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Joe the Trucker and "Real" America's Pocketbook Politics

by Shane Hamilton

Apparently "Joe the Plumber," the McCain-Palin mascot for the "real [read: white, small-town, anti-elitist] America," did not r

Is It 1932 or 1952?

by Colleen Doody

In the wake of Barack Obama’s historic victory, the question arises of whether we are witnessing a fundamental realignment in American politics.  Does 2008 mark the “end of the conservative era” as Pat Buchanan claimed?  Or will this election, like Bill Clinton’s before it, be a Democratic interlude in the midst of a Republican epoch?Political scientists and historians divide American history into a series of periods marked by a particular dominant ideolo

Saving Private Savings, or, The God That Failed

by James Livingston

During an economic crisis, the worst fear of market purists—those apparently anachronistic types who actually believe that the market is a neutral externality, something like God in its panoptical purview—is “moral hazard,” which follows from the validation of excessive, corrupt, and fraudulent behavior by misguided government policy.  The market should be allowed to do its cleansing work, these purists say; public policy should not prop up those firms (or

Back When a Socialist Was a Socialist

by Ralph E. Shaffer

During the vice-presidential debate of 1988, Republican nominee Dan Quayle attempted to draw a parallel between himself and John F. Kennedy. Quayle's Democratic opponent, Lloyd Bentsen, who had served with Kennedy in the Senate, looked Quayle in the eye and said, evenly, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy!" When Republicans singled out Barack Obama's income-tax proposal and labeled him a socialist during t

King, Obama, and the Politics of Hope

by Michael Honey

At this summer’s Republican Convention, Sarah Palin and Rudy Guliana mocked Barack Obama: “community organizer -- What!!?” They didn’t ge

Why President-Elect Obama Should Follow the Example of President-Elect Lincoln

by Harold Holzer

We’re waking up with a brand-new president-elect.  His job will not be easy—not only the task that awaits him after ina

An Elderly Historian Ponders “What’s Next?”

by Vaughn Davis Bornet

I write two days after Election Day, 2008, not a day that will live in infamy, but one hopefully that will live in the bright rays of yearning long delayed and faith finally fulfilled.  It has been a very long path from the slave ships to this moment.  Indeed it has.  Most of us, I dare say, long since ceased to believe that anything truly monumental could happen in our lifetimes. Yet happen it did, not by accident, but by careful design, and through the efforts of the

Did Obama Make the South Irrelevant?

by James C. Cobb

The polls had hardly closed, it seemed, before the punditry of print and blogosphere were positively a-twitter at the possibility that  Barack Obama’s near-landslide victory is both substance and symbol of the happy reality that “The South has moved from being the center of the political universe to being an outside player in presidential politics.”  I can

The Suburban Sunbelt and the Making and Unmaking of the Conservative Republican Majority

by Mark D. Nevin

The conservative movement has always been confident about the power of its ideas. Over the last forty years conservative writers and commentators have fashioned a narrative of recent American politics that credits conservative ideology for the Republican Party’s successes and blames party apostasy for its defeats. So it is not surprising that in the aftermath of the election many prominent conservatives have attributed the Republican losses not to voter rejection of conservative

Why the Sarah Palin Gamble Didn’t Pay Off

by Joel K. Goldstein

John McCain probably lost whatever chance he had to become president on August 28, the day he invited Sarah Palin to be his running mate. In making that decision, McCain ignored a lesson of recent vice-presidential selection: presidential candidates run a huge risk if they choose a running mate who is not presidential caliber. The candidates' vice-presidential choices, both their quality and the process leading to those choices, have become measures of presidential candidates themsel

Why Putting Civil Rights Up to a Vote Is a Bad Idea

by Thomas A. Foster

The recent decision of California voters to take away the right of gays and lesbians to marry highlights the danger of exposing civil rights protection to popular vote. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of California ruled that under the California constitution gays and lesbians had the same right as heterosexuals to be married by the state. The decision in no way infringed upon the privilege of churches to sanctify marriages as they saw fit. The issue is of course not limit

Why Public Confession Speaks to a Secular America

by Susan Wise Bauer

In early July of 1884, the Democratic National Convention nominated Grover Cleveland for the presidency of the United States. Just days after the convent

1920+1932 = 2008

by Robert S. McElvaine

We often hear that the election that takes place Tuesday will be one of the most important in American history. Such statements, however, are often litt

First Things

by David W. Blight

“First things are always interesting, and this is one of our first things,” declared Frederick Douglass on April 14, 1876, in Washingto

The Bank Crisis Blame Game, Then and Now

by Jessica M. Lepler

Whether Barack Obama or John McCain finds himself taking the oath of office on January 20, he won't be the first man to be handed a financial crisis along with the keys to the White House. FDR faced a depression and a banking crisis in 1933. Another president, even farther in the past, faced a situation closer to today's mess: forgotten Martin Van Buren. When Martin Van Buren placed his hand on the Bible on March 4, 1837, a string of business failures simultaneously began to topple th

The Bailout: A Far Cry from Socialism

by Andrew M. Schocket

"Socialism!" That's the alarm many conservative commentators and legislators are sounding about the latest development in Washington's bank bailout scheme. Critics worry that the latest bank rescue plan will begin a slippery slope towards socialism or at least a day when government officials run American businesses, the American economy and, eventually, American lives. But this isn't the first time the U.S. government has held stock in banks, and the nation never turned to

Crazy Woman in Pittsburgh? Republican Problems Run Deeper

by Joseph Palermo

On October 24, 2008, John McCain's communications director for Pennsylvania, Peter Feldman, fanned the flames of racial bigotry to score political points. Feldman peddled the story to at least two Pittsburgh TV news outlets (KDKA and WPXI) that a 6' 4" "dark skinned" African-American man assaulted, robbed, and carved a "B" into the cheek of a 20-year-old white woman "volunteer" from the Young Republicans named Ashley Todd. McCain's communications wizard embell

2008 Is a Long Ways Away from 1908, But Still ...

by Adam Burns

It all seemed to be going so well. A quick war toppling an oppressive regime to free the poor masses from tyranny, a sound plan surely… However, all did not go quite according to plan, the oppressed masses sparked a bloody insurgency and the U.S. death toll grew higher by the day, the week, the month, and the year. Stories of war crimes and torture soured liberal public opinion against a continued occupation. If only the liberated masses would realize that the point of all this is to h

Will Obama be FDR to McCain’s Hoover?

by Manisha Sinha

Since the financial crisis precipitated a global economic melt-down, political pundits, historians, and the candidates themselves have made numerous comparisons between recent events and the Great Depression of 1929. Joe Biden’s slip-up on when exactly the Depression took place pales in comparison to John McCain’s far fetched claim that Obama’s tax plans are similar to President Herbert Hoover’s, under whose watch

Barack Obama: Secret Muslim?

by Thomas S. Kidd

During this year’s presidential campaign, widely-circulated e-mails claimed that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim. “Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim,” one version of the e-mail asserted. “Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to dow