 50% of the popular vote. The Democrats would have to wait until Bill Clinton in 1992 to see another Presidential victory. However, Clinton received only 43% of the popular vote in a three-way race that saw George H. W. Bush get the lowest percentage (37%) of any President who has ever run for reelection. Four years later, Clinton was reelected himself, but again with only 49% of the vote.

So, allowing for the two greatest catastrophes in modern Presidential history - the JFK assassination and the Nixon resignation - no Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 has been able to get more than half the Americans voting in a Presidential election to vote for a Democrat. That is, until Barack Obama ran for President in 2008. Obama's victory with almost 70 million votes was not only the largest popular vote of all-time, he received 53% of the total vote. This was by far the most dramatic Democratic victory since Roosevelt's first reelection in 1936 - 72 years earlier.

All the Democratic losers since World War II have disappointed once the votes were counted. Adlai Stevenson got 44% in 1952 and less (42%) in 1956; Hubert Humphrey got 43% of the vote in 1968 and George McGovern stumbled in with only 38% in 1972; Jimmy Carter, with only 41%, was beaten badly by Ronald Reagan in 1980; and Walter Mondale did no better in 1984; Dukakis managed 46% of the popular vote in 1988 against Bush the Elder; Al Gore got only 48% in 2000 (although he won more votes than Bush did); and John Kerry got the same 48% in 2004. Those numbers, taken with the less than majority totals for winning Democrats Truman, Kennedy and Clinton, show what an amazing achievement Barack Obama's campaign pulled off in 2008. It was a mandate of historical proportions.


More at the link ---

[DeSwiss]

1. K&R

"....this Democratic President has failed in his promises to his own supporters - this Democratic Party and this Democratic President have simply failed to lead."


- My feelings precisely.....

[MineralMan]

2. Deleted

[LAGC]

3. It really is disappointing how the Democrats had such a mandate and blew it.

I don't blame just the President for this either, but the Democrats in Congress as well.

We really had a chance to really change America for the better, to tell the Republicans to kiss off, but all the major pieces of legislation that this Congress and Administration have passed (HCR, FinReg, etc.) have all been watered-down, corporate-sellout bills that likely won't do much good, other than create huge bureaucracies that the Republicans can then point fingers at at say: "See, what a waste!"

We had a real chance to ram through at least a public option, to really police Wall Street. Instead the same jackals are in control.

I'm most disappointed in Obama's cabinet picks. Still waiting to see Elizabeth Warren put into a position where she can actually do some good. So far its just been empty promises and more of the same.

My only hope is that there might be a light at the end of the long tunnel, that if the economy does sink further, maybe Obama will shake up his cabinet and put some real progressive-minded economists in charge, someone whose not afraid to stand up to Wall Street and really change things for the better.

Obviously, we won't get anything at all done if Republicans re-take control, and Obama will be able to freely wring his hands. So its still important that we vote in November, try to (against all odds) increase our Democratic majorities so that they have no excuses this time, so that they can't piss away their mandate. It would be really nice to see some big agenda items like comprehensive immigration reform get passed during these next couple years, give people a reason to want to vote for Democrats, instead of just voting against the Republicans.

I know if things get bad enough, people will demand real change. Maybe we just haven't hit that precipice yet, that breaking point where politicians are forced to listen to the people over their monied interests pulling at their strings. We'll see.

[obxhead]

4. k/r