I’m not so sure.

I suspect Wilkie will end up supporting neither side. Whether or not he knows his “list of requests” will be impossible for anyone to accede to is moot (though I suppose it’s not out of the question that the Coalition would give him the full caboodle in terms of his electorate stuff at least).

I’d make four observations about Wilkie’s position:

(a) A “Harradine” style of being an Independent seems fundamentally inconsistent with Wilkie’s professed views on the importance of ethics in government. It’s hard to argue that logrolling in the interest of one’s own constituents alone is a defensible position in the national scheme of things, and vote-trading, which Brian Harradine was famous for, is downright unethical to my mind – The Greens and others have eschewed it for that reason.

(b) It’s hard to get a read on Wilkie’s politics – though, again, his plague on both your houses, ethics talk is highly reminiscent of the Democrats. I guess the fact that we are trying to read something into his past membership of both the Liberals and The Greens does demonstrate how powerful party cues still are.

(c) I can’t see any justification for Wilkie’s apparently refusing to be briefed by Treasury and Ministers and shadows in the same way the Independents have been. It seems to me to be an abdication of his responsibility to make an informed choice.

(d) Not wishing to cast any aspersions on his own past actions, or on whistle blowing more generally, but I do think it’s fair to say that whistle blowers are often people who are not highly socialised into the techniques and practices of collective action and organisations, and sometimes fall prey to confusing substantive demands for justice with the injustice of their own treatment. It’s possible that Wilkie, by personality and/or by virtue of his past experiences, is not inclined to work in cooperation with others.

For those who might not be aware of how this works, if you vote “above the line” (that is, if you put a 1 in one of the parties’ or grouped and ungrouped candidates’ box), then your preferences are allocated according to a ticket lodged with the Electoral Commission.

There is also the option of voting “below the line”, but that can be a bit of an ask where there are up to 84 Senate candidates to number sequentially (I think that’s the largest number this election – in NSW).

There’s a lot in them to digest, but commentary so far has focused on two aspects:

(a) The ALP has given its preferences straight to The Greens in Victoria, atoning for the 2004 debacle which saw Steve Fielding elected;

(b) The Democrats in the ACT have preferenced the Liberals ahead of The Greens. No doubt they’ll not poll well, but in a contest where The Greens have some chance of defeating the incumbent Liberal, every preference is potentially important.

Elsewhere: An Onymous Lefty.

Update: [by Kim] Lots of easily scannable detail from William Bowe at The Poll Bludger.

Writing for Crikey today, David Hirst observes:

Luckily for the Republicans, who doubted they had a chance at taking a seat Ted Kennedy had held for 47 years, they nominated a nobody called Scott Brown who drove a truck?—?a fact the Democrats somehow allowed to become an issue. Naturally Brown, equipped with political advisers as the Republicans smelled not blood but a bloodbath, drove at their behest to Wall Street, where he somehow managed to park.

It wasn’t a huge issue but it played well?—?the message presumably was that sophisticated people from places such as Boston were not represented by folks who drove trucks. Kennedy sure didn’t drive a truck.

The shell-shocked mainstream media better get used to it, for there are many shocks to come. That the Republicans had the sense to see “truck” and “Wall Street” and bring the two to one was clever indeed.

His analysis suggests that the result is born of the sentiment of a plague on the US political classes, bailing out banks with abandon, but doing nothing perceptible for ‘Main Street’, and the straightened economic circumstances many Americans face after the GFC. He also suggests the Republicans will be emboldened to escalate their anti-Obama rhetoric, but that they themselves have nothing effective to offer; short of pandering to anti-government sentiments deeply embedded in American political culture.

In truth, the US party system is incapable of doing anything other than slightly tacking in the direction of popular sentiment; something confounded by the hyperbolic checks and balances, whose frustration of a majority in the Senate is precisely what made this special election so important.

Previous discussion on LP: Here.

Update: Nate Silver on the swing.

Leaving aside the obvious attempt to articulate the health care plan with ‘right to life’ scaremongering through all the nonsense about ‘death panels’, we still have a textbook example of how culture and ideology can cause blindness to collective interests (and indeed self interest). No amount of rhetoric about the possibilities of self actualisation and choice over life goals has any meaning if there is sustained structural inequality in health outcomes (and therefore life chances), and if there is no real attempt to ameliorate this inequality through collective action by the state.

At The Global Sociology Blog, SocProf hones in on the reasons for the absence of any discussion of, or even awareness of, class inequality in American culture and politics.

Obama now faces the familiar dilemma of attempting to save political face through the passage of some watered down bill which will do nothing, and may even be harmful, given the capture of representatives and Senators by the private interests of health insurers. Progressives also face a painful dilemma – an oft repeated one: whether to be complicit in the passage of a measure whose momentum is now driven almost solely by political calculation or whether to take a stand on principle. John Odum poses this well. But it seems unlikely that conditions – under the current political arrangements – for the passage of genuine health care reform will ever be more favourable.

