In this post, Łukasz Pawłowski a contributing editor for Kultura Liberalna, one of the groups I met with while in Poland, offers his reflections on the American elections for a European audience. Pawłowski is currently an academic visitor at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. -Jeff

Barack Obama won re-election, his party managed to hold the Senate, and the House of Representatives is still – exactly as before the elections – dominated by the Republicans hostile to presidential administration. Nothing has changed? By no means, potential changes are more than plenty, but the most important one concerns the American right.

The Republicans, who for the last few years have been leaning heavily to the right, lost the second election in a row, and in their own interests, it is better they rethink this strategy. In a rapidly changing American society this party is becoming, as the political scientist Benjamin Barber told “Kultura Liberalna” magazine, “the face of an already disappearing America – white, protestant, poor and rural.” And indeed, exit polls indicate that Barack Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, 73 of the Asian-American and 93 percent of African American. Given that the share of the first two minorities in American society is increasing dramatically fast, GOP should start thinking of how to appeal to them.

Little better did the Republicans do to captivate other important demographic group – the young. Only 36 percent of American voters between the age of 18 and 29 marked the Romney’s name on their ballots. Obviously this does not mean that in a few years, when these young people entirely replace the now older generations, the Republicans will entirely cease to matter – let’s not forget voters get more conservative with age. Yet, in a society as relatively young as American – in 2010 the median age was 37.2 – winning the presidential election without the support of this age group is hardly possible.

Truly terrible news for the Republicans, however, is their decisive loss in the urban areas. In cities with over 500,000 inhabitants, the Democratic Party won 69 per cent of the popular vote, and in those from 50,000 to 500,000 inhabitants, 58 per cent. Given that American society is one of the most urbanized in the world – 82 percent of Americans live in cities or in the suburbs and this number is on the rise – the slump in support of the urban population should be a wake-up call for the GOP to immediately change the direction of the party. In short, the Republicans can either come to terms with the new reality, reduce the influence of the Tea Party radicals and move towards the political center, or further stick to the right corner of the political scene, only watching the central stage where the actual play takes place. Which of the options the GOP takes will have a crucial impact on American politics at least in the forthcoming two years until the next congressional election.

We will see the first indications of the choice made when the negotiations on how to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” begin. In August 2011, unable to come to an agreement on whether the best way to combat the deficit was to repeal tax breaks for the rich – introduced by George W. Bush and supported by the Republicans – or to reduce public spending defended by the Democrats – the two parties made a rod for their own back. It was decided that if by the end of this year no compromise is reached, radical tax increases and spending cuts will be introduced automatically, which in turn will reduce the deficit by about 550 billion dollars over a year, but would also probably send the U.S. economy back into recession. To avoid this, American authorities must agree upon which cuts to delay and which tax breaks to maintain. Until now, any compromise was impossible due to the upcoming elections. The Republicans, counting on Romney’s victory and on regaining the majority in the Senate, were reluctant to make any concessions. This institutional paralysis which began months before November 6th resulted in the lowest approval ratings for the Congress in years. Only 13 percent of the surveyed Americans believed their representatives were doing their job well! If after the election day nothing changes, it is the Republican Party that will be particularly hurt.

The second win has significantly strengthened Barack Obama’s negotiating position. We all remember his gaffe, when in front of cameras he assured the then President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, that after the election he will be “more flexible” in his dealings with the Kremlin. Regardless of what we think about these words, Obama actually told the truth – he renewed his public mandate, he no longer needs to worry about re-election and thus can be more assertive in defending his position. The president will now be less willing to give way – and as far as the budget is concerned, he already made some significant concessions – so the ball is on the Republican side.

But what does it all mean for an average European? Surprisingly, quite a lot. If the parties fail to reach agreement, and the U.S. economy after three years of growth will start shrinking again, the consequences will soon be exported across the pond. As (some) economists like to say: “When America sneezes, Europe catches a cold.” And this is extremely bad news for the old continent, which – as is the case with the oldies – already suffers from a number of other ailments. We should thus keep our fingers crossed for the American right, which is now going out of its mind with anger and disappointment, to return to it as soon as possible.

Originally published in Kultura Liberalna in a special issue on U.S. Presidential Election.

