Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Obama’s First Two Conservative Victories

In the spirit of counter-intuitive thinking (and to give liberals indigestion), it is worth pointing out that Obama scored two victories for conservatism in his election contest. First, given that the California exit polls showed that minorities supported the ban in gay marriage (Prop. 8)--by a 70-30 margin among black voters--it seems plausible to say that Prop. 8 passed on Obama’s coattails. Assume a normal turnout of minority voters and perhaps Prop. 8 is defeated. Heh.

Second, Obama’s campaign killed the public financing scheme for presidential elections. I doubt it is coming back. Obama certainly will want to exploit his incumbent status in 2012 to raise a billion dollars for re-election, and no Republican is going to handcuff herself the way McCain did. Good riddance, too, though one must note an important irony here: one of the motivations for public financing after Watergate was that it leveled the playing field for Democrats, whose presidential candidates in 1968 and 1972 had been badly outspent by Nixon. Now the shoe is on the other party’s (club) foot.

Discussions - 4 Comments

"handcuff herself"

Another heh

Don't forget the biggest conservative victory of all:

As the media was falling all over itself to bring us the startling news that America was not in fact a racist country, I imagined conservatives' reaction as, "Yeah, we know. We have known. For a while now."

no Republican is going to handcuff herself the way McCain did.

"herself"??

Is No Left Turns pushing a politicaly correct, "Androgynous pronoun" or is this a mistake?

No, I'm not pushing the androgynous pronoun nonsense. Ed J above caught the spirit of the thing.

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