Wow! What an Election: Here’s Why

The election of the nation’s first African American president is historic by any standard. But the path to Barack Obama’s victory was also unprecedented. The campaign was the longest and the most expensive in history. It was memorable for the sequence of flawed front-runners, a fiery pastor, a Republican Party and convention energized by a self-described moose-hunting hockey mom, a series of gigantic open-air rallies, and wide evidence of record-breaking public involvement in politics.

“It was a magnificent spectacle,” said Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker. “As a civic exercise and civic pageant, this has been marvelous to see.”

The Progressive Policy Institute noted that the 131 million Americans who cast ballots roughly equaled the number of people who voted in the nation’s first 32 presidential elections, from 1788 to 1908. That figure was 9 million higher than that of 2004 and 25 million more than in 2000.

Of course, the new president and vice president and the new Congress inherit a host of significant problems and challenges. All of America will be paying close attention to how they respond to those challenges.

Here are several keys to the campaign that made history:

The 44th president is an African American

Ultimately, the nation’s collapsed economy and George W. Bush’s unpopularity were more important than race to voters. While 19 percent of voters polled said they were concerned about Obama’s race, 61 percent said their vote was determined by their economic concerns. Obama, son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, was born before the Civil Rights Act and the National Voting Rights Act had been enacted and when blacks were still not given access to many universities in the South. He will be sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

Campaign giving and spending shattered records

Candidates for the House, Senate and White House have raised and spent more than $5.3 billion this year, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. House candidates raised $884.2 million, and Senate candidates $374.1 million. Of that $5.3 billion, Democrats raised 56 percent. Four years ago, the parties’ fundraising was evenly split.

No candidate raised and spent more money than Obama. As of Oct. 15, he had collected $639 million, far ahead of that raised by his two principal campaign opponents combined—$360 million raised by Sen. John McCain and $221 million by Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Further, no one in history raised so much of it the way Obama did—from small donors. Fully $310 million of Obama’s total came from donors contributing less than $200. “Obama has single-handedly reformed campaign finance,” says Anthony Corrado, Colby College professor and an expert on campaign finance. “Obama has fundamentally rewritten the campaign finance book. He’s setting a whole new standard for fundraising.”

Not that Obama didn’t benefit from big spenders: He got $215 million from those giving more than $1,000, compared with the $147 million George Bush raised from this same sector in 2004.

The new media are fragmented

There was no end to the creative and novel use of burgeoning communications tools. National and local candidates recruited supporters and volunteers from the sites MySpace and YouTube. Obama’s fundraising success was just one of the Internet advances in 2008. Obama also used the Internet to schedule rallies, sell T-shirts, trinkets and bumper stickers, and coordinate the telephone, travel and on-the-ground activities of several million volunteers.

The new media also carried the message to a staggering extent. Some 46 percent of Americans used the Internet to get political news and share political messages. That includes 58 percent of those ages 18 to 29; 56 percent of those 30 to 49; 41 percent of those 50 to 64; and 20 percent of those over 65. Among the messages were angry sermons by Obama’s preacher, Jeremiah Wright, which attracted 7.4 million YouTube viewers, and Obama’s speech on race, which attracted 6.5 million viewers on YouTube.

The glass ceiling cracked

Although a victorious John McCain would have been the oldest first-term president ever elected, Hillary Clinton and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin did make history themselves. Clinton mobilized a national campaign and received 18 million votes in her race for the White House, even if she didn’t achieve the nomination. Palin left a mark as a formidable Republican force, even if she didn’t become the first woman to serve as vice president. She returns to Alaska to serve out her term, but few expect her political career to end in Juneau.

The march was long

There are many ways to measure the length of the 2008 campaign. Obama measures it by the number of gray hairs that have appeared on his head since he announced his candidacy 21 months ago on Feb. 10, 2007.

He was a latecomer. McCain had been angling for the job since George W. Bush took office in 2001. John Edwards never left Iowa after the 2004 election. Joe Biden was one of the first to formally commit to the campaign, on Jan. 31, 2007, though he spent most of the day explaining away his remark that Barack Obama was “a mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean.”

There were other measures. Democrats had 26 debates; Republicans, 21. The top issue way back when was the Iraq war, and Clinton actually celebrated what was then the nation’s vibrant economy.

But by every measure, the march to victory was very long. The writer Tom Wolfe offered this perspective: “I tuned out at the campaign’s halfway mark 23 months ago.”

The laughs went on longer

The long campaign was a gift that kept on giving for late-night humor. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart parlayed the foibles, gaffes and misadventures of candidates on Comedy Central, joining CBS’ David Letterman and NBC’s Jay Leno, who long ago in their late-night tenures raised political humor to an art form.

But it was Saturday Night Live that took top honors—both for its audience and its impact. Tina Fey’s caricature of Palin helped revive the 33-year-old program, attracting its largest audiences in over a decade. Palin herself finally made a cameo appearance, followed two weeks later by McCain himself. The two shows posted the highest and second-highest ratings for the program in the past 12 years.

In the weeks after Palin’s selection, Democrats floundered in their attempts to criticize her background and qualifications. Instead, the Alaska governor generated energy, enthusiasm and wide support. Only after Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin punctured that aura did Democrats’ criticism gain traction.

There were also many jokes about McCain’s age. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg School of Communications, worries that the quantity and volume of age jokes will affirm stereotypes of forgetfulness and clumsiness associated with aging. That, in turn, could regenerate ageist thinking and behavior that adversely affects older workers, actors, artists and writers.

Oh, the mistakes they made

My way is the right way. Rudy Giuliani tried setting his own timetable. The former New York City mayor decided to forgo early primary and caucus contests and focus instead on delegate-rich Florida. He was the prohibitive favorite in early Republican polls. But by the time the campaign reached Florida, Republicans in six states had already selected 135 delegates, and it was too late. Giuliani raised and spent $58 million and won no delegates.

Forget the caucuses. Clinton entered the campaign as the presumptive Democratic nominee, with a huge campaign war chest and a long list of endorsements. Besides fundraising, she focused on primary states. Obama, meanwhile, focused on the 14 states, including Iowa, that chose their candidates in party caucuses. An impressive victory in Iowa caucuses gave him an unanticipated lead that she could never overcome.

Just energize the base. McCain’s choice of Palin recharged his campaign in August and September. But the energy she generated was undermined by a disastrous shopping spree—$150,000 for new clothes—and the poor media training she did or did not receive. The interview with CBS news anchor Katie Couric was a disaster. Asked about her training in foreign policy, she replied, “As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where—where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.”

The portrait of voters continues to change

In 1976, some 96 percent of the voters were white. That dropped to 87 percent in 1992, 83 percent in 1996, 81 percent in 2000, 77 percent in 2004 and 74 percent this year. McCain received a majority of the white vote, while Obama scored huge margins among minority voters—96 percent of African Americans, 67 percent of Latinos and 62 percent of Asians.

Democrats regained momentum among Hispanics, who had given George W. Bush 44 percent of their votes in 2004.

There’s no transition

From the day after the election, Obama becomes the primary spokesman on the profound economic challenges facing the nation. Because of President Bush’s unpopularity and the fact that not much can be accomplished in the 11 weeks before Obama takes office, the president-elect gets no time off. Investors, corporate leaders, taxpayers and consumers will all immediately look to Obama for guidance and assurance. He can be expected to name his economic team in a matter of weeks. And the economic summit meeting of foreign leaders hastily arranged by Bush will be a sideshow if Obama does not participate.

It’s still a boomer world

Although younger voters provided Obama’s decisive margins, it is the boomer issues that pose the greatest challenges facing the new president.

More 50-plus Americans cast ballots than ever before. In the past two elections, they had overwhelmingly supported George W. Bush, and their swing toward Obama was crucial this time around.

Exit polls showed first-time voters casting 68 percent of their ballots for Obama, including voters ages 18 to 24, who favored Obama over McCain by 66 to 32 percent. Those in the 25 to 29 age bracket went 66 to 31 percent in Obama’s favor; the 30-to-39 group favored Obama, 54 to 44 percent; those 40 to 49 split evenly; while those 50 to 64 favored Obama by 50 to 49 percent. The only age group that McCain captured was 65 and over, which voted 53 to 45 percent in favor of the Arizona senator, exit polls showed.

The economy was a dominant factor among boomers, in part because the sagging economy had reduced their retirement nest eggs by some $2 trillion. Beyond that preoccupation is an unyielding timetable: Neither Medicare nor Social Security has the financial foundation to meet the demands posed when boomers begin retiring. That puts a premium on recharging the national economy and strengthening older Americans’ retirement and health care programs.

Jim Toedtman is editor in chief of the AARP Bulletin and AARP Bulletin Today.