As I celebrate the glorious re-election of President Barack Hussein Obama, and as New York and my friends and family are still suffering from Hurricane Sandy, and a snowstorm follow-up, I have been in Europe, spending time with my daughter, and her family in Paris, giving a lecture and visiting Rome for the first time, and taking part in public talks in Warsaw and Gdansk on the occasion of the Polish translation of Reinventing Political Culture, offering my commentary on the American elections informed by the book. In Gdansk, I was honored to receive a medal from the European Solidarity Center for my work with Solidarność, and continuing work inspired by its principles.

I have been enjoying the joys of citizenship and patriotic hope, the love of family, and recognition for personal and public achievement. I have learned a lot in many very interesting discussions. I have been very busy, torn with mixed emotions, including a frustrated desire to put my thoughts down for Deliberately Considered. Some quick summary thoughts today; next, a close critical response to the election results and the President’s speech. In brief: Obama excelled once again as “story teller in chief.”

Election Day from afar: having cast my vote weeks ago. In Warsaw, I discussed the events of the day and the project of the reinvention of American political culture. As I have explained in previous posts and analyzed carefully in my book, I believe that Barack Obama is an agent of significant reinvention, changing the relationship between culture and power: the way he has used the politics of small things, his eloquence as an alternative to sound bite political rhetoric, retelling of the American story as one centered on diversity, as he embodies this, and his challenge to market fundamentalism, are the major contours of his transformational politics. On Election Day, I explained that as a social scientist I thought that the transformation that he has started would successfully push forward, Nate Silver enthusiast that I am. But I also confessed that as a citizen I was worried. Obama’s accomplishments to date were in danger and his promise has not yet been fulfilled. I am now hopeful.

Earlier in Rome, I spoke to a group of media students about the relationship between media and the politics of small things. We had a particularly interesting discussion about how the power of gestures work in different types of mediated settings. I explained how I think Obama has managed to use long form rhetorical skills to constitute power in the age of twitter and sound bytes. Specifically in the first debate with Romney, this wasn’t enough, but in his victory speech, he showed how this works once again. He is the most powerful person in the world thanks to his speech making.

I also told my Rome colleagues that I was pretty sure that the re-election of Barack Obama would make it likely that the next President of the United States would be Hillary Clinton or another woman nominee of the Democratic Party (I will explain my grounds for this conviction in a future post)

This led to an intriguing discussion. A post doc in the audience observed that the power of Obama’s speech is informed by a specific tradition of oratory, that of the African American civil rights leaders coming from the African American church. She wondered whether there is a comparable tradition among feminist political leaders, supposing that there wasn’t. The voice of African American authority empowers Obama, while the feminist authoritative voice is one of contemporary invention. This led me to wonder about a discussion I had with feminist friends during the Democratic primary season in 2007-8. Which would be the more significant breakthrough Hillary Clinton or Obama? I thought that given the legacies of slavery, the election of Barack Obama would be, but perhaps I was wrong.

In Warsaw, I spoke with two groups, associated with two cultural journals, Kultura Liberalna and Respublika Nowa, the former was an informal meeting in a private apartment, the latter, a meeting at the journal’s offices, which included a cultural center. These groups are part of a reinvigorated intellectual scene in Poland, young intellectuals seeking alternatives in a highly problematic political environment. In both meetings, we talked about possible collaboration with Deliberately Considered.

In the Election Day meetings, I reflected on the fact that what I had to say that day would be speculative, while in my next meetings in Gdansk, if I was right, they would appear as having been inevitable. Before the results and after, I observed how the project of reinventing American political culture was proceeding. How changes in attitudes toward questions of American identity and the relation between the state and the market, the rejection of market fundamentalism are advancing.  I expected Obama to win and he did. I explained before the fact that as a social scientist, I judged Nate Silver’s prognostications to be sound and thought it was highly likely that Obama would win.  The changes he has advanced are compelling, and they are backed by hard demographic, economic and political realities.  But I confessed that I was worried as a citizen, so much was on the line.

I knew when I left home that how comfortable I would feel at home when I returned depended on the outcome of the elections. By the time, I had my meetings in Gdansk, I felt very comfortable.

The first meeting, the day after election day, included a formal ceremony and discussion of the Polish translation of my book as it informed an understanding of the outcome of the elections and Obama’s Presidency. The second meeting, was the first session at a conference on the future of Europe, with focus on the Eastern half, in and outside of the Euro zone. I was asked, among other things, what was the significance of the election results and what America could contribute to an understanding of the crisis in Europe.

