Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal : Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Judi Online Gratis Tanpa Modal Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour 0 Parent Frames Length D Parent Frames N Substring P 1 Document N N Substring 0 P If X D N D All X D All N For I 0 X I Function Mm_swapimage V3 0 Var I J 0 X A Mm_swapimage Arguments Document Mm_sr New Array For I 0 I Nbsp Nbsp Home Contact First Lady Biography Staff November 25 2008 Nbsp Remarks Of Governor Haley Barbour On Being Named An Honorary Patron Of Trinity College Rsquo S University Philosophical Society Dublin Ireland Nbsp It Is Not My Purpose Today To Try To Make You An Expert On American Politics That Rsquo S Beyond My Capacity Besides I Expect This College Would Like To Charge You Tuition To Take A Course On The Subject Nbsp I Will Try To Give A Brief Overview Of My Country Rsquo S Political History Or At Least Of The Last Few Decades Nbsp That Will Allow Me To Put In Context Some Thoughts On This Month Rsquo S Historic Presidential Election What It Means And What It May Or May Not Mean Nbsp Our News Media Has A Tendency To Overestimate What Campaigns And Elections Mean To Overstate The Effects That Will Result In Our Country That Is Particularly True If The Left Wins Nbsp But First A Little Review Of How We Got Here Nbsp As The Oldest Democracy The United States Has Seen Remarkable Stability In Its Political Process Major Reasons Are The Two-party System And Our Republican Form Of Government Nbsp Our Federal System Means One Party Can Control The Executive Branch While The Other Controls One Or Both Houses Of Congress State Governments Can Be Led By Republicans While A Democrat Is In The White House And Vice Versa Nbsp Federalism Is A Fairly Obvious Element Of American Government It Is Constitutional The Two-party System On The Other Hand Was Neither Ordained By The Constitution Nor Much Appreciated By The Founding Fathers Indeed Washington And Madison Were Very Critical Of Ldquo Factions Rdquo The Word They Used To Describe Political Parties Nbsp For More Than Two Hundred Years My Country Has Usually Had Just Two Parties Competing For Americans Rsquo Votes The Names Changed A Few Times Early On But The Vast Majority Of The Time The Vast Majority Of Americans Voted Either Republican Or Democrat Nbsp When You Divide The Electorate Into Only Two Factions Necessarily Both Parties Must Be Coalitions Nearly Sixty Million Voters Voted For John Mccain This Month And He Lost Barack Obama Got Millions More Votes In Winning It Is Obvious To All Of Us Here That Not Everyone Who Voted For Either Of Them Agrees On Every Issue Nbsp These Necessarily Coalitional Parties Are Broad And Diverse The Democrats Are The Liberal Party Of America While The Republicans Are The Conservative Party But Both Parties Are Coalitions And There Are Conservative Democrats And Liberal Republicans Some Republicans Are To The Left Of Some Democrats But The Center Of The Democratic Party Is To The Left Of The Center Of The Republican Party Nbsp The Fact That Both Parties Are Coalitions Allowed What Montesquieu Called The Ldquo Miracle Of America Rdquo Nbsp Montesquieu Correctly Concluded That The Two Parties Were Balanced As If On A Teeter-totter Or A See-saw Board If One Party Moves Too Far Away From The Center Then Enough Voters Abandon Them And Move Back To The Center And Into The Arms Of The Other Party So That The System Never Gets Too Far Out Of Balance Hence America Stays Politically Ldquo Centrist Rdquo Center-right Or Center-left Nbsp That Doesn Rsquo T Mean America Rsquo S Political System Results In Policies That Are In The Center Of Europe Rsquo S Political Views Or The World Rsquo S But Our Two Party System Keeps Our Country Rsquo S Politicians And Public Policy Near The Center Of American Public Opinion Somewhere Near The Views Of Most Americans Nbsp Now If You Accept This Hypothesis As Accurate Where Does That Put The Majority Of U S Voters Today Nbsp You Can Start A Heated Argument With That Question And I Suggest No One Knows The Answer Yet Nbsp A Lot Of American Elections That Turn Out The Party In Power Actually Don Rsquo T Change The Direction Of Public Policy Very Much Nbsp As A Recent Example President Clinton Rsquo S Defeat Of President George H W Bush In 1992 Ended Twelve Years Of Republicans In The White