The New Nation - Internet Edition

Nov. 4, 2008, was the day when American politics shifted on its axis.

The ascent of an African-American to the presidency - a victory by a 47-year-old man who was born when segregation was still the law of the land across much of the American nation - is a moment so powerful and so obvious that its symbolism needs no commentary.

But it was the reality of power, not the symbolism, that changed Tuesday night in ways more profound than meet the eye.

The rout of the Republican Party, and the accompanying gains by Democrats in Congress, mean that Barack Obama will assume office with vastly more influence in the nation's capital than most of his recent predecessors have wielded.

The only exceptions suggest the magnitude of the moment. Power flowed in unprecedented ways to George W. Bush in the year after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It flowed likewise to Lyndon B. Johnson after his landslide in 1964.

Beyond those fleeting moments, every president for more than two generations has confronted divided government or hobbling internal divisions within his own party.

The Democrats' moment with Obama, as a brilliant campaigner confronts the challenges of governance, could also prove fleeting. For now, the results - in their breadth across a continent - suggest seismic change that goes far beyond Obama's 4 percent margin in the popular vote.

The evening recalled what activist Eldridge Cleaver observed of the instant when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus and a movement followed: "Somewhere in the universe a gear in the machinery shifted."

Here are five big things about the machinery of national politics and Washington that will be different once Obama takes office on Jan. 20, 2009:

The crash of the conservative wave

For most of the past 30 years, since the dawn of the Reagan Era, conservatives have held the momentum in American politics. Even the Clinton years were shaped - and constrained - by conservative ideas (work requirements for welfare, the Defense of Marriage Act) and conservative rhetoric ("the era of Big Government is over"). Republicans rode this wave to win the presidency five of seven times since 1980, and to dominate Congress for a dozen years after 1994.

Now the wave has crashed, breaking the back of the modern Republican Party in the process.

Obama's victory and the second straight election to award big gains to congressional Democrats showed that the 2006 election was not, as Karl Rove and others argued at the time, a flukish result that reflected isolated scandals in the headlines at the time.

Republicans lost their reform mantle. Voters who wanted change voted for Obama 89 percent to 9 percent. They lost their decisive edge on national security. They even lost the battle over taxes. Republicans lost support in every area of the country. Virginia went Democratic, and North Carolina at midnight hung in the balance. Republicans still hold a significant, if smaller, chunk of the South and a smattering of western states. The cities were lost long ago. The suburbs fell last night - and even the exurbs are shaky.

Republicans lost one of their most effective political tactics. Portraying Al Gore or John F. Kerry as exotic and untrustworthy characters with culturally elitist values proved brutally effective for the GOP in 2000 and 2004, as it had in numerous other races for years. In 2008, such tactics barely dented Obama - who because of his race and background looked at first like a more vulnerable target - and they backfired against such candidates as Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, who was routed badly after trying to paint Democrat Kay Hagan as an atheist.

The movement that brought so many conservatives to great power over the past 20 years - Gingrich, DeLay, Bush, Cheney and Rove - is left without a clear leader, without a clear agenda and without a clear route back.

The crash of the conservative wave does not necessarily mean the rise of a liberal one. By stressing middle-class tax cuts and the rights of gun owners Obama showed he is sensitive to hot buttons. But he will take power with the opposition party diminished, demoralized and divided by a draining internal argument about the future.

A Democratic headlock

Many people find Obama's post-partisan rhetoric soothing. But it's doubtful that these sentiments, even if sincere, reflect the reality of the new Washington.

This is a city that defines itself by partisanship. Politicians and the operatives they support play for the shirts or the skins and believe that one side's gain is the other's loss.

In this environment, Democrats have the capital in a headlock, holding more power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue than they have had for at least 32 years (Jimmy Carter) and, more realistically, 44 years (Johnson). Obama seems ready to press this advantage. The best early clue of his ambitions: He wants sharp-elbowed Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) to run his White House.

Democrats are positioned to do more than move legislation. They will flush Republicans out of key positions in the federal government and lobbying firms. They will install their people in the federal courts. They will be positioned to raise money for those who usually give to Republicans and easily recruit the most desirable candidates in 2010, as other Democrats look to join what looks like a winning team.

