George W. Bush accomplished one good thing: he fired up his opposition, and opposition to his party. People like me, liberals who have been paying attention, have been squarely opposed to this president and his policies for eight years, and as he made terrible decision after terrible decision, our opposition grew. We didn't understand why the rest of the country didn't get it, why the religious right, and economic conservatives, and fearmongers like Karl Rove, still had such a hold on the country.
But in the last four years, the electorate grew weary and increasingly angry. There was no longer any doubt. George W. Bush was a miserable failure and he had caused damage in every sector of the country. And the economic meltdown in October was simply the last straw. So the electorate was ready for change - at least a majority of the electorate.
Barack Obama, the candidate, not only promised change; he even looked like change. But the electorate had also changed. The youth, especially, supported Obama enthusiastically. Raised in a multicultural world, having friends of all ethnicities and sexual orientations, young people saw Obama as one of them, a tolerant man who understood the world the way they did. The middle class, as well, was won over by Obama, who promised a revitalization of the economy and a return of the American dream they once believed in. College educated Americans voted overwhelmingly for Obama. The same voters who once thought the Republican Party of low taxes benefitted them more, woke up and smelled the coffee and supported Obama. Even the majority of voters in my own very Republican county in California voted for Obama.
In addition, there are now more Democrats than Republicans throughout the country. For the past four years Democratic registrations have gone up and Republican registrations down. The 2006 election, which put the Congress in Democratic hands for the first time in 12 years, was the first test of that. More people now call themselves Democrat than Republican, and that provided Obama with a bigger base of voters. But Obama also won over Independents.
Bush and Cheney together have destroyed the modern Republican Party which is now in free fall. But at the same time, Howard Dean used his 50 state strategy to sweep millions more voters into the new revitalized Democratic Party.
With those odds, and the exceptional candidacy and campaign of Barack Obama, it would have taken a miracle for the Republicans to win this year.
