By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 5th, 2010
In my state, New York, thanks to the Tea Party favorite, Carl Paladino, Andrew Cuomo’s election as Governor was never in doubt. In Delaware, thanks to Christine O’Donnell, Chris Coons easily became Senator, when it seemed that he was likely to lose against a mainstream Republican. In Nevada, the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who started and finished with low approval ratings, managed to be reelected, thanks to the Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle. On the other hand, Marco Rubio in Florida, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and Rand Paul in Kentucky each impressively were elected to the Senate, assuring that there will be a discernable taste of tea in that great deliberative body.
As Paul put it,
“They say that the U.S. Senate is the world’s most deliberative body. Well, I’m going to ask them, respectfully, to deliberate upon this. Eleven percent of the people approve of what’s going on in Congress. But tonight there is a Tea Party tidal wave and we’re sending a message to ’em.
It’s a message that I will carry with them on Day One. It’s a message of fiscal sanity It’s a message of limited, limited constitutional government and balanced budgets.” (link)
The language is ugly, but clear. The political discourse of the Senate is about to be challenged, and this is the body where the Republicans are in the minority. It will be even louder and clearer in the House, which I admit I find pretty depressing, both from the political and the aesthetic point of view. It’s going to be harder to actually deal with our pressing problems, and it’s not going to be pretty.
Indeed, it is in spheres of aesthetics and discourse that the Tea Party has been most successful. It’s not a matter actually of how many races Tea Party politicians won or lost. They won some and lost some, but from the beginning the Tea Party’s great success has been how it changed the public discussion about the pressing issues of the day. In my next post, I will discuss this more fully, comparing the Tea Party with the Solidarity Movement in Poland, . . .
Read more: Rand Paul and the Tea Party go to Washington
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 4th, 2010 
 For the Republicans, the election returns indicate a clear mandate, the repudiation of the policies of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress. This was boldly expressed in the joint press conference of Representative John Boehner, Senator Mitch McConnell and Governor Haley Barbour. For the Democrats, the results of the election are humbling, indicating the need for bi-partisanship, as the President spoke about yesterday in his press conference. Was this just opposing tactical responses to the returns? I don’t think so. In fact, I believe that it is the President who is responding to the change the voters believe in, while the Republicans are misreading the election results.
The Republicans were combative:
Senator Mitch McConnell:
We’ll work with the administration when they agree with the people and confront them when they don’t. Choosing — I think what our friends on the other side learned is that choosing the president over your constituents is not a good strategy. There are two opportunities for that change to occur. Our friends on the other side can change now and work with us to address the issues that are important to the American people, that we all understood. Or further change, obviously, can happen in 2012.
Governor Haley Barbour:
On behalf of the Republican governors, while governor’s races may be thought of as being separate or very different from what’s going on in Washington, in this case, even in governor’s races, this election was a referendum on Obama’s policies. And the policies of the Obama administration, the Pelosi-Reid Congress were repudiated by the voters.
Representative John Boehner:
Listen, I believe that the health care bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country. That means that we have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with commonsense reforms that’ll bring down the cost of health insurance.
The President was conciliatory:
Over the last two years, we’ve made progress. But, clearly, too many Americans haven’t felt that progress yet, and they told us that yesterday. And . . .
Read more: Voters have Demanded a Change, Again
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 3rd, 2010
The Republicans won. The Democrats lost. Obama faces a significant challenge to his leadership. The Tea Party has come to town. Politics in the Capital are about to become very interesting. The political scene has changed. Now we must deliberately consider: what the play will look like, who the actors will be, what will be their roles, how will they play them, and are we in for a comedy or tragedy. Some initial food for thought using Alexis de Tocqueville as our guide.
Tocqueville in the 1830s described two types of political parties, great political parties and small political parties. He explained:
“What I call great political parties are those that are attached more to principles than to their consequences; to generalities and not to particular cases; to ideas and not to men. These parties generally have nobler features, more generous passions, more real convictions, a franker and bolder aspect than others. Particular interests, which always plays the greatest role in political passions, hides more skillfully here under the veil of public interest…
Small parties, on the contrary, are generally without political faith. As they do not feel themselves elevated and sustained by great objects, their character is stamped with a selfishness that shows openly in each of their acts. They always become heated in a cool way; their language is violent but their course is timid and uncertain. The means that they employ are miserable, as is the very goal they propose for themselves. Hence it is that when a time of calm follows a violent revolution, great men seem to disappear all at once and souls withdraw into themselves.
