Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up
November 15, 2008 by
Filed under Bush Powers, Capitol Hill, Clueless, Deserved, Double Standards, Idiot Ideas, Legal Ramblings, Money, Uncategorized
Saturday! Pundit time (and catch-up on a few pundits we didn’t have time for yesterday).
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Although young people turned out in higher numbers than they did four years ago, the increase was proportionate with the electorate as a whole. Most non-Republican voters turned out in higher numbers this year than in 2004. One key to Barack Obama’s victory, however, was his overwhelming support among voters ages 18 to 29, whom he won by 34 points, 66 percent to 32 percent; and his support among those ages 30 to 44, whom he carried by 6 points, 52 percent to 46 percent. Those numbers are ominous for Republicans looking to 2010 and beyond.
Christine Todd Whitman and Robert M. Bostock: Four years ago we said:
The Republican Party had been taken hostage by “social fundamentalists,” the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research. Unless the GOP freed itself from their grip, we argued, it would so alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate that it would become increasingly marginalized and find itself out of power.
And guess what happened? No, no. Go ahead and guess!
Byron York: Although the GOP Governors seem hesitant about Sarah Palin, the base loves her and therefore she is a factor. [Note to Byron: why do conservatives always ignore how small the GOP base is becoming? See Cook and Whitman above]
I’m like, okay, Gov. Palin, you need to disappear.
I can agree that it’s impossible to make a positive case for the backward, self-destructive practices of the auto industry over many years. (Just as it was difficult to defend the practices that led to New York’s fiscal crisis.) But in the current environment, allowing one or more of the Big Three to go bankrupt would be like offering up your nose to Sweeney Todd to spite your face.
Michael Gerson: Let me assure you that since my party lost the election, I know more than the winner about how he should act.
As the Obama family settles into the White House, popular culture will probably have a string of awkward encounters with stereotypes. I’m going to enjoy this because, in the end, what will be lost is the ability to paint “African American culture” with a broad brush.
On Election Day, according to the exit polls, more than 60 percent of Obama’s ballots came from voters who described themselves as either “moderate” or “conservative.”
These voters don’t want Obama to be timid on his core economic promises, but they do expect him to govern as the cultural moderate he promised to be. He should not lose his chance to make cultural warfare a quaint relic of the past.
