The Postwar Election

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: December 11, 2007

==The 2008 presidential election has fundamentally shifted, but it hasn’t been because of events in Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s because of events everywhere else. In Washington, the National Intelligence Estimate was released, suggesting the next president will not face an imminent nuclear showdown with Iran. In Iraq, the surge and tribal revolts produce increasing stability. In Pakistan, the streets have not exploded. In the Middle East, the Arabs and Palestinians stumble toward some sort of peace process. In Venezuela, a referendum set President Hugo Chávez back on his heels.

The world still has its problems, but it no longer seems to be building toward some larger crisis. The atmosphere of fear and conflict has at least temporarily abated. With the change in conditions, the election of 2008 is beginning to feel like a postwar election. American voters are coming out of the shells constructed after Sept. 11th and are looking for a new normalcy. They’re looking for something entirely different.

...All that you’ve been reading about the race over the past year is trivial compared to this question: Which candidacy best matches the zeitgeist of the closing days? The first obvious feature of a postwar election is that domestic issues matter more. The two candidates who have been surging, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee, have almost no foreign policy experience between them.

But the more comprehensive difference between a wartime election and a postwar election is that there is a shift in values. In wartime, leadership traits like courage, steadfastness and ruthlessness are prized. Voters are willing to vote for candidates they distrust so long as they seem tough and effective (Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani).

In a postwar election things are different. When Wall Street Journal/NBC pollsters asked voters what qualities they were looking for in the next leader, their top three choices were: the ability to work well with leaders of other countries; having strong moral and family values; bringing unity to the country. Those are cooperative qualities, not combative ones. They require good listening skills, openness and the ability to compromise.

...The main point is this: money and organization matter less right now than getting in tune with the zeitgeist shift. In 1945, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had formidable advantages over Clement Attlee. But when a public turns from a war mentality to a peace mentality, it turns with a vengeance —even though in this case no armistice has been declared.==

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/opinion/11brooks.html?hp

Yeah, it's Brooks, but 9/11 was over six years ago, Iraq is nearing the end game phase and Iran has nothing. He's onto something here.

Everything's going great now! No need to take it out on the Republican party in '08! Meanwhile, over 70% of Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction, and the world and the economy are more unstable than ever. Trying to use Obama and Huckabee as examples of "morning again" in America is stupid--Obama HAS foreign policy experience (he IS on the committee, after all, and has Z-Big in his corner). Fuck-a-bee is only a symptom of the GOP disease--they don't have anybody who appeals to a majority of GOPers, so a man who in any other year would not be considered serious Presidential material charms his way into the top tier via the fundies. Brooks is trying to spin a positive out of a very dark picture for Republicans.

is terminally underestimated on foreign policy.

However, candidates who were planning on swaggering their way to victory in 2008 based on perceived toughness could very well be fighting the last war.