Billions of campaign dollars spent on a presidential
election and what have we learned about our nation?
Charles Reich wrote a book in the 60s titled, the
Greening of America, about humans, not so much nature, and a “consciousness”
that looked beyond the system as we find it.
Reich was concerned about the restraint on personal
liberty.
In this last election, there were several strains
that suggest the kind of 50s thinking that former Governor Romney offered was
not, on balance, where the nation wanted to go.
When I was a young pol on the East Side of
Manhattan, a political patron of mine repeatedly instructed that you can’t
pretend to be hungry.
Republican leaders made many groups hungry for
change because of what Republicans pronounced what they thought best for women,
gays, immigrants, the young, and the working man and woman.
We had Republican white males telling women they
were going to probe them if they ever thought of having an abortion.
We had Republican legislators compromise the medical
services a woman could obtain if she chose an abortion.
We have Republicans joining with Catholic Bishops to
tell women staff what kind of medical procedures they may have insured and
whether contraceptives may be taken.
We have had other Republicans running for the U.S.
Senate this year talking about “legitimate rape” and the rape that God intends. Plainly, these candidates spoke neither for
women nor for God. Exit polls confirmed
that 59% of voters believe that abortion should be legal.
Yet, there are Republicans scratching their
collective heads after the election trying to understand why President Obama
won 36 % more single women to his candidacy over Governor Romney, and how these
several women, Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Tammy Baldwin
(Wis.), could best Republican candidates for U.S. Senate seats, giving Majority
Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, an even stronger hand to play than before the presidential
election.
We have had more sanctimonious gay bashing by
Republicans in the last couple of years than I’ve seen my whole life, and the
Catholic Church doubled down in conjunction with Republican forces to stop same
sex marriage initiatives in several states, and these initiatives were rightly upheld
by the voters at the ballot box.
When Governor Romney offered no hope for the
children of immigrants schooled in America and spoke about “self-deportation,”
he should have expected that Hispanics and other immigrants would hunger after
an alternative that he did not offer.
The Governor garnered only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote; by contrast,
former President Bush received 44% Hispanic support when he embraced
immigration reform. President Obama
granted work permits to undocumented people brought here as children who
graduated High School or served in the military. Omayra Vasquez, 43, from Denver, reportedly
said, he voted for President Obama because, “I feel closer to him” and “He cares
about Spanish people.” The President ran
away with 71 percent support among Hispanic voters. That’s how the President won Florida, and
Colorado and Nevada.
Republicans talk about the next generation, those
aged 18 to 29, but their policies fell far short on school tuition assistance
and loans, and on unemployment. Also,
the young felt an affinity with women of all ages, the Dream Act, and same sex
marriage. Perhaps the Republicans
believed some polling “experts” who didn’t think the young would be a factor in
this election, or as much as the last election, but their participation
actually increased, though slightly, by 1%.
The young made up 19% of those voting and President Obama won 60 percent
of their votes, as compared with 37 percent for Governor Romney. Had Mr. Romney split the “youth” vote with
the President, he would have been President instead.
There is a shift in the nation’s consciousness and
it’s away from the 50s. As Charles Reich
wrote, “Power is not exercised in this country by force of arms, as in some
dictatorships. Power rests on control of
consciousness. If the people are freed
from false consciousness, no power exists that could prevent them from taking
the controls.”
While to some, it looks like nothing has changed,
there has been a “greening” in America’s consciousness.
Nor am I saying that the Republican party does not
have a role to play as a partner in this grand political adventure.
While the House of Representatives did not change
many seats, leaving Speaker John Boehner in charge, he reacted by seeking to
engage but it remains to be seen if he can navigate his caucus to a more
moderate agenda.
Former Congressman Tom Davis told several of us
about a week or so ago that a Speaker without regard to party can’t make up a
majority for a vote that doesn’t include a majority of his own party
caucus. That’s what derailed the
agreement on the debt limit when the Speaker negotiated with the President but,
in my opinion, couldn’t deliver because of the now marginalized Tea Party faction.
It is my hope, however, that we find a way through
our past differences to engage and resolve America’s challenges, and that we
give effective structure to a changing, greening, America.
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