There are lots of things to celebrate in Barack Obama's victory. One of them, in my humble view, is the end of Southern politics.
Now bear with me. Everything that follows is largely subjective. I have no "hard" evidence to support my conjectures, but having lived through 16 years of what I will call the "southern politics" era of America history, I am glad to see it over--hopefully for a good, long time.
Politics by its nature is a full-contact sport. If your skin isn't thick, you shouldn't be in the game. And there is no doubt that sometimes to win you need to bloody your opponent. I saw this first hand when New York senator Chuck Schumer finally defeated one of the best-known political street fighters, Alfonse D'Amato. Unlike Schumer's predecessors, Mark Green and Robert Abrams, whom D'Amato ignominiously trashed, Schumer adopted a take-no-prisoners campaign style that ended in D'Amato's defeat. For every stone D'Amato threw, Schumer hurled brick. It was this experience, alongside Kerry's savaging by Swift Boaters, that inspired Schumer to impose a rapid response rule on candidates seeking DSCC funding for the 2006 midterm elections.
Now, I'll grant you that while politics is a rough-and-tumble sport, there is something distinctive about the Southern style. Nasty things may be said and written about one another in California or Illinois, but in the south, and here I will include Texas, it's downright vicious, quite personal, and often ugly. I don't entirely understand the sociology of it, but the effects of it have been obvious for the past sixteen years, and frankly, I'm hoping we're done with it. Liddy Dole's Godless smear against Kay Hagan is entirely of a piece with it, as were Saxby Chambliss' disgusting attacks on Max Cleland six years ago. And McCain's own campaign, run by Bush's team of imports, ultimately hurt McCain by running exactly the same type of smear-based, whisper campaign that we had all grown tired of. Not only did these maneuvers not work, but they never really fit McCain's style. Had he properly read the tea leaves, a return to his 2000 campaign would have served him much better in the end.
But I don't want to make this a Republican thing. It isn't. I' convinced it's a Southern thing, and it's what has contributed to the implosion of the Republican party. This style of politicking is the ultimate expression of the Southern strategy by adopting not only the issues of that strategy (opposition to welfare and affirmative action, etc.) but a political campaigning style based on nastiest kind of fearmongering.
And, weirdly enough, the true progenitor of this style in national politics was not even a southerner: it was Richard Nixon, one of the best-known nasty campaigners in America. But Nixon's style was not representative--it seems to me--of a cultural approach to politicking. That is, it was fairly unique to him rather than something distinctly "Californian" in character. (But maybe I'm wrong here?) However, the last 16 years of presidential and even congressional politics suggests that muck-throwing definitely is a more universal characteristic among modern Southern politicians, both Republican and Democrat.
So let me cut to the chase. I loved Bill Clinton. I really did. But, my God, to watch what happened during his presidency suggested to me that the Southern influence on our politics was anything but good for the nation. Clinton's political style, at times, seemed too freewheeling and loose, if not downright nasty--something I think reflected in his administration's style and his own behavior. This inherent aggressiveness in the southern style of politics was further aggravated by the even nastier muck-throwing engaged by the Congressional leadership.
When the Republicans took over the House, look who led the team: Newt Gingrich of Georgia (Speaker of the House), Dick Armey of Texas (Majority Leader), and Tom DeLay, also of Texas (Majority Whip); Senate Majority leader was Trent Lott of Mississippi. And lo and behold, during the Clinton years, the country engaged in political war that literally paralyzed us as these Southerners (and, yes, I include Texas) engaged in one of the ugliest, most wasteful rumbles I've ever seen in electoral politics. It was humiliating, exhausting, and after a while, dare I say, a fucking bore.
Hoping this would end in 2000, lo and behold, we end up with a Texas president, every bit as nasty a campaigner (think John McCain's "black" children and Kerry's "failure to serve his country"), with Texas Tom DeLay now as Majority Leader (and let's face it, Hastert and Blunt were figureheads compared to DeLay's power during the first Bush administration) and as Senate Majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee (although for Frist I'll make an exception--I didn't like his policies, but he wasn't a nasty bastard). But in the end it was just more southern politics.
What has been remarkable about Obama's win is how little real dirt he had to throw to win. He jabbed here and there, but he never got personal and the campaign never used inflammatory rhetoric. In fact, the one real episode that caught everyone's attention was when foreign policy adviser Samantha Power was firedfor calling Hilary Clinton a "monster." That was probably intended as a wake-up call to the rest of the campaign that no matter how bitter opponents might become, the Obama campaign was not going to pig wrestle with its opponents. This is something you would not have seen in a [Bill] Clinton or even Al Gore campaign (yes, Al's a hero now, but he used to have a reputation for being brutally aggressive with his campaign opponents.)
Now, I don't want to make any false equivalences here: the degree of destruction intended by Republicans in this "Southern style" far outstrips that of their Democratic counterparts--more personal, more venal, more vindictive, more mendacious. But it is still a regional style, one that has infected both parties. With the Democratic party having successfully whistled past Dixie (and perhaps now even dragging it along), I hope this style of politicking will lessen--it'll never go away--as it becomes less and less effective.