The Epochal Battle of Campaign '08

Today's Wall Street Journal's got one of my favorite types of political news articles: the big picture analysis. The Journal's Gerald Seib argues that we're seeing in 2008 the end of the Reagan-Bush political era in American politics (a Reagan or a Bush was on the top of the ticket in every election since 1980).

Here's the introduction:

When Iowa voters walk into their state's caucuses tomorrow night, they will be kicking off a milestone campaign year that promises a new political course for America.

For the first time in 80 years, no incumbent president or vice president from either party is seeking the White House, creating an unusually unsettled campaign with no obvious front-runner. Power in Congress is divided so evenly between the two parties that neither has really been in control since the 2006 elections. Now, in the wide-open 2008 general election, voters will declare whom they want to run the executive and legislative branches.

Americans will make that choice at a time when they are distinctly uneasy. Record numbers of voters are choosing to declare themselves politically independent -- and thus open to moving either left or right. Both the Republican president and the Democratic Congress are receiving historically low public-approval ratings, another sign of voter unease. More broadly, the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has in recent months found the nation to be in the midst of the most prolonged period of public dissatisfaction in 15 years, as measured by the share of voters who say the country is "on the wrong track."

In one sense change is inevitable. This year marks the end of what can be considered the Reagan-Bush era in American politics that began when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. In six of the last seven general elections, a candidate named Reagan or Bush has appeared atop a national ticket, defining a brand of internationally engaged conservatism that has been the dominant strain in American politics for more than a generation.

Now the stage is set for an ideological rethinking in both parties. "The mood for change is more than one of small incremental adjustments," write Republican pollster Bill McInturff and Democrat Peter Hart, who conduct the Journal/NBC News poll. "It is concern for the next generation as well as widespread unhappiness with both President Bush and the Congress."

The question is: Change to what? At the outset of the year, Democrats, having been out of the White House for the past seven years and in the minority of Congress for six of those years, stand the best chance of benefiting from the mood for change.

So far, it appears that presidential candidates Barack Obama among the Democrats and Mike Huckabee among the Republicans have benefited most from the public desire to shake things up. They are fresh faces who seem to represent departures from the establishment.

Seib points to the war in Iraq, the economy, and immigration as three top issues facing the electorate in 2008. Underlying the issues is the pent-up demands for government to do something. Polling data finds the lowest number of Americans seeing the country moving in the right direction since the 1992 election.

Will 2008 be one of those earthquake-style elections of earlier eras, a realignment toward decades of Democratic Party political dominance?

I don't think so. Sure, this is an extremely different political cycle, with new faces and demographics being represented in the political system like never before.

But I don't see some kind of new governing philosophy emerging, and I don't see the making for some dramatic systemic political change (Republicans have been doing well at the state level, which doesn't augur well for a broader, long-term national Democratic movement).

The Democrats so far have been unable to pick up the best elements of the old Bill Clinton-New Democrat governing style, especially on trade and markets.

I wouldn't be surprised if a Democratic administration even sought to turn back from the Clinton administration's biggest domestic achievement - welfare reform - although I don't think the electorate's so disenchanted with politics that people would welcome a return to mass welfare dependency. I hope I'm wrong of course, which I mention because we are seeing public support for Democratic social-welfare proposals on health care - mandated programs which are looking to stifle competition, reduce choice, and ration care. As Seib notes:

Anxiety over the economy, and particularly worries about health care, could prompt a return to classic big-government liberalism. In this scenario, voters would turn to government to provide health care and bail out homeowners thrown on the street by the escalating payments on their adjustable-rate mortgages. Democrat Hillary Clinton has been aggressively pushing the message that the government should ensure health coverage for all Americans.

I'm more optimistic on the GOP side. All the major candidates are committed to America's mission in Iraq, with just moderate differences in how they'd approach the broader war on terror (Mike Huckabee's a bit of an outlier, but even he'd keep up the troop deployment in Iraq). It's less clear what a GOP president will offer in 2009, but I'm convinced that grassroots forces will push a Republican White House to the right on the top issues on the agenda.

Read the whole article, in any case.

I have some doubts about some of the other hypotheticals raised, for example, that the election might produce some type of post-partisan electoral synthesis. No, I think the country's not geared toward moderate renaissance, if we ever had such a time.