Americans have had great parties; today they no longer exist: it has gained much in happiness, but not in morality.” (link)
Tocqueville thought that the fundamental principles of American political life were established in the great debates between the Democratic – Republicans and the Federalists, between Jefferson, Hamilton, et.al, and that once the order was set, politics would be of a more mundane sort about dividing the spoils and . . .
Read more: The Results Were Expected
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 2nd, 2010 
 Nothing is decided yet. This is Election Day and what people do now will determine the results. We’ll soon know for sure, perhaps already when you read this. But it, nonetheless, seems likely that today’s election will be a good one for the Republicans, bad for the Democrats. The polls, the pundits and public expectations are all in agreement. The Democrats will lose the House and probably keep the Senate with a much diminished majority. With this general prognostication, we start the debate now.
What Happened?
There will be all sorts of explanations to account for the election outcome, most of them connected to the limitations of Obama as a political actor, most of them, also, not really serious. In the past two elections, the Democrats gained a large number of seats in traditionally Republican districts, and thus they were not particularly solid, and when times are tough, as they are now, it is not good for incumbents in marginal districts. I have nothing particularly to add to this. I recommend an excellent, realistic election preview of the likely post election storytelling by Bendan Nyhan, which I think gets it right.
Why?
But beyond the outcome is its meaning. Although Nyhan and other election realists are surely on target when they underscore that the old slogan “it’s the economy stupid” goes a long way in explaining the results, the results’ meaning will be less clear and more important as we proceed.
While I’ve suggested in my most recent posts that the power and limitations of Obama’s speech-making will be revealed by the voting, I don’t think that this is of crucial importance in understanding the meaning of the elections. That was how the battle looked on the ground, as Obama tried to maximize his and the Democrats’ advantage. Now there is the question of where the country is at this moment and where it’s going. The Republican victory does reveal Democratic failures, which need examination, which I hope we discuss here at DC in the coming days and weeks.
I think that the primary issue is commonsense. I have long maintained that Obama, and the Democratic . . .
Read more: Today is a Good Day for the Republicans
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 2nd, 2010
As we go to the polls today, there is the likely outcome, a significant Republican victory, and there is the possibility of the surprise finish, more muted Republican gains. Times are tough, and people are thus looking for changes in their political representation, but despite this, indeed, because of it, to the end, Obama fought against the apparently inevitable. In the climax of his fight, he explained his position:
“Around the country I’ve been trying to describe it this way. Imagine the American economy as a car. And the Republicans were at the wheel and they drove it into a ditch. And it’s a steep ditch, it’s a deep ditch. And somehow they walked away.
But we had to go down there. So me and all the Democrats, we put on our boots and we repelled down into the ditch. (Laughter.) And it was muddy down there and hot. We’re sweating, pushing on the car. Feet are slipping. Bugs are swarming.
We look up and the Republicans are up there, and we call them down, but they say, no, we’re not going to help. They’re just sipping on a Slurpee — (laughter) — fanning themselves. They’re saying, you’re not pushing hard enough, you’re not pushing the right way. But they won’t come down to help. In fact, they’re kind of kicking dirt down into us, down into the ditch. (Laughter.)
But that’s okay. We know what our job is, and we kept on pushing, we kept on pushing, we kept on pushing until finally we’ve got that car on level ground. (Applause.) Finally we got the car back on the road. (Applause.) Finally we got that car pointing in the right direction. (Applause.)
And suddenly we have this tap on our shoulder, and we look back and who is it?
AUDIENCE: Republicans.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s the Republicans. And they’re saying, excuse me, we’d like the keys back.
AUDIENCE: No! (link)
D.C. reader, Eric Friedman, reported in a reply to my last post that his son heard these words on the Midway at the University of Chicago and found . . .
Read more: After Sipping on a Slurpee, Republican Victory Still Likely
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 31st, 2010
Barack Obama, Storyteller in Chief, has been going around the country making clear what he thinks the choice is in the upcoming election: the Republican position that government is the problem not the solution versus the Democratic position that good governance can matter. As I examined in my last post, he is telling his version of the American story, supporting specific candidates and promoting specific policies, but also giving his account of the recent past and his imaginative understanding of what the alternatives are in the near future. The specifics are interesting.