Certainly, the party swap of Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is a fillip for the Democrats.

Although, those with a long memory for the ‘Clarence Thomas hearings’ might question the elderly gentleman’s progressivism when it comes to issues of concern to women. Anita Hill, wherever she is now, probably isn’t over the moon:

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/specter.jpg" align=left Though another way of looking at that is that he’s the very model of the Senex – the governing classes of what passes for the Republic these days.

In truth, I’d suggest, Specter’s defection reflects a real ‘partisan realignment’ – the shift of established power bases to the Democrats, uniting around Barack Obama now that he’s proved that his version of “change we can believe in” is softly, softly muted. This, of course, does leave the Republicans as the party of the noise machine, and an increasingly marginalised voter base, but where does it leave progressive politics in the U S of A? If you’re in a kind mood, you might assume that Obama’s natural instincts will be further pulled rightwards… You read the omens!

And herein lies a lesson for the modern day romantics on the centre-right who dream of an impending epiphany in the Liberal Party: there is simply no constituency for it. Sure, there are the disgruntled social liberals still in or close to the Liberal Party, the former Democrats without a home and fragments of an uncommitted middle class. But this is a small and probably shrinking constituency, as the Australian Democrats discovered to their peril.

Abjorensen is sceptical about the claims sometimes made about an enduring Deakinite liberal tradition, pointing out that Deakin himself succumbed to the “ruthless game of hard-headed pragmatism” a century ago.

Again, without necessarily agreeing with everything he says or his conceptual frame, I think Abjorensen has some interesting insights – not least the recognition that the actual utopian dreamers are the free market right. He’s certainly correct in suggesting that the “modernisers” in social democratic parties such as the ALP and British Labour failed to transcend class based ideologies through some sort of revivified progressivism:

Apologists try to disguise this as the “third way”; it is, in fact, unconditional surrender.

That’s right, I think. The “Third Way” mob simply gave up on any notion of social democracy as a transformational project. That’s why – for all the talk of social inclusion – they’re not even that interested in “civilising capitalism” any more. If you’re not prepared to do something to shift the balance of power within society, then you’re just tinkering around the edges, however well intentioned that tinkering might be.

The question Abjorensen doesn’t answer is the obvious one – What is to be done?

I don’t think we need to resign ourselves to the endless electoral cycle of tribal pragmatism, which appears to be Abjorensen’s particular counsel of despair. I think we do need to realise that there’s possibly still some potential life in the party form – but perhaps that’s a topic for another post.

Two of the more pressing questions since the election in November have been how Obama will respond to the global financial crisis and from what political position he will seek to govern. Both, in a way, have been answered, but hardly definitively. It’s worth observing in passing – and the point is a crucial one for us here in Australia – that the selective invocation of the mantra “there’s only one President at a time” means that we know very little about what the new administration’s stance on global financial regulatory issues and the governance architecture of the world economy will be. Such decisions as are taken – and paths not taken – will probably be of more lasting moment than how effectively and quickly his fiscal stimulus works to turn around America’s domestic economy. But, in that regard, the addition of tax cuts to the infrastructure investment proposed in his domestic package (to corral in some congressional Republican support, or so it’s being framed) reflects a debate about the composition of any stimulus which is important, and to some degree being played out, in our own context as well. Here, I was intrigued to see Andrew Leonard at Salon’s How The World Works blog suggest that a passage in the Inaugural address shows Obama has come down on the Keynesian side of the argument. (And to see Leonard compare Obama’s eloquence with Keynes’, to the former’s detriment.)

Turning to politics, Jonathan Freedland at The Guardian finds solace in Obama’s choice of and approach to themes for the claim that he has indeed set his course on introducing radical measures with conservative appointees. It might equally well be claimed that the repudiation of the Bush era in the speech is part of the post-partisan positioning, so we’ll see. On a related note, Heather McRobbie looks at the influence of the Gaza conflict on Obama’s message to the Middle East and the Islamic world, and isn’t confident words will ring out over the ruins which deeds have recently created. Freedland also examines some of the political pitfalls Obama might face.

On climate change and global warming, Christine Milne sees signs of hope in Obama’s rhetoric of change and collective purpose and his environmental appointments, and writes:

There are certainly a few disappointing nominees in the mix as well, but then there is the factor that, for the first time in living memory, America have a President who, because of the way he campaigned and was elected, is answerable not to the big money and the big corporations, but to the countless millions of individuals who put him where he is. And, furthermore, a President who has built a massive active constituency whom he can mobilise at short notice to campaign on his behalf, spread his message, and bring America with him as he goes.

Again, I hope she’s right, but I think you’d underestimate the power of big business and polluter lobbies – particularly in Congress – at your peril, and I think we also need to wait and see the colour of the Obama administration’s money in global climate negotiations.

