Washington watch

It turns out that Obama didn't win because of a surge in young or black voters, or small-time donors. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin is dynamite with the folks in Georgia
January 17, 2009
Talking about a revolution

There are three myths about Obama's victory that just won't die. The first is that he was swept into power by a surge of black votes. Not really. Black voters made up 11 per cent of the electorate in 2004 and 13 per cent in 2008, just over 2m extra votes in total. He got just 7 per cent more of the black vote than John Kerry.

The second is that young voters did it. Again, not really. An exit poll by Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International found that under-30s made 18 per cent of the vote in 2008, not a stunning advance on their 17 per cent four years earlier.
The third is that Obama's $600m campaign fund came from a heartwarming flood of modest sums from the newly-energised masses. Yet the Campaign Finance Institute found only 26 per cent of his donors gave $200 or less in total, pretty close to the 25 per cent of Bush's 2004 donors who did so. And 47 per cent of Obama's money came from donations of $1,000 or more. That's better than McCain's 59 per cent or John Kerry's 56 per cent. But it ain't a revolution.

A lesson from history

Another myth is starting to surface that ought to have more weight to it: that the 13m email addresses Obama's campaign amassed presages a new era of political engagement, giving him the potential to appeal to his supporters over the heads of the mainstream media, and rally them directly to put pressure on Congress and local government. Sorry, but the lawyers have blocked this one. The mailing lists currently belong to the Obama campaign. If the White House uses them, they become public property.

Team Obama is now thinking up wheezes to keep the database available at one remove, through an Obama political action committee, or some new "independent" think tank. But Republican legal eagles lie in wait. And Democrats in Congress aren't thrilled at the idea of being end-run by their own president either. The one precedent for this comes from Ronald Reagan in 1976, after he lost the Republican nomination to Gerald Ford. Reagan wanted to hang onto his 2m-strong database, but finally handed it over to the party. Obama's cyberspace grassroots may well go the same way.

A solid defence strategy

All US ambassadors who were political appointees of the Bush administration (although not those who are career diplomats) received formal notices from the Obama transition team on 2nd December asking them to vacate their offices by 20th January. State department veterans say this is a record and note that unless Obama also sets a record in nominating replacements and getting them confirmed by the senate, there could be some interesting gaps in his diplomacy.

The consequent jostling for the best embassies makes Michael Guest, a former ambassador to Romania, one of the more popular men in Washington. Guest, who is only the second openly gay US ambassador, is on Obama's transition team for the state department alongside Harvard professor Samantha Power, who resigned from Obama's primary campaign after calling the incoming secretary of state "a monster" in a Scotsman interview.

No word yet on who gets the plum London posting, but one name on the shortlist is the outgoing Republican senator for Nebraska, Chuck Hagel. This means Obama must be taking Britain seriously, despite reports that his Kenyan grandfather was imprisoned and tortured by Brits during the Mau Mau campaign.

Give free trade a chance

In Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid, the new Democratic majority in congress has a left-liberal leadership. Its followers, however, are unlikely to go along. The new Democrats in Congress represent unusually conservative districts. The Democrats won 24 house seats from Republicans, and 21 of them voted for Bush in 2004, including Alabama's 2nd district, where Kerry scored a mere 33 per cent of the vote, and Idaho's at-large seat where Kerry got 30 per cent. Altogether, 81 of the 255 house Democrats represent seats that Bush won four years ago. On the one hand, it means not much room for a progressive agenda; on the other, it means free trade agreements still have a sporting chance.

Palin's explosive charisma

The clear win for Republican incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss in Georgia's runoff election has scotched any lingering Democratic hope of a filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats in the senate. But Obama's decision not to campaign in Georgia during the runoff has baffled and upset many progressive Democrats, who are already restive over what looks like the Clinton administration mark three.

Even more telling for prospects in 2012, however, was the Sarah Palin effect. Senator Chambliss hailed her starring role in his re-election. "We had John McCain and Mike Huckabee and Gov Romney and Rudy Giuliani, but Sarah Palin came in on the last day, did a fly-around and, man, she was dynamite," he told (of course) Fox News. "We packed the houses everywhere we went. And it really did allow us to peak and get our base fired up. I can't overstate the impact she had down here…When she walks in a room, folks just explode."