In Boston, supporting Governor Deval Patrick, the emphasis was on the economy and the kinds of tax cuts and public support that would benefit working people, the emphasis of all his speeches, but then a group in the audience called out: “Fight global AIDS! Fight global AIDS!” And the President improvised around his central theme:
And if they [the Republicans] win in Congress, they will cut AIDS funding right here in the United States of America and all across the world. (Applause.) You know, one of the great things about being a Democrat is we like arguing with each other. (Laughter.) But I would suggest to the folks who are concerned about AIDS funding, take a look at what the Republican leadership has to say about AIDS funding. (Applause.) Because we increased AIDS funding.
He was highlighting a distinctive position that Democrats share in contrast to their Republican opponents, public investment can contribute to the common good, especially in difficult times. And he makes his basic argument by citing the greatest of Republican authorities. (link)
But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, we also believe that government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves. (Applause.) We believe in a country that rewards hard work. We believe in a country that encourages responsibility. We believe in a country where we look after one another; where we say I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper. That’s the America we know. That’s the choice . . .
Read more: Obama Hits the Stump for 2010 Candidates
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 28th, 2010 
The Tea Party has made an impact on political conversation, no matter your (or my) politics. I’ve written previously about them here.
I am quite ambivalent about the Tea Party. While I am appalled by some of the slogans and signs that have appeared in Tea Party rallies, I am convinced that this is a genuine social movement, a politically significant instance of the politics of small things, a political movement concerned with fundamental principles, engaged in a great debate about both the pressing issues of the day and the enduring problems of American political life. As a registered Democrat and as a strong supporter of President Obama and his program, I am pleased that the actions of the movement may have made the Republican landslide in the upcoming elections less momentous, as the talking heads are now speculating, although I am still concerned that the movement may have given wind to the rightward shift of public opinion. The emotional, irrational and often purposely ignorant political expression in Tea Party demonstrations is of deep concern, but I think the strong expression of fundamental political principles can and should be seriously considered and confronted. I am unsure about what the Tea Party Movement’s impact on American public life in the very near term, i.e. the midterm elections, and in the long term, i.e. in the reinvention of American political culture will be. As I have been trying to sort this all out, I am reminded of the insights of an old friend, Alberto Melucci, an Italian sociologist who presciently understood the meaning of social movements in the age of internet and mobile communications, before these new media were common.
The Theoretical Perspective of a Friend 
Alberto Melucci
In series of important books, Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society, Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age, and The Tea Party Challenges ‘Business as Usual’
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 9th, 2010
I was planning to post today about the new peace talks between Israel and Palestine using the perspective of the politics of small things. But this will have to wait for another day. Barack Obama gave a speech on Labor Day that requires attention. It was a very strong partisan address, a forceful support of the labor movement on labor’s day, a clear proclamation of his position on the pressing issue of the day, the state of the economy, and on the strategy necessary to fix it.
The Storyline
 Obama proposed a transit plan to create jobs, reported in The New York Times as the storyline, but, it seems to me, the specific proposal was an illustration of his political message, not the message itself. The significant story: Obama was challenging the commonsense that seems to support the Republican prospects in the coming election, forcefully and clearly depicting an alternative commonsense that would support his Party’s immediate chances and also contribute to his attempt to reinvent American political culture. Far from Reagan’s “the government is not the solution but the problem,” Obama depicted how and explained why good government can help, and bad government can and has hurt. He wanted to turn the terms of debate from big government versus limited government, to good government versus bad government.
Obama is now drawing a clear line between those who support his policies and those who have been an obstacle to the change that at least Obama and his supporters believe in. He sought to draw the contrast between his administrations accomplishments and achievements, and his opposition. It was often an entertaining exercise, clearly meant to increase the level of passionate support for his overall project and to address the immediate task at hand, winning, or at least not losing badly in the upcoming elections.
The Declaration
Obama’s most telling declaration, biting in its critical thrust, revealing in its positive direction:
“When we passed a bill earlier this summer to help states save jobs — the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers and nurses and police officers and firefighters that were about to be laid off, they said no. (Applause.) . . .
Read more: Back in the Ring
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