I answered both questions by highlighting the great transformation occurring in the United States, facilitated by the President.  In 1789, an American republic centered on the idea of liberty, in the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln reinvented the idea of America, or more precisely, he gave voice to the reinvention that was developing, by making the principle of equality also central. He turned the Declaration of Independence into a central normative text, as Garry Wills powerfully has demonstrated. I think, and explained in Gdansk, that Barack Obama has also added a new critical note, using similar means. Diversity is becoming a central American principle and the basis of identity.  Obama in all his major speeches and in his actions is  charging the great seal motto E pluribus unum with new meaning and application. Diversity as the basis of our unity is now defined as central to our identity, concerning race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and much more. This is new, powerfully pushed forward by Obama and supported by American opinion and by demography. This is the renewed American story and recognized strength. I will explain more fully in my next post.

I am off to Europe today, leaving the excitement of the elections with ambivalence.  On the one hand, I won’t be completely up to date and in touch with the latest developments and won’t be able to work for the re-election of the President. On the other hand, to be honest, I haven’t been working on the campaign this year, apart from occasional small contributions and apart from my clearly pro-Obama commentaries. I also must admit that being away, I hope, cuts down on my anxieties about the election results. This election is driving me crazy.

I have been trying to figure out why I am so tied up in knots about it, why it seems to me that the election is so important and why I am so invested in the results. After all, there is a chance that moderate Mitt, and not severely conservative Romney, is the alternative.

Moderate Mitt, perhaps, wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps, he is honestly revealing himself as he has been rushing to the center in recent days, with the identical foreign policy to Obama’s, guaranteeing that the rich will pay their fair share and promising to work with Democrats in forging a bi-partisan approach to economic growth and fiscal responsibility. Proud of his great accomplishment in effectively insuring universal health insurance to Massachusetts residents, perhaps, I shouldn’t even worry about his pledge to repeal Obamacare on day one.

Then again perhaps not: there is no way of knowing what Romney will do, who he really is, and that scares me. And even scarier, are the people who support him and will make demands upon him. From the crazies who denounce the President as a post-colonial subversive, bent on destroying America, to The Tea Party activists, to the neo-conservative geo-political thinkers, to supply side economists, who imagine that austerity is the path to growth (as in Great Britain?), to those who want a small non-intrusive government on all issues except those concerning sexual orientation and women’s bodies, to all those who just want to “take America back.” I am far from sure that moderate Mitt could resist their pressures, while I am quite sure that severely conservative Governor Romney wouldn’t, and would be, in fact, at the front of the barricades.

On every policy issue, in comparison to the Republicans, I support the President.  Yet, that isn’t the reason for my passion or my anxiety. Rather, I think, it has to do with feeling at home, feeling comfortable in my country. Something I am thinking about as I get ready to leave for a while.

Obama’s election opened our country up. It was something I was privileged to observe and celebrate with my friends at the Theodore Young Community Center, a rich, diverse community, primarily African American. I fear that Romney and especially the forces around him seek to close my country down. I share these fears with many of my friends. Especially with Beverly McCoy, the receptionist at the center, her passion for Obama is unmatched. She recognizes a competitor in my wife Naomi, and the three of us have become very close friends, along with other friends at Theodore Young. Beverly is sure that the passionate opposition and hatred of the President is ultimately because of race. I can’t disagree. I hope my leftist friends, those quick to be critical of Obama, remember this on election day, and also when they get carried away declaring that there is no difference between Romney and Obama.

I am off to see these friends now. I am off for a swim before my taxi to the airport and flight to Paris to visit family. Then on to Rome, Warsaw and Gdansk to give lectures and take part in discussions about the politics of small things and media, and the elections and my most recent book, Reinventing Political Culture, which has just been translated into Polish. It should be an interesting trip.

Yesterday, Beverly and I agreed that we would meet after the elections and celebrate our friendship no matter what. She wants to tell the world that our friendship is thanks to Obama, but it will live whether “our guy” wins or not. But I do hope that when I come home I will feel comfortable. To that end, Naomi and I cast our absentee ballots two weeks ago.

The debate was again very stimulating, and again I had trouble sleeping, more out of excitement this time, not because I was fighting against despair, as was the case after the first Obama – Romney confrontation.

This debate turned the election back to its substantial fundamentals. Obama’s September advantage has evaporated. It was perhaps inflated by the Democrats excellent convention performance and the Republican’s very poor one, and also by Romney’s 47% put down. Now there is a real contest between a centrist who is trying to move the center to the left (think Obamacare), and a professional candidate with unknown political orientation, clearly against Obama, though not clear what he is for.

