America’s 2008 election was many things: Historic, exciting, dramatic, and convincing on the presidential level. But one thing it was not was a referendum against traditional American values or a mandate for Barack Obama’s far left policy agenda.
Everything was on the side of the Democrats in this election: An extremely unpopular President, a recession, the largest rapid stock-market sell-off since our grandparents were young, two wars (of which at least one is quite unpopular, though not at its nadir in public opinion), recent convictions of Republicans for corruption, most notably Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, hundreds of thousands of apparently very motivated young and first-time voters, and the desire by many Americans of all creeds and colors to elect a black man to the presidency just because they could.
Just a month ago, Democrats were predicting an utter landslide, including an "increasingly plausible” target of knocking off Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) to get them a filibuster-proof 60 Senate seats. Just before the election, bettors gave more than a 90% chance that Democrats would have at least 56 Senate seats, excluding Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders. At this point, it appears the number will be 56, though there may yet be a surprise Democratic victory in Georgia or Minnesota. Yes, it’s a big Democratic majority, but basically the very low end of what bettors expected.
Bettors gave a 60% chance that Democrats would have 261 seats or more in the House of Representatives (compared to 235 in this Congress.) The final number hasn’t been determined yet with as many as 8 races still undecided, but it appears to be in the area of 259 seats for the Democrats. Again, a big majority, but at the low end of “market” expectations.
There was also a mixed bag in other races: Democrats couldn’t turn Wyoming or Georgia blue, but they did win control of the NY State Senate for the first time since 1965.
In the presidential race, despite the incredibly favorable environment for Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular, Obama only managed to get 1 million more votes than George Bush received in 2004. He did do very well in the popular vote, as a percentage, with only Ronald Reagan (in 1984) and George H.W. Bush (in 1988) getting a higher percentage among elections going back to 1976. But Obama won just 28 states, fewer than Bill Clinton did in 1992 or 1996. Indeed, during my lifetime, only one president won election by winning fewer states than Obama did, and that was Jimmy Carter with 23+DC in 1976. (JFK won with only 22 states, but before that you have to go back to the election if 1896 to find someone who won with fewer than 28 states.)
This is not to say that Obama’s win wasn’t overwhelming. It was. But it was less overwhelming than it could have been, given the circumstances. And the rest of the evening showed (in the view of this non-liberal who’s trying to look on the bright side) anything but a broad and utter repudiation of conservative values or Republican politicians.
