Obama & Democratic Victory

Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States by a clear majority of the popular vote by 52 to 46 percent and a sweep of the Electoral College. A freshman United States Senator, he is also by the way the first African-American to be nominated by a major party as well as elected to the White House.
Obama and Vice Presidential running mate Sen. Joe Biden prevailed over Republican nominees Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin by increasing Democratic support across the country. The enormous turnout of African-Americans for Obama-Biden is particularly notable, but occurred in the wider context of the national electoral tapestry. Andrew Kohut of the respected Pew Center for the People and the Press reflects analysts generally in emphasizing the demographic uniformity of the Democratic victory.
In 2004, Republican President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney won reelection in a much closer race against Democratic nominees Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards. In that campaign as well as in 2000, Republican campaign chief Karl Rove pursued very aggressive, at times ruthless campaign tactics.
Rove is also credited with disciplined, effective concentration on specific voting blocs. In 2004, the Bush campaign sought the support of 50 percent of white women and 40 percent of Hispanics. Both goals were achieved. The Republicans won the popular vote, in contrast to the 2000, when the Democrats finished ahead by approximately one half million votes.
While Republicans had the organizational edge in the two previous presidential
campaigns, this time the Democrats clearly were superior. The Obama organization has been strikingly successful in mobilizing voters, raising unprecedented sums, and sustaining coherent campaign themes.
The Democrats designated a specific team to track and react to literally every
statement by McCain, Palin and other Republican leaders. On the same September
day that investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, McCain declared in a Florida speech in a nearly empty hall that the economy “is fundamentally sound”. Almost immediately, the Obama campaign transformed this offhand reference into national news, underlining the obvious echoes of hapless President Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression. Polls up to and including election day showed economic problems were paramount with voters, who blamed the Bush White House and the Republicans.
While both campaigns employed negative ads, Obama was far more successful than
McCain at appearing to be above that battle, leaving the attacker role largely to Biden. Opinion surveys showed that Obama was generally regarded as superior to McCain in the television debates.
Democrats expanded support in particular among female voters, drawing 56 percent this time for Obama-Biden. Before the 1960s, men and women generally voted in tandem patterns, with the latter slightly more Republican. Since that decade, women have become much more active than men to moving between the parties, while over time gravitating in substantial numbers to the Democrats.
The selection of Sarah Palin, who was not well known nationally, generated considerable attention but did not translate into increased Republican support. Hispanic voters also moved strongly to the Democrats in 2008. McCain efforts to support amnesty for illegal residents became caught up in bitter debate within the Republican Party.

Since the Second World War, suburbs have grown steadily in political importance, blurring the earlier urban-rural divide. By 1960, they held a plurality of the electorate. By the early 1990s, a majority of the voting population was there.
The traditional picture of heavily Republican suburbs actually reflects more the enormous appeal of Dwight Eisenhower than more durable partisan factors. The brilliant political opinion analyst Samuel Lubell argued in his 1955 book, ‘The Future of American Politics’, that Democrats as well as Republicans take party identities with them when they move from the city to more prosperous suburbs.
Contemporary political analysts Michael Barone and Thomas B. Edsall have written extensively on the complex political patterns evolving in new exurban areas close to urban centers, and more traditional suburbs. Democrats this year made great gains in these areas, and Republicans must recover considerable ground.
With the election of John F. Kennedy as our first Catholic President religion was effectively taken off the political table. President-elect Obama has probably done the same for race in American politics.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of ‘After the Cold War’ (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan). He can be reached at acyr@carthage.edu