Three competing approaches to governance, in fact, have been presented in the campaign. If Romney had won last night, he would likely win the election. Then there would be a contest between Romney, the Massachusetts moderate, and Romney, the severe conservative. There’s no telling what the result would be. But because Obama prevailed, he is still in there, and for three reasons I think that he will likely prevail. It’s a matter of authenticity, common sense and American identity.

Moderate Romney won the first debate because he performed well and because the President didn’t. That was reversed last night. The President was sharp, answering questions accurately and with authority, responding to Romney’s attacks precisely, most evident in the way he turned his greatest vulnerability, his administration’s handling of the attacks on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Romney tried to use the same technics to dominate and shape the discussion as he did the last time.  But it was off putting. He insisted on talking when moderator Candy Crowley tried to keep him within the time limit, first with success, then failing. His attempt to bully a woman didn’t look good, as was noted on social media. And then there was the unfortunate turn of phrase “binders full of women,” a phrase that took off on the web immediately, revealing as it does a patronizing approach to woman and a view from on high of human beings as pages that fit into binders.

Romney was not nearly as weak as Obama was in the first debate. But Romney’s second performance reveals the unattractive technics he used successfully in his first performance, perhaps lessening the earlier success.

In the first debate, Romney pivoted. His move to the center thrilled Republican moderates and operatives, apparently making him attractive to independents and undecided voters. It confused Obama, who responded poorly. But prepared for this now, Obama effectively responded and Romney now wasn’t able to cogently account for his proposals or for himself.

Romney was caught between his supply side fantasies of cutting taxes on the “job creators” to stimulate economic growth, and a promise that he wouldn’t favor the rich, when job creators = rich. He declared that his move to cut tax rates and radically increase military spending will be paid for by closing unspecified loopholes, but wouldn’t or couldn’t provide evidence. Obama was particularly sharp in criticizing this.

“Now, Governor Romney was a very successful investor. If somebody came to you, Governor, with a plan that said, here, I want to spend $7 or $8 trillion, and then we’re going to pay for it, but we can’t tell you until maybe after the election how we’re going to do it, you wouldn’t take such a sketchy deal and neither should you, the American people, because the math doesn’t add up.”

Romney used an authoritative tone to trump such contradictions in the first debate. It didn’t work last night. And there was a big difference between his weak performance and Obama’s. Obama’s identity, his character, like it or not, is consistent. Romney’s isn’t. After campaigning for President for six years, it is still not clear whether he is severely conservative Romney or moderate Mitt. Strong performance can hide this, but the weak performance raised serious doubts.

Romney tests common sense both in the specifics of his major policy ideas and in presentation of self. His strongest move in the debate was to use every bad statistic about the economy, sometimes questionably cooked, and claim it is the fault of Barack Obama, from employment statistics to the price of gasoline. Without recognizing the larger historical and global context of hard times, it is all Obama’s fault. Some of this seems pretty compelling. It is his best argument, but I have my doubts that it can work when the alternatives Romney proposes so obviously most directly benefit the most privileged and so closely resemble the policies of George W. Bush. The Governor’s inability to distinguish himself from Bush and his policies, I think, was a notable low point in Romney’s performance

Women played a special role in this debate. There was a stark contrast in the way that Romney spoke about and to woman and the way that the President spoke: women in binders versus “women as heads of households,” as the President answered the question of equal pay for equal work. What was remarkable about the women in binders gaffe, is that it revealed a candidate who seems to be removed from America as it is and as it is becoming: less white, Protestant, Anglo, heterosexual, socially equal and mobile, and educated, than Romney and the Republicans imagine, with more suffering that demands government action. Obama and the Democrats speak to the America that is becoming, while the Republicans are in denial.

I realize this may be the most politically momentous night of my life. The differences between Romney’s and Obama’s approaches to America and its problems are stark and the choice was clearly revealed. Obama won the contest, in my judgment and according to the early polls.  As a partisan, I am very pleased. As a sociologist of political culture, I am intrigued.

In my next post, I will further consider the debate and focus on the positive vision that Obama expressed. I heard many commentators last night declare that the President has still not presented his plans for a second term. I don’t think this is accurate and will explain.

Of course, forecasts of profound transformation have been the technique of doom-laden partisans who, until the age of computer caches, could rely on the limited memory of their audience. This is not merely a trope of the right. Partisan rhetoric is often more similar than rivals would care to admit. Paranoia is bipartisan. The end is nearly near! In the weeks prior to Reagan’s election, dear friends promised to invite me to Toronto after they migrated, concluding that America would soon become a fascist regime. I never did receive those invitations. Some of those friends remained to celebrate November 2008 in Grant Park. I have wondered whether America in 2012 conforms to their dark imaginings of what America would look like from the standpoint of Reagan’s ascent.

