What does an Obama victory mean?

On election night Tom Schaller asked a group of journalists, politicos, bloggers, and academics to sum up the significance of Obama's win in one sentence, starting with "It means..."

The answers appear in Salon today.

One of my suggestions made the list.

Comments

[Chris O.]

My favorite is that Obama will now be able to hail a cab in New York anytime he wants.

[The Phantom]

If the selection of Rahm Ehmanuel is any indicator, it means a return to Nixon-style enemies lists, intimidation, and no attempt to unify the country.

[william mcgrath]

Obama's victory means that I have witnessed something I never thought I would see in my lifetime - born 1947. I never believed any Black person could be president - period. I am thrilled that this notion is wrong. I am thrilled that the psycho mccain-palin tag team lost. Moving right along tho, what an Obama victory also means to me is a reinstated draft, more war, more poverty and more pandering to the banker class. Too bad.

[Mandos]

And thank heavens for that possibility! The part that really bothered me about the Obama campaign was the whole Unity schtick. If it turns out that Obama really has a real Enemies List, I'd be a little more relieved than I was.

No bipartisanship for me, thank you.

[Mandos]

Ooops, crosspost. I was referring to The Phantom's post.

[Alon Levy]

Lindsay, for the benefit of those of us whose Javascript and cookie settings prohibit them from accessing Salon, could you post your suggestion here?

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

My soundbite was: "It means the Union won, with unions."

[(O)CT(O)PUS]

It means I can finally sleep at night.

[Alon Levy]

I get the main clause, but the last two words baffle me.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Labor union GOTV efforts were critical to Obama's victory.

[Alon Levy]

Ah. If you say so... most of Obama's ground game seems to have been his own.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

There is no Democratic ground game without organized labor. Obama's organization is terrific, but it's not like you can separate the Obama machine from the unions. Labor puts itself at the disposal of the campaign. They send their people over and lend out their phonebanking facilities, etc, etc.

Unions really stepped up for Obama this time around. I spent election day taking reports from UNITE HERE! working in North Carolina. UNITE hit 50,000 doors in the final days before the election.

[Norman Costa]

WHAT DOES BARACK OBAMA'S VICTORY MEAN? IT MEANS...

... nothing, unless he gathers the people of this country around him to face up to the truth of our problems in the economy, our domestic programs, and in the disaster of our foreign policy.

... nothing, unless he can convince the country that sacrifices are needed from all of us, as a result of the profligate borrowing and spending of the failed Bush administration.

... nothing, if he does not make it clear to the corporate and moneyed interests that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few is the number one threat to our democracy; and that free market does not mean a free ride.

... nothing, if he does not blunt the anticipated spoiling on the part of a regrouped Republican party. He will have to work overtime to bring them into his administration and become part of the solution.

... nothing, if he does not resurrect and repair our country's image as a moral force in the world.

... nothing, if his administration does not promote the advancement of science, the support of scientists and their work, and the protection of science from faith-based dilution and adulteration.

... nothing, if his administration does not reach out to the American Muslim communities, especially the American Arab communities, and bring them into his administration and into the public square of discussing ideas, agendas, and grievances.

... nothing, if majority Americans believe that the ascendancy of minority Americans is achieved at their expense. He has to make it clear that the welfare and protection of one group is positively linked to the same for all groups.

... nothing, if the combat role of the US Military, and its presence in significant numbers in Iraq, are not ended before the midterm elections in 2010.

... nothing, if his administration is not populated with principled, kick-ass appointees who know how to get things done.

... nothing, if the Department of Justice does not show that it earns its name every day. This is where the qualities of being principled and knowing how to kick-ass are made obvious in his nomination for the Office of the US Attorney General.

... nothing, if our Constitution's Bill of Rights is not reaffirmed in explicit, concrete ways for all Americans to see.

... nothing, if he does not create, with NATO, a coherent and achievable strategy for the pacification of Afghanistan and their incorporation into mutually cooperative and respectful relationships with the world family of nations. The outright purchasing of the entire national production of opium should begin immediately as a first step to a complete transition to a non-opiate cash crop agriculture.

... nothing, if he does not scrap the US missile shield monstrosity and replace it with a stronger set of negotiated arms limitation treaties and mutual guarantees of cooperation and protection against rogue states.

... nothing, if the rest of us are not willing to give him everything we can in the way of support, patience, sacrifice, constructive criticism, and our firm disapproval when needed.

Bless Barack Obama, his family, our political leaders; and bless us all.

[Destardi]

Hi Lindsay...

I am ashamed to say I haven't visited your blog in awhile :(

I respect that your blog keeps conversation civil, and I've missed that during this past election. I am not an Obama supporter because I feel he is the Democratic version of George W. Bush...

ANyways, what made me think of you is this post I saw from the UK about an Octopus named Otto, :)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328480/Otto-the-octopus-wrecks-havoc.html

Apologies for being off-topic, but thought this was cute.

[Chris L.]

It was the words Dan Savage, in that roundup, that caught my heart - and expressed why my girl and I weren't as exultant as most of our friends. Bsing thrown under the bus, at a transformative time like this, hurts like f**k.

[ol cranky]

OMG, Jesse's made me gasp audibly:

It means that we can finally have someone represent the black community to mainstream America who isn't Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or wearing a summertime fur coat and platinum chains.
-- Jesse Taylor, founder and editor, Pandagon.net

Gee Phantom, yet another thing we disagree on. I think Emanuel is a good choice. Obama needs someone strong who can help him navigate through the BS - especially in the beginning and Emanuel is the man for that. Obama also plans to surround himself with a bunch of people who most definitely have their own minds and ideas, so there is little chance for the groupthink that is a hallmark of BushCo and the Christian Nationalist Coalition that dominates the GOP.

[mudkitty]

To compare Emmanuel to Nixon is delusional.

[Alon Levy]

Chris, if I'm not mistaken, Spitzer tried to pass a gay marriage law in New York, but Bruno said no. Now that the Democrats have control of both houses of the legislature, maybe they can pass such a law here.

[Dabodius]

If The Phantom's post is any indicator, it means the standard paranoia and hyperbole from the Right. Plus ca change...

Limbaugh has called Emmanuel a "Chicago thug." I suppose that, having imagined our president elect as bin Laden and a Weather Machine bomber, the dittoheads are now imagining him as Al Capone.

[Dabodius]

On the Salon page:

"It means the era of conservatism is over.
-- Michael Cohen, senior research fellow, New America Foundation.
"It means that the conservative era is over, and a progressive one has a chance to begin.
-- Michael Kazin, professor of history, Georgetown University."

The eggs haven't hatched yet. The GOP will mount its fiercest counterattack in 2012. In the meantime, if Democratic legislators don't show unprecedented spine, their larger majority will be useless to them and to us.

Card check should be a good indicator. Senate Republicans will probably filibuster it. If their Democratic colleagues truly grasp that a more perfect Union demands a new birth of unionizing, they will fight for it until we win. But if they sigh and say, Well, you know, anything in the Senate needs sixty votes, then the next four years will be lost cause.

If we are to leave behind the RW hegemony that began with Reagan's election in 1980, with its privatizing, outsourcing, union-busting, regressively-taxing etc., our politicians are going to have to junk its assumptions, fight for a progressive agenda, and beat back the Republican counterattack. Otherwise, the Obama victory will mean no more than a lull like the Clinton years in a larger RW era.

Shabbat Shalom.

[Alon Levy]

The guy sent a pollster he didn't like a dead fish. Maybe thug is hyperbole, but let's not pretend he's going to be statesmanlike.

[cfrost]

After grinding my molars for eight years while criminal baboons flung shit at the constitution, an Obama victory means I might get a few more years out of what's left of the enamel on my teeth.

[Autumnal Harvest]

If the selection of Rahm Ehmanuel is any indicator, it means a return to Nixon-style enemies lists, intimidation, and no attempt to unify the country.

Nixon-style lists? Intimidation? That's a little paranoid, isn't it? Nixon was able to do what he did because he arrogated himself unchecked executive powers, to break the law as he saw fit, wiretap without warrants, and create secret programs, with no legislative and judicial oversight. Of course, in the aftermath of Watergate, we placed checks on the executive branch to make sure these things would never happen again, so. . .

Oh, wait. Your side just spent the last eight years dismantling those protections. In fact, I remember now. You're the guy who's been posting here for the last eight years that we didn't need those protections, because we could trust the government with these unchecked powers. Huh. Wow. Bet you feel like a jackass now.

[ol cranky]

The guy sent a pollster he didn't like a dead fish.

There's never actually been confirmation that this really happened or to whom he sent the fish. I don't even think Emanuel has spoken publicly to confirm or deny it - though, in his place, I think I would probably let this story stick around even were it not true

[TB]

a return to Nixon-style enemies lists,

Yeah, because the last 8 years have been SO un-Nixon-like.