Defining victory, parsing defeat

The Washington Post ran a fascinating piece over the weekend about the battle to define the results of this month’s election.

Obviously, Republicans lost by almost every measure — but what does that mean? Was it a short-term reaction to President Bush’s unpopularity? A wholesale realignment?

The nut of the article — capturing both broad fronts in the debate — reads like this:

Conservative analysts have insisted that although the Democrats achieved a sweeping victory, it does not indicate a fundamental change. “America is still a center-right country,” as Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the House Republican leader, insisted soon after the votes were counted.

Liberals call that argument nonsense. The election, wrote John B. Judis in the New Republic, heralds the arrival of “America the liberal,” provided that the Democrats play their strong new hand effectively. This election was “the culmination of a Democratic realignment that began in the 1990s, was delayed by September 11, and resumed with the 2006 election.”

Labels are squirrely things. What’s a conservative? Who’s liberal?

And Americans seem caught on the horns of a dilemma: more people distrust government than ever before, pollsters say, but more people also want government to play a bigger role in their lives.

Go figure.
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What makes this fascinating is that the question isn’t merely academic. In the coming months, we’ll learn what kind of government we’ve got — New Deal liberal or New Democrat moderate.

We’ll also learn whether that particular brand works or not. What seems clear, according to the Post article, is that most Americans seem willing to give big government a chance to lead the way on a whole range of huge problems.

Whatever the appropriate label, substantial majorities of the voters of 2008 want the war in Iraq to end as soon as possible. Large majorities favor affordable health insurance for everyone, a fairer distribution of wealth and income, and higher taxes on the rich. They want to preserve traditional Social Security. They want more effective government regulation of the financial sector. On social issues, the country that elected Obama is tolerant of homosexuality and legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, less so of same-sex marriage. A post-election survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Democratic polling firm, showed that 51 percent said “the government should do more to solve problems.”