Despite the science fiction cliché of the man who awakes after decades, the world changes slowly, even in the face of shocks to the system. The fact that gay and lesbian Americans can now marry in many states with the trend continuing is a real change, but it doesn’t create an unrecognizable America. The fact that income inequality has increased or that hunger has decreased over the past fifty years certainly matters, but it doesn’t make America, always a land of rich and poor, unrecognizable, and certainly within four years changes are unlikely to be dramatic. The century-old pictures in Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class and Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives are no longer precisely true, but they reflect a world that we know.

Conservatives point with horror to the changes that are coming to health care in America, but what is striking is that, despite changes, the structure of providing health care will not be so different. Americans will receive health care through hospitals and insurance companies and someone (corporate advisers or government advisers) will determine what procedures will be paid for and what will not. Even if government-mandated health care is repealed, personal health care options will change in ways that may be similar to ObamaCare if not in all the details. Perhaps the decision to institute a single-payer health care system with different venues in which health care will be provided would dramatically alter the face of medicine. But such a system apparently was not politically possible, and even such a system would not be unrecognizable.

With the partisan divide that is predicted to remain after the election with neither party having the ability to end filibusters or to achieve a veto-proof majority, it is likely that any changes will be incremental. Surely raising the top tax-rate from 35% to 39% will not make America unrecognizable. Neither will any foreseeable changes in energy policy alter transportation choices.

Whether one hopes for massive changes, the forces that change society are gradual. Often they are not political, but are technological, organizational, or social. The world of personal connections has been replaced by computer technology. Social media has shaped dating and social movements. If anything has made America unrecognizable it is this, standing outside of government action.

If Rip van Winkle woke up after 50 years from a Mad Men-inspired sleep, there would be surprises aplenty. Rip would be endlessly startled, and some government policies had much to do with these changes (Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Immigration Act), but many of the changes resulted from forces outside of public policy. Government channels popular desire, but should do so in ways that are modest and restrained. It is this that should make us all conservatives.

Ultimately those who fear that America will become unrecognizable are too enamored with the present and lack the sense that change does not mean a new world. We are able to incorporate change while holding to a fundamental stability. For my part I am comforted that come next July 4th I will hear those fireworks again and I will hear that America is on the precipice of changes that are unimaginable.

The playoffs are almost over, the road to the finals was long, there were upsets and defining moments, but in the end the two favorites came through. They just had the most resources and the best game-plans. The two finalists will now battle it out. Many experts expect a tight series, which will probably go down to the wire. There will be a winner and a loser, there will be euphoria and disappointment. In the end the winner will take home the trophy, the loser will regroup, switch players, adjust tactics and get ready for the next season – there is always another season.

Unfortunately, I am here neither talking about the NBA nor the NFL, neither basketball glory nor football fortunes – I am describing the US-Presidential elections that will be decided in November between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, between the Democrats and Republicans, the Red and Blue teams. Whatever form of media we choose today, the inflationary use of sport rhetoric in the coverage of politics has become hard to ignore. It is quite fascinating how similar politics and sports have become in the 24-hour news-cycle: Analysts speak of the “endgame” or “gameplan,” compare debate schedules to seasons or playoff-series, or they announce “win-or-go-home” states in Republican primaries. Exemplifying this overlap: In Martin Bashir’s show on MSNBC, analysts were discussing the ‘bracketology’ of March Madness in the Republican Primary.

One might argue that this stylistic closeness in coverage is only logical, since both, sports and electoral politics, are competitions. So what is the problem in mixing rhetoric? The problem is that we might lose the essential function of politics if we talk about it like sports, because sports are a specific form of competitive activity. In sports the competition is the end in itself, while in politics it should just be the means. The cultural critiques of the early Frankfurt School, especially Theodor Adorno in his analysis of the “Culture Industry,” already singled out sports as stylized forms of competition, without ‘real’ consequences, a passionate pastime, the ultimate perpetuum mobile, leading nowhere in particular, except back to the start.

I admittedly am not as dismissive of sports as Adorno, neither am I immune to its temptations. But I do see the point: While sports are highly emotionally involving for both, the spectator and participator, the outcome of the game does not matter beyond the moment of success or failure. There is always another chance, a new season. Now, what is the problem with politics becoming sports? The problem is exactly that the winner of a Presidential election does not get a trophy, shower in glory and move on to the next season. A President (or senator, congressman if you want) is elected to do something in the name of the people. They have mandates, they represent. The election is not the end, but the beginning of politics.

It is one problem if the people feel that their representatives only care about the next election, it is another if the media uses language that makes an election an end in itself. If we speak of voting as nothing else than supporting a team to win and take home the trophy, that this is the end of the game, than where do accountability, meaning and representation in the political process remain? The media in this equation should be more than an announcer of spectacle, the voter more than an audience. But unfortunately this is exactly, what the sport rhetoric transforms politics into. Language, images, discourse and rhetoric matter. It is the way we speak about politics that defines our experience of the process and finally also its functions and ends. I feel extremely uncomfortable with the end of politics being just another election-season.

The people have spoken, and they have decided that “fat cat teachers,” and not greed gone wild on Wall Street and beyond, are the source of their problems. A deep disappointment. A defeat. This was my initial response to the results of the special recall election in Wisconsin.

I noticed a Facebook post blaming Obama and the Democratic Party. They betrayed the grassroots. He who engages in a crazy militaristic foreign policy killing innocents abroad was denounced. This is irrational, self-defeating and irresponsible. Politics is about alternatives, and the direction the country would go if it follows Wisconsin’s lead last night is profoundly problematic. There is a deep seeded problem in our political culture that must be addressed at the grassroots and in the Democratic Party.

Big money surely played a role, as John Nichols at the Nation quickly declared, reflecting on whether people’s power can overcome money power. But something more fundamental is at issue. How the broad public understands the problems of our times. Somehow in Wisconsin, at least last night, the Tea Party’s diagnosis of our problems made more sense than the view of those engaged in and inspired by Occupy Wall Street. This was my first reaction this morning.

This afternoon I feel a bit less alarmed, though still deeply concerned. There is considerable evidence that the campaign itself made a difference. With the 7 to 1 spending advantage of the Republicans, many Wisconsinites seemed to be critical of the idea of the recall absent major malfeasance in office. They, along with Walker’s most passionate supporters, prevailed. The Democrats were not as united as they needed to be. Their message was muddled. Yet, despite this, in fact, there was a progressive advance. The Democrats took control of the State Senate. Governor Walker won’t be able to count on the rubber-stamp approval of his proposals anymore.

And oddly polls indicate that if the election were held today, Obama would win in Wisconsin decisively. Wisconsin with a long and deep progressive traditions, including a distinguished record of supporting labor unions, would re-elect the President, but conservative Wisconsin, the state that elected Joe McCarthy to the Senate, affirmed Walker and his very aggressive deeply conservative (really reactionary) policies.

In the end, the results tell us what we already knew about the upcoming election, and not much more. As in Wisconsin, the Presidential election is going to be not only about the incumbent and his party, but, more significantly, about Obama’s and Romney’s competing political approaches and personalities. It is often noted the Democrats will try to make the election a choice, while the Republicans will try to turn it into a referendum on Obama and the present state of the economy. But because the principles upon which the two men will be running are so strikingly different, it is hard for me to believe that it will just be a referendum. It is interesting to note that few national commentators observed the Wisconsin recall as being about Walker himself and the state of the state under his leadership, which it was formally. Rather the big principled issues have been emphasized, for and against unions, for and against austerity as an economic policy, sharply highlighted by none other than Sarah Palin.

The election results present a big challenge to those of us on the left. The union movement and not only public employee unions, has suffered a serious blow. The momentum of the Occupy movement has been turned. The focus on inequality is in danger of being lost. It was not a good day.

But giving up on electoral politics, or blaming Obama, as I read on Facebook, is extraordinarily foolish. Two strongly competing visions about America are in competition, on the economy and much more. Elections matter, as was revealed last night. For the general public, Wisconsin announces some of the key issues that lie ahead: blame teachers and their unions or finance gone wild for our present fiscal woes and depressed labor market. Address the problems by working for a more just economic framework, or by breaking unions. For the left, the challenge is to engage, and to link grass root concerns with the Democratic Party and truly reach out to the general public. I observed how powerful this worked in the case of the anti-war movement and the Dean campaign in The Politics of Small Things. I showed how this became the base for the Obama campaign and how it contributed to the project of Reinventing Political Culture, in my book by that name. The task is to win hearts and minds. If we don’t, the trouble suggested by the results last night will come to define our political reality.