Rainbow rules

While Obama's race hovered over this campaign, what was most striking was that it was not the all-consuming subject that it would have been in the past. Exit polls showed Obama pulling support from 43 percent of white voters, 2 percentage point higher than Kerry. And look around elsewhere in American politics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's gender was a novelty when she first took the gavel but now draws little notice. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) is a top member of the House Democratic leadership.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party's inability to offer more diversity in its top ranks - Sarah Palin notwithstanding - threatens to become a crippling liability. Hispanics broke for Obama 67 percent to 31 percent.

The party inexplicably failed to field a single minority candidate with a plausible chance to win a House or Senate seat or a governorship. It will enter the next Congress just as it did the past two: without a single black member. A party dominated by white males is poorly positioned to prosper among an increasingly diverse electorate. Somehow, the GOP needs to find new ways to appeal to minorities - or risk a long life in the wilderness as a percentage of the overall population continues to shrink.

Geek power

For a couple of generations, conservatives had the more effective political infrastructure. They used direct mail and talk radio to run circles around liberals in raising money and communicating their message around the filter of the establishment media. Some of that money flowed into think tanks that helped nurture ideas and operatives.

This year was striking because the technology/communications advantage was decisively with the Democrats. Obama and other Democrats used this to raise vastly more money than McCain and to mobilize legions of people who had not previously been engaged with politics. Liberal think tanks such as the Center for American Progress have served as a Democratic government in waiting.

Important to remember: This Democratic infrastructure advantage is not disappearing. Obama, regarded as a heroic figure among party activists, can use it to help raise even more money, and to mobilize support for his agenda. This is a potent force that will inspire fear, and give him clout, over legislators of both parties.

Obama is the Google of politics: He has technological expertise and an audience his political competitors simply cannot match. Looking ahead to 2010, House and Senate Democrats will be jealously eyeing Obama's e-mail lists and technology secrets - giving him even greater leverage over them. Republicans will be forced to invest serious money and time to narrow the technology gap.

The 1960s are over - finally

For two generations, American politics has been dominated by issues and personalities that were shaped by the ideological and cultural conflicts of the Vietnam era.

The rest of the population may have been bored stiff, but the baby boomers continued their remorseless argument, as evidenced by Bush and Kerry partisans quarreling over Swift Boats and National Guard service in 2004.

Obama had not yet reached adolescence in the 1960s. He seems little interested in the cultural conflicts that preoccupy baby boomers. The fact that he admitted to using cocaine was hardly a factor in this election.

And this young president-elect exerted powerful appeal over even younger voters. They favored Obama by 34 percentage points, 66 percent to 32 percent - a trend with huge potential to echo for years to come.

Guns, God and gays will not disappear from our politics. But they are diminished as electoral weapons as the country confronts a new generation of disputes: global warming, mortgage meltdowns and the detention of terrorism suspects, to name a few.

(Source: Agencies)

Shekhar Mehra

Recently the rich nations pledged to reduce 50 per cent carbon emissions by 2050! Are the world leaders unaware or are they plainly insensitive to the plight of the poor who have had no part in global warming?

Today the spectre of unstable oil prices, food insecurity, global warming, nuclear weapons proliferation and terrorism looms large over the world - and each major concern is, in one way or another, interlinked. To tackle these threats a collective will is needed, particularly on the part of the developed nations. These nations need to pool in their resources and put up a joint front in confronting these challenges that the world faces.

And so when leaders of the eight richest and industrially advanced nations converge at a spot to put their heads together, the rest of the world waits in anticipation of some pronouncements to ease its fears. But no such assurances were seen forthcoming from the Group of Eight (G-8) summit held in the Japanese town of Toyako in July. The rich man's club once again emerged as a house divided with members being too preoccupied with their own problems and interests rather than the larger global picture.

For example, the G-8 leaders agreed on imposing tough measures against the government of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, held widely responsible for violence during the last presidential election. Even Russia joined in the call for sanctions. But two days after the summit, Russia and China vetoed a West-backed draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would have imposed arms embargo against Zimbabwe and travel ban on Mugabe and his top officials.

The United States President George Bush, attending his last G-8 meet, also made no headway in ironing out differences with Russia over U.S. plans to place missile defence system in eastern Europe. The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the American defence system 'deeply distresses' Moscow.

The G-8 leaders pledged a new resolve to hike annual aid to Africa by $25 billion, and to spend $60 billion for combating infectious diseases. At the 2005 G-8 meet it was decided to provide $50 billion annually by 2010 for Africa development and for fight against malaria, AIDS and other infectious diseases. Statistics, however, show that the grouping has so far given out only $3 billion of the overall aid promised.

On the issue of speculative funds, which is a major factor in the steep rise of fuel and food prices that have endangered the lives of billions of poor people, the G-8 and emerging economies found themselves at odds with each other. The G-8 statement on global economy had no mention of steps to monitor speculative funds, mainly on account of objections raised by the U.S. The emerging economies strongly urged the rich countries to restrict the flow of such funds but to no avail.

It was global warming, however, that emerged as the most contentious issue at the G-8 meeting. The leaders did hold out the assurance that the developed world would cut down on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. This was indeed a step forward considering that Bush has all along refused to set any limits on carbon emissions. In his first term the president had unequivocally disputed scientists' concerns over global warming. His welcome turnaround, however, amounts to too little, too late as he is on his way out and it will be left for his successor to take on from here.

Besides, the G-8 statement failed to mention any baseline year from where the reduction in emissions would be measured. This is a major flaw as it would be open to G-8 interpretation to measure it either from the 1990 level (as specified in the Kyoto Protocol) or from 2000 or even from the time when Toyako summit ended. While European leaders say they would like to bring emissions down to 50 per cent from 1990 levels, Japan would prefer the current level.

Therefore, even as Bush hailed their step as 'significant progress' made, Yvo de Boer, head of the UN-led negotiations to bring about a global climate change accord, was not so optimistic. 'I don't find the outcome very significant,' he said. The summit's 'vague' pledge to work towards slashing GHG emissions mentions no baseline, does not appear to be legally binding and is open to vastly different interpretations, De Boer said. Other critics too say that cutting down emissions by 50 per cent is no big deal and amounts to 'window dressing'.

The G-8 consists of world's major industrial democracies and includes the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia. President Bush's main demand in reaching a climate change accord was that the eight developing but 'energy guzzling' countries - China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa plus Australia, South Korea and Indonesia - be included in the deliberations and made to pool in efforts alongside the G-8.

That's what happened for the first time in Toyako where the 16 met in what was termed as an 'outreach session'. But in the end the battle lines between the developed and developing countries only drew sharper. The developing countries insisted that the developed ones, who are most to be blamed for global warming, should commit themselves to bigger and quicker emission cuts. The U.S., along with Canada, would have none of it. Hence, the developing countries did not agree to the G-8's target of 2050. The G-8, along with the other eight countries, is responsible for emitting 80 per cent of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

There is no denying the fact that China and India are big time polluters. In fact, last year China overtook the U.S. in becoming the world's largest carbon dioxide emitter. But the primary responsibility for GHG emissions that are already in the atmosphere and warming the earth lies with the rich polluters.

It seems the G-8 countries do not fully understand the urgency of limiting emissions. Limiting emissions will not be possible unless clear targets are set by G-8 for the year 2020, as the developing countries are clamouring for. According to R.K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace, 'Not taking early action in reducing GHG emissions would lead to severe impacts of climate change… Unfortunately, the worst consequences of these impacts will be felt by some of the poorest communities and countries who have had hardly any role in contributing to the evolution of this problem…To this extent at least the G-8 leaders have either proved unaware or insensitive to the vulnerability of the worst affected societies.'

All these discussions on global warming are in the run-up to reach a new climate change accord in Copenhagen in December 2009, which is to succeed the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. It is imperative all G-8 members realise that the time for righteous statements is over and show more commitment and leadership in reaching a new accord.

Apart from climate change another issue on which G-8 was found to be tentative is that of expanding the rich man's club. Early July the French President Nicolas Sarkozy had proposed that G-8 should add five developing countries - China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa - to turn the grouping into G-13 instead. 'G-8 needs to adapt to the 21st century,' he said.

Sarkozy's rationale is that these emerging economies must be entrusted with more responsibility in managing global affairs. Also, on one hand, there's a slowdown in the U.S. economy because of the turmoil in housing market and credit crunch and this slowdown is adversely affecting the European economies. On the other hand, Asian economies like China and India are growing at a faster pace. This transformation wherein China and India are contributing to global economy in a big way has to be taken note of and suitably accommodated. By denying them a seat at the high table, the G-8 could well be risking splitting the global economy into rival camps.

But some G-8 leaders have objected to Sarkozy's idea. One said it was important to have meetings among countries that share the same values of freedom and democracy, while another said it will be difficult to have in-depth discussions with too many participants. While there's some distant logic in these arguments, it's no denying that G-8 reflects the realities of an outdated international order.

(Source: Asian Affairs. Shekhar Mehra is New Delhi-based freelance journalist)