Pollyanna

In the old Walt Disney movie, Pollyanna went around a small town reminding grumpy and distraught people that there is always something to be glad about. For believers in human liberty and limited government, there are good reasons to regret that Barack Obama has been elected president and very good reasons to regret that he will govern with the Senate and House that were elected Tuesday. However, in this case, Pollyanna is right. There are in fact several things to be glad about.

First, George Bush is leaving. His administration has not only been a failure. It has been a double disaster for friends of liberty. Not only did he abridge civil rights, endorse torture, lead us into an unnecessary war, balloon deficits and government spending, increase regulation and entitlements, create massive and intrusive new bureaucracies, and claim unconstitutional powers for the executive. He did it while presenting himself (and being presented by his enemies) as a so-called conservative and, in some vague sense, as an opponent of big government, thereby damaging actual opponents of big government by implied association.

Second, and most important, John McCain lost. Since World War II, with the one exception of the first two years after the Johnson landslide, the worst legislation and the grossest assaults on liberty have come not under Democratic administrations, but under those of big government Republicans, with the presidencies of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush being the leading examples. In this respect, John McCain would have given the nation a third Bush term. He is an activist, big government, command guy to his bones. His actual views on domestic issues are not that far from those of Barack Obama. The difference is that President Obama’s worst proposals probably will be blocked or filibustered by Republicans in the Senate. As good team players, the same Republican senators likely would have supported them coming from a President McCain, while Democrats would have opposed him only when he was not statist enough. In general, gridlock is good, and we have a better chance of it with Obama than McCain.

There is a also chance that an Obama administration may do some good things such as correcting excesses from homeland security and the war on drugs and abjuring torture. As president Obama might even have a more nearly constitutional view of the scope of the executive.

Finally, Republicans will be in opposition. That means they need something to oppose. The easiest things to oppose will be Obama’s plans to expand government and constrict freedom. So, perhaps only willy-nilly, we may hear Republicans talking about freedom and limited government again. They might even accidentally come up with candidates who believe in those things and elect them as the political pendulum swings back in the next few years.

All in all, this election has turned out about as well as it could have.

Three Democrats

It is said that Bill Clinton likes to tell people that he governed as an Eisenhower Republican. There is a lot of truth to the claim (especially with regard to the last six years he was in office). His administration featured balanced budgets, restrained federal spending, and low inflation. It was a time of peace, progress, and prosperity. There were no new large federal mandates or controls. He was a generally successful president and a better one than either of the Bushes.

Seen in this light, one could say that the two presidential elections of the 1990s were contests between Republicans – in 1992 between an Eisenhower Republican and a Rockefeller Republican and in 1996 between an Eisenhower Republican and a Dirksen Republican. So I guess it’s fair at least in some sense that the 2008 election is now down to a contest among three Democrats.

John McCain is the Scoop Jackson Democrat. He is aggressive and vigorous on foreign policy. He likes big government and reveres civilian “public service”. He is seriously ignorant about and really disdainful of markets, economics, and business. He is at heart a command and control guy who has shown he won’t let the Constitution be an impediment to getting what he wants done.

Hillary Clinton is the Lyndon Johnson Democrat. She has the power mania, the expansive agenda of programs and controls, the dishonesty, the slimy associates, the vindictiveness, the mean spirit, the penchant for abuse of power. She’s got it all. She almost could be a junior grade Lyndon.

Finally there is Barack Obama. He is the Kennedy Democrat. The question is which Kennedy. He strives to be seen as a John Kennedy Democrat. However, based on his past and record, he is a Ted Kennedy Democrat. If he has undergone a transformation from a Ted to a Jack, he can show us. He has time.

If not, old Scoop is the lesser of the evils, at least on the surface. However, there is the fear that Scoop would have compliant Republican senators for his bad schemes, while Lyndon or Ted would have filibustering Republican senators for theirs. Against that there is the near certainty that Lyndon or Ted would appoint terribly bad justices to the Supreme Court versus only a fifty percent or so chance that Scoop would. Figuring out what to hope for is a tough and interesting question to consider.