www.WrensJournal.blogspot.com

Barack Obama is a phenomena, we can all agree on that. David Brooks puts his finger on why in his insightful column today. In this election, and probably in 2008, it just doesn't make sense for politicians who want to win an election to brand themselves as a liberal or a conservative, no matter what Rush Limbaugh advises.

Jimmy Carter was elected because he held out the hope of a new way. Obama is doing the same thing; who is the Republican that can beat him?

The Era of What’s Next
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times
Wooster, Ohio

Sometimes liberalism is dominant and sometimes conservatism is dominant, but sometimes there is no dominant ideology.

Between 1932 and 1968, liberalism dominated American politics. The big accomplishments were liberal accomplishments — Social Security, Medicare, the civil rights movement. Even if Republicans sometimes held the White House, the general drift of things was still to the left.

Between 1980 and 2006, conservatism was dominant. The big accomplishments were conservative accomplishments — the defeat of communism, the reinvigoration of the economy through deregulation, tax reform and monetarism, the rebalancing of the culture to emphasize family, work and individual responsibility. Even if Democrats sometimes held the White House, the general drift of things was to the right.

But in some eras there is no dominant political tendency. The 1970’s were such a period. That decade was marked not by a change in political winds so much as by disillusionment and a scrambling of political categories. People who once had been liberals drifted away. Voters became cynical about politics itself. The pendulum swung not only from left to right but from politics to antipolitics. Jimmy Carter promised a break from the normal methods of political life.

We’re about to enter another of those periods without a dominant ideology. It’s clear that this election will mark the end of conservative dominance. This election is a period, not a comma in political history.

That’s clear not only because Republicans could lose their majorities, but for several other reasons. First, conservatives have exhausted their agenda. They have little new left to propose and have lost their edge on issues like fiscal discipline and foreign policy. Second, conservatives are beset by scandals, the kind of institutional decay that afflicts movements at the end of their political lives. Third, the Reagan coalition is splintering, with the factions going off in wildly different directions.

Fourth, there is no viable orthodox conservative candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Orthodox conservatives like Allen, Frist and Santorum are fading, and only heterodox figures like McCain, Giuliani and Romney are rising.

If you look at the political landscape, identification with the Republican Party is falling but identification with the Democratic Party is not rising. Instead, there is a spike in the number of people who do not identify with either. People correctly perceive that neither party has a coherent agenda this year.

In the near term, the candidates who thrive will be those who offer a new way of politics. This might be the maverick independence of McCain, or the ostentatiously deliberative style of Obama, or it could be the manner of somebody whom none of us are even thinking about. Candidates who seem conventional will have a tough time. This includes Hillary Clinton.

Process issues will come to the fore, issues that have to do with the way politics is conducted. So will issues of character and decision-making style. George Bush’s secretive and declarative method will soon seem archaic — like the silent picture acting style in the age of sound. Instead, voters will look for candidates as interactive as the technology around them.

The center of political gravity will shift. In the liberal era, the urban Northeast dominated the landscape. In the conservative era, it was in the South and in bedroom communities like those in Southern California. In the coming era, the center of gravity will move to the West and the Midwestern plains, and to the pragmatic, untethered office park suburbs sprouting up there.

The people who will be most important are those who can most precisely identify the new era’s defining problems. The first is the continuing rise of Islamic fundamentalism. It’s clear the categories of the nation-state era — rollback and containment — are not working to reverse extremism, but what will? The second big problem is entitlement spending and the stultification of government.

The third challenge is the emergence of China and India — seizing the opportunities afforded by those new workers, mitigating the pain associated with tougher competition and managing the fiscal imbalances. The fourth is the growing importance of cognitive skills and cultural capital, the need to surround people, especially children, with stable relationships if they are to flourish.

One party will become distracted by passing squalls, but the other will focus on those issues. Then, a new period of dominance will begin.

Motto for IDEA Cafe/ Franklin Circles:
"Rooted in Christ, Accomplish" from today's
lectionary reading, Eph 3:14-21

Brothers and sisters:
I kneel before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory
to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
that you, rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine,
by the power at work within us,
to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.