Finally, Robert Corr links to an excellent piece from Marc Ambinder on the rhetorical structure of and literary allusions in Obama’s speech.

Update: Some good thoughts from I cite’s Jodi on desperate love for Obama.

Update: As well as writing of his own thoughts on Obama, Andrew Bartlett looks at the fallibility of political predictions, and how few have the good grace to admit when they’ve got it wrong.

scatterplot:

…the last time Democrats won 50%+ of the House popular vote: November 4. The last time the Republicans did? 1946. The graph of the House popular vote is rather telling… Yes, the policies of each of these parties are shifting/emergent. But I must confess that I read this chart with a degree of naive hope: that our brief experiment with conservatism is over. I can even imagine the tombstone:

Conservatism
1992-2004

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/house-1942-date.jpg"

red state blue state rich state poor state:

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/democrats-house-vote.png"

Myth #1: The Obama turnout meant that Prop 8 won in California.

But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters — the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) — voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin

- Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com

Myth #2: The Democrats’ victory wasn’t comprehensive.

What happened? Overall, the Democrats gained a bit in 2004, a lot in 2006, and some in 2008. But we knew that (see the time series plot in the blog entry linked above). We also see a bit of scatter. Beyond this, yes, there are some patterns. In 2006, the Democrats particularly gained in Republican areas–see how those dots in the lower left of the second graph are way above the 45-degree line? In 2008, the swing is more uniform… Returning to the “How well did the Democrats actually do in 2008? question, I think that one problem is that people are comparing Obama’s vote to Kerry’s vote but then comparing the congressional Democrats in 2008 to the congressional Democrats in 2006. I think it’s more appropriate to compare 2008 to 2004 in both cases. As Paul Krugman put it, “Maybe the reason people don’t see this is that the Democratic House gains were spread over two elections.”

- Andrew Gelman.

Myth #3: Obama would be politically sensible to govern as a moderate gradualist.

So a serious progressive agenda — call it a new New Deal — isn’t just economically possible, it’s exactly what the economy needs.The bottom line, then, is that Barack Obama shouldn’t listen to the people trying to scare him into being a do-nothing president. He has the political mandate; he has good economics on his side. You might say that the only thing he has to fear is fear itself.

- Paul Krugman.

However, there’s some interesting reading at both RedBlueRichPoor and FiveThirtyEight. I suspect the absence of the early vote in the sample diminishes the increases in youth and African-American turnout. And it’s just as well to remember that the election was actually reasonably close in the popular vote, and that the electoral vote map has been tweaked rather than transformed. Trends which were operating this year need reinforcing through the upcoming electoral cycles, and much will depend on Obama’s performance in government. You can never claim that there’s a realigning election on the basis of one cycle (06-08), though my bet would be that this will turn out in retrospect to have been one, for a whole host of more qualitative and interpretive factors.

I haven’t seen any comprehensive data as yet on Hispanic and youth votes’ partisan composition, but some evidence presented during the CNN coverage suggested very strong 60+% Obama votes in both populations. It’s worthwhile noting that the demographics of many states which are swinging to the Democrats strongly – or showing signs of such swings (ie in Texas, Arizona and South Carolina) – are fast changing to a much more heterogenous composition. And that generally, the younger cohort is more socially liberal and less hung up on racial barriers and all the baggage of the culture wars – including among younger Evangelicals.

There’s a lot here for Obama and the Democrats to make hay with in terms of partisan and geographic realignment, if they play their cards well.

Update: Some numbers on the youth and Latino votes:

Latino Catholics appear to have been decisive in flipping three states from red to blue: New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. Colorado’s nine electoral votes swung into the Obama column with a strong 53% to 46% win and in New Mexico the margin was even larger: 57% for Obama to McCain’s 42%. In Nevada, 55% of the vote went to Obama and McCain took 43%. If Obama delivers comprehensive immigration reform, these three states and their 19 electoral votes will be blue for a generation. They will also likely be joined by Arizona, which might have joined the shift this year had it not been for the home turf advantage McCain enjoyed. Nine points separated the candidates in Arizona, and the state’s ten electoral votes are low-hanging fruit for the Democrats next election.

Latinos are the fastest growing part of the electorate and young voters are just beginning to define their political loyalties. Obama won both groups convincingly: 67% of Latinos nationwide and 66% of voters age 18-29. That bodes well for the future of the Democratic Party.

Update: Simon Jackman points out – in examining “change elections” – that Obama has been elected with the highest percentage of the popular vote of any newly elected Democrat since FDR.

Update: A good post from Crooks & Liars on the Latino vote, and a thoughtful piece at Salon about the demographics and the numbers.

Update: The invaluable Nate Silver has posted a table comparing Obama and Kerry’s numbers on the exit polls among all demographics.