America will Realign Towards the Tea Party in 2012; Write it Down in Stone

In my post NYT's Douthat is Wrong: Realigning Elections Exist and One is Coming I countered an argument that was advanced by the New York Times Ross Douthat where he claimed that Harvard Professor V.O. Key's theory on realigning elections was wrong. Douthat thought that 2008 was supposed to the be realigning election, and now that we can all see that it was not, he has become disillusioned with the theory that Key advanced in his iconic essay “A Theory of Critical Elections” and now thinks that elections that change America's direction are no longer possible. But he is wrong.

In my post Why 2008 Was Not a Historic or Realigning Election (written in 2009) I addressed Key's theory of realigning elections and looked back on the election of 2008 and looked forward to 2012. Here is some of what I wrote:

The theory of realigning elections (sometimes called key elections, critical elections, or historic elections)is that sometimes there is a dramatic change in the political system that you can observe in one election or a couple elections in a row. Usually it coincides with the coming to power of a new coalition of voters or the movement of a large or important bloc of voters to a new coalition, these realigning elections occur when voters decidedly break in a new direction on a particularly important issues, when a new party leader emerges who takes the party in a new direction, when the regional and demographic bases of power of the two parties switches, or when there is a new rules of the political system (ie, expansion of suffrage). Because political parties in America tend to be rather stable coalitions, a sudden realignment by a voting group tends to have a longer-lasting and dramatic effect. These realigning elections seem to occur once a generation (every 30-40 years). V. O. Key, Jr. is the professor who pioneered the study of these elections....

...Based on the 30-40 years estimate, the next 'realigning election' is due 2012-2020. Many though, because Barack Obama is black, want to say to say that the 2008 election (Democrat Barack Obama beats Republican John McCain) was a historic election, an unprecedented election, or a realigning election. Does it fit the model though?...

...If Obama had run as a liberal- running on a liberal platform and advocating liberal issues and highlighting his sharp policy differences from the past- then 2008 would have been a realigning election.

But let's go back to (2008). Watch the campaign commercials that Obama ran. Obama did not run as a liberal. He did not run on a platform that advocated stimulus packages, massive spending, large amounts of debt, pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan, nationalized healthcare, raising taxes, cap-and-tax, or government-take-overs of companies. Obama ran as a moderate. He ran as a new and different candidate, one who would not be liberal or conservative, but would reach across the aisle and be a post-partisan President. He talked about tax cuts and strong defense and ending corruption.

Obama ran as a moderate- on a moderate platform- and McCain was a moderate, and the gains in Congress for Democrats were mostly from moderate Blue Dogs, and the polls show the election map as being essentially the same as 1996-2004, so 2008 was not a historic, realigning, critical, key, or unprecedented election...

...2012 will probably be the historic election that we are all looking for. Obama will be running as a liberal and will be seeking a mandate and approval for his policies- which this time around will be clearly liberal and far left. Voting blocs will have to move to vote for him, the map will have to change, and our nation will indeed embrace change with an Obama victory in 2012, setting the stage for likely Democrat control of government for 30-40 years and a shift in our nation farther to the left. If Obama loses, he will lose to a conservative candidate (the GOP is not going with another moderate- Romney, Pawleny, Palin, Huckabee, etc are all conservatives) running on a conservative platform, and it will mark a return to power for conservative Republicans and a move back to the right for our nation.

My theory that 2012 will be a real realigning election continues to receive support. Forbes Ralph Benko wrote an article last week called The Constitutional Populist Realignment Of 2012 that speaks to my theory:

...There are two theories. Progressives believe that the answer lies in government job creation (stimulus, bailouts, “shovel-ready” public works). Supply-siders believe that the answer lies exclusively in human action, entrepreneurs and businesspeople, and that the government needs to get its boot off our necks...

...Constitutional populists, like the Tea Party Patriots, demand a return to free market principles to create jobs. Top notch populists such as Victor Davis Hanson, writing in National Review, anticipate bidding an unsentimental farewell to “A Tottering Technocracy.”...

...Being a republic(an) isn’t for the fainthearted. The sainted Jefferