This isn’t a post about why or how Obama won. And it’s not an endorsement of his policies or platform. Rather, here’s ten reasons why you can be happy, regardless of your political ideology.
1. Bill Cosby Argument: Perception. When Bill Cosby started the Cosby Show, he made sure that black people were perceived as intelligent and capable of economic success. The dad was a doctor and mom a lawyer. The generation that grew up with the Cosbys’ came to believe it was normal for blacks to be doctors and lawyers ~ a perception not common before then.
I tutor four African-American kids. Their father, Joe, experienced segregation and watched the police abuse his dad and regularly force him to enter stores from the back alley. By contrast, Joe’s kids will now grow up with a black president. Every child in America today – and even to an extent throughout the rest of world – will perceive minorities in a different and more equal and positive light.
2. David Brooks Argument: Intelligence and Leadership. As a solid conservative, Brooks supported McCain until the end. Yet he writes:
I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I’m getting nowhere with the interview, it’s late in the night, he’s on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he’s cranky. Out of the blue I say, ‘Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?’ And he says, ‘Yeah.’ So i say, ‘What did Niebuhr mean to you?’ For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.
Brooks also points out that Obama is “phenomenally good at surrounding himself with a team. The people he’s chosen are exactly the people I think most of us would want to choose if we were in his shoes.” Consider how impressive his presidential campaign was run. It was perhaps the best in history. Further, he brought in an eclectic variety of talented people. His top economic advisors are Chicago school economist Austan Goolsbee and Jason Furman, the beloved student of Greg Mankiw.
3. Dan Koffler Argument: Market Incentives. There’s a big difference between Obama and Hillary (and Edwards) regarding their appreciation of markets. Hillary and Edwards campaigned on mandates. Obama understood the importance of incorporating market mechanisms. Koffler explains that
“Goolsbee promotes programmes to essentially democratise the market, protecting and where possible expanding freedom of choice, while simultaneously creating rational, self-interested incentives for individuals to participate in solving collective problems. No wonder, then, that Obama’s healthcare plan is specifically designed to give people good reason to buy in, without coercing them.”
Contrast this with Bush’s nationalization of the banking industry and McCain’s pledge to buy up all those home mortgages.
4. Bryan Caplan Argument: Presidentialness. Many of the issues discussed during presidential campaigns are legislative. Think Bush’s social security reform and Edwards’ health care plan. The president’s duties are executive, so even if we dislike policies in Obama’s campaign platform, Congress is the group that crafts and shapes these policies. [Also noteworthy here is that Bush got elected in 2000 on a pledge to create a more humble foreign policy.]
What the president does have control over is putting together a cabinet, appointing judges, being commander-in-chief and head spokesperson to the rest of the world, issuing executive orders and handling other executive duties. Obama has demonstrated an impressive ability to handle these tasks. He’s even pledged to repeal every Executive Order Bush gave that violates civil liberties, close Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus.
5. Scotty Ewing Argument: Role Model. Obama serves as a powerful and positive role model, particularly for young minorities. He’s brilliant, well-spoken, well-dressed, hard-working, family-oriented, etc. He’s not a foul-mouthed rapper or loud-mouthed athlete. He makes you want to tuck in your shirt, give your mom a hug and then hit the books.
6. Newt Gingrich Argument: Split Power. The fear of consolidated power in the hands of one party is legitimate – especially coming off of the Bush Administration. Yet congressional approval under the Democrats is below 20 percent. The last time the Democrats won the White House and Congress was 1992. Just two years later they lost Congress. Look for the Newt Gingrich of 2010.
7. Law Review Argument: Character and effectiveness. At Harvard Obama was elected at just 28 to become the first black president of the coveted Law Review. He developed a reputation as an excellent listener who was unbiased and fair. He even upset those in his ideological camp because he treated them the same as conservatives. He brought warring factions together, calmed them and achieved results.
8. Radley Balko Argument: Punishment. The Republican Party needs to be punished. Radley writes,
“they had their shot at holding power, and they failed. They’ve failed in staying true to their principals of limited government and free markets… in preventing elected leaders of their party from becoming corrupted…they’ve failed to hold those leaders accountable…Congressional Republicans failed to rein in the Bush administration’s naked bid to vastly expand the power of the presidency…..the White House…believes that on any issue that can remotely be tied to foreign policy or national security…the president has boundless, limitless, unchecked power to do anything he wants. They believe that on these matters, neither Congress nor the courts can restrain him…American voters need to send a clear, convincing repudiation of these dangerous ideas.”
Hopefully they will learn from this defeat. Regardless, they needed a serious ass kicking.
9. Steve Chapman Argument: Meritocracy. Obama proves that Americans have the freedom to determine their success. Bush’s path to power was conventional: His father and family connections paved his way to the White House. Obama is the opposite. A young black man with a terrorist-sounding name that grew up poor and had a Muslim-turned-atheist deadbeat Kenyan dad has successfully taken down the nation’s most powerful political machine — the Clintons — and handily defeated the incumbant political party, receiving over 64 million votes of approval to become the most powerful human being on the planet. As Chapman puts it:
This election furnishes irrefutable proof that America is a special country, with possibilities that don’t exist elsewhere. It shows that our harshest critics—Jeremiah Wright comes to mind—are missing something essential. No one of good will can look at what happened Tuesday and say, “God damn America.” Anyone watching the crowds celebrating this victory could see they were not motivated by a rigid left-wing ideology but by the principles America has enshrined since its founding: liberty, equality, opportunity, and respect for the individual. They want to purge the original sin of racial oppression. They want to fulfill our ideals, not abandon them.
10. Barack Obama Argument: Change. The Clintons have been beaten and in 11 weeks the Bush era is over. Ideally the change we get is competent government.
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Liberty Is For Me 