House The Democrats Had Large Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress And While Clinton Had Run As A Moderate Rdquo A New Kind Of Democrat Rdquo As He Put It At The Time Americans Quickly Decided The Democrats Were Trying To Go Too Far Left Too Fast Where In 1992 Rsquo S Election Republicans Had Been Reduced To Forty-three 43 Senators Of 100 And 174 Representatives Of 435 And Our Presidential Candidate Had Received The Lowest Percentage Of The Vote Of Any Gop Candidate For President Since 1912 Within Two Short Years Republicans Had Majorities In Both The Houses Of Congress Nbsp In 1994 Republicans Rsquo Won The Greatest Mid-term Majority Sweep Since 1930 No One Would Have Predicated That At This Time In 1992 Indeed The Media Had Predicted Just The Opposite The End Of Reaganism To The Contrary Clinton Rsquo S Presidency During Which Republicans Controlled Both Houses Of Congress For Six Of Eight Years Had Much In Common With Reagan Rsquo S Goals A Balanced Budget Welfare Reform And Expansions Of Free Trade Nbsp In The U S It Is Not Unusual For This To Happen For The White House To Change Parties In An Election But Public Policy To Change Very Little Consider Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms The New Deal Wasn Rsquo T Reversed Containment Of Communism Continued To Be American Policy Even Nixon Rsquo S Time In The White House Not Only Expanded Domestic Government Regulation Far Beyond What The Democrats Had Done But Rolled Back No Great Society Welfare Program Nbsp In Truth There Have Been Few Transformative Presidential Elections In American History 1800 1828 1860 And 1896 And I Would Suggest Only Two In The Twentieth Century 1932 And 1980 Nbsp The Question To Be Considered Is Whether 2008 Will Be A Presidential Election That Dramatically Changes The Direction Of Public Policy In The United States A Transformative Election Nbsp There Is No Question This Election Is Historic For America To Elect An African-american As Its President Is Powerful Mine Is A Country That Enforced Slavery Of African-americans Less Than One Hundred Fifty Years Ago Where Six Hundred Thousand Citizens Died In A War Largely Over Slavery Where Less Than Fifty Years Ago Segregation Of The Races Was Enforced By Law In A Significant Portion Of The Country And Practiced De Facto In Much More Nbsp Senator Barack Obama Has Been Elected President Of The United States In A Landslide Carrying Three Of The Largest Southern States Along The Way It Is Quite Remarkable And I Think Admirable Nbsp And He Is Being Accepted As Our Elected Leader By Those Who Opposed Him In The Campaign Just As Bush Clinton Reagan And Kennedy Were Accepted Nbsp But That Doesn Rsquo T Mean He Will Be Transformational In The Manner Of Franklin Roosevelt Or Ronald Reagan Nbsp Beginning With The 1978 Mid-term Congressional Elections Republicans And Conservatism Began To Ascend In American Politics And Policy Making I Should Note That American Conservatism Identifies Especially In Economic Policy With What Europeans Refer To As Ldquo Classic Liberalism Rdquo Free Market And Capitalism Are Termed Conservative In The U S But Back To Our Story Nbsp Having Survived It Myself I Rsquo M Always Amazed That The Gop Had Seemed On Its Death Bed Only Four Years Before Its 1978 Surge Watergate Nixon Rsquo S Resignation The First Arab Oil Embargo And A Sharp Recession Drove Republican Numbers Into The Tank In 1974 There Were Polls Showing Only 18 Of Americans Considered Themselves Republicans And The National Party Chairman Actually Appointed A Committee To Consider Whether To Change The Name Of The Party Nbsp But After Jimmy Carter Defeated President Ford In 1976 Republicans Made Gains In The Rsquo 78 Midterms And Ronald Reagan Then Defeated Carter By A Large Margin In 1980 Republicans And The Majority Of The Country Opted For Center-right Government And Stuck With It Nbsp By The Way Carter Rsquo S Defeat In Rsquo 80 After Only One Term As President Marks The Only Time Since 1896 That A Party Rsquo S Candidate Won The White House And That Party Failed To Keep It For At Least A Second Term Nbsp Despite A Recession That Deepened In 1982 Reagan Stayed The Course Won A Giant Re-election Victory In Rsquo 84 And Dominated U S Public Policy Into The 21st Century Nbsp Yet Reagan Rsquo S Party Did Not Dominate Nearly As Much Republicans Did Win Five Of Seven Presidential Elections And The One Democrat Of The Period Bill Clinton Is One Of Only Three Presidents Ever To Be Elected And Reelected President Without Receiving A Majority Of The Popular Vote Nbsp Still Democrats Had Congressional Majorities Rsquo Much Of This Time And There Were Periodic Rises Of Third Parties Like That Of Ross Perot Who Received Nineteen Percent Of The Vote In The 1992 Presidential Election And Nearly Ten Percent Four Years Later Nbsp Competitive Third Parties Aren Rsquo T The Norm In U S Politics Nor Do We Usually Have Long Periods Of Divided Government Yet There Was A Lot Of Both During This Recent Period When Republican Ideas Of Limited Government Low Taxes Open Markets And Free Trade And A Strong National Defense Strongly Prevailed Nbsp There Was One Similar Relatively Long Period Late In The Nineteenth Century From The End Of Reconstruction In 1876 When Republicans Stole The Presidential Election For Rutherford B Hayes Until 1896 There Was A Period When The Two Parties Were Often At Parity And Third Parties Like The Progressive Party Rose To Actually Control Some State Governments And Elect U S Senators Nbsp This Nineteenth Century Period Of Essential Equilibrium Between The Two Great Parties Also Coincided With A Time When America Was Shifting From An Agrarian To An Industrial Economy With All The Dislocation That Entailed These Similarities Are Interesting As We Consider The Effect Of The 2008 Election Nbsp This Period Of Parity Ended In 1896 When William Mckinley Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election That Made Republicans The Dominant Party Until 1930 When The Great Depression Led To A Long Period Of Rooseveltian Democrat Dominance During This Republican Period There Was Major Reform In Government Particularly Under Theodore Roosevelt And The Laissez-faire Capitalistic Economy Boomed For A Decade Before The Bust Began In 1929 And Democrats Roared Back 1932 Was A Transformational Election Nbsp During This Democrat Era America Moved To The Left And Citizens First Strangled By The Deepest Longest Economic Downturn In U S History And Then Thrown Into World War Ii Saw Government As The Only Answer To The Gigantic Problems Facing Them And The Country Laissez-faire Gave Way To An Alphabet Of Government Agencies Steering The Economy And Of Course When The War Came In Full It Became The Primary Economic And Cultural Driver Nbsp Republican Congresses Elected In 1946 And 1950 Successfully Resisted Most Of Truman Rsquo S Even More Leftish Domestic Programs Then Eisenhower Rsquo S Two Terms Were More A Cooling Off Period Than Any Reversal Of The Center-left Policies Of The Previous Twenty Years Nbsp Not John Kennedy Who Was Actually Rather Conservative On Economic And National Security Policy But His Successor Lyndon Johnson Made The Last Charge For The Left With His Great Society Programs Nbsp While Nixon Did Not Really Disturb The Liberal Programs Johnson Put In Place The Mood Of The Country Clearly Began To Swing To The Right In The Late Sixties Nbsp The Counter-culture Identified With Drugs And The Anti-war Movement Appalled Many Americans Anarchist Tactics By Groups Like The Weather Underground And Black Panthers Were Far Beyond The Pale Even In A Very Tolerant Country Like The U S Nbsp Watergate Was More About Corruption Than Policy Disagreements So When Carter Rsquo S Presidency Became Best Known For Stagflation An Economic Condition Where High Unemployment And High Inflation Occur Simultaneously For Malaise And For American Diplomats Held Hostage In Our Own Embassy In Iran Not Only Did Republicans Win The White House With Ronald Reagan They Won What Turned Out To Be A Transformational Election The First Since 1932 Resulting In Pushes For Center-right Policies On Many Levels These Center-right Policies Took Hold And As I Mentioned Earlier Prevailed Through George Bush Rsquo S Reelection In 2004 Nbsp Now Senator Obama Has Won In No Small Part Because Of President Bush Rsquo S Unpopularity Nbsp American Politics Is Somewhat Cyclical Since World War Ii A Political Party Has Kept The White House For A Third Consecutive Term Only Once In 1988 When The First President Bush Defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis Most Voters Would Tell You Bush Won In 1988 Because They Thought Dukakis Was Unacceptable Rather Than A Desire For The Status Quo Nbsp So The Ldquo Eight Years And You Rsquo Re Out Rdquo Tradition Probably Played A Big Role In Obama Rsquo S Win But It Was Definitely More Than That Nbsp Americans Don Rsquo T Like Long Wars Korea And Vietnam Proved That Clearly The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Unpopular With A Lot Of Voters Particularly Women And Young People Nbsp Finally And Most Powerfully Fear Of Where The Economy Is Headed Not To Mention The Financial Losses Already Suffered By Millions Of Families Caused Many Voters To Support The Candidate Most Identified With Change Nbsp All These Giant Issues And Factors Favored Obama Some Of My Friends Wonder That Mccain Didn Rsquo T Do Even Worse Considering That George Mcgovern Walter Mondale And Bob Dole All Received Lower Percentages At Far Less Perilous Times I Think Mccain Did About As Well As He Could Unless He Had Made Obama Unacceptable Something He Really Did Not Focus On Until Far Too Late To Have Any Chance Of Succeeding Nbsp Now Will 2008 Turn Out To Have Been A Transformational Election For The Left As Was 1932 Or Has America Swung Back To The Left Just During The Crisis Rather Than For A Generation Nbsp Remembering That The Last Two Democrats Elected President Were Southern Moderates Does The Election Of The Most Left-wing U S Senator Tell Us That The Majority Wants To More Significantly To The Left On Public Policy Or Is It Simply That Voters Wanted Change And Obama Who Is Extremely Charismatic Was Not Only Acceptable But Very Attractive And Reassuring Nbsp As A Small Government Low Tax Rational Regulation Capitalist And An Open Market Internationalist I Recognize When People Are Worried They Not Only May Lose Their Jobs But Also Their Savings And Their Homes That Their Kids Can Rsquo T Go To College Or Borrow Money To Buy A Car Those People Will Look For Help And Government Often Will Appear To Be The Only Place Big Enough To Help Certainly There Are Millions Of Americans Who Feel That Way Right Now Nbsp How Long Will That Last That Will Be Greatly Affected By How The Economy Fares In The Coming Year Whether Obama And His Team Are Perceived As Having Produced Positive Results Does Consumer Confidence Return And Over What Period Of Time Nbsp Are Left Wing Ideas Like Card Check To Increase Union Membership By Bending The Rules In Favor Of The Unions And Against Employers Going To Be Enacted What Would Result Nbsp Perhaps Most Of All How Does The Gigantic Government Bailout Of The Financial Services Industry And Whoever Else Is Added Actually Turn Out It Is The Closest Thing To Socialism In American Economic History Nbsp If It Is Accepted By The American People As An Appropriate Way To Manage Our Economy I Believe It Can Rsquo T Be Interpreted As Anything Other Than A Major Shift To The Left And Perhaps For A Long Time Into The Future Nbsp Significantly Like The Late 19th Century Today Is Also A Period Of Massive Economic Change Beginning With The Move From An Industrial To An Information Economy And Now With The Impact Of The Incredible Free Movement Of Money In No Time To Anywhere Economic Change May Lend Itself To Making This A Transformational Election As Did The Economy Of 1896 Nbsp On The Other Hand Will Americans Decide This Was A Bad Idea Born Of Fear Hellip Of The View That Somebody Had To Do Something That Any Effort Was Better Than No Effort And That Once Tried Government Rsquo S Bailing Out And Buying Up Private Industries Ndash Financial Or Automotive Ndash Really Isn Rsquo T The Right Answer That Rapid Economic Change May Cut Against Big Government Change Too Much Change Too Fast Can Be Scary Too Nbsp I Wish I Could Tell You Which Of Those Scenarios Will Be The Case But I Don Rsquo T Know And I Sincerely Believe No One Else Does As Testimony To That I Think You Rsquo Ll See This Obama Administration Appear To Stay As Close To The Center As Possible For A While There Will Be Enormous Pressure From His Long Time Allies On The Left Ndash Unions And Community Organizers Ndash To Push Farther Left But I Believe Obama Will Try To Resist Nbsp He Is A Man Of The American Left But He Is Also A Phenomenally Gifted And Smart Politician I Bet He Rsquo Ll Try Not To Get Too Far Ahead Of The People Or Get Thrown Off Montesquieu Rsquo S Teeter-totter Nbsp We Rsquo Ll See P O Box 139 Jackson Ms 39205 Phone 601 359 3150 Fax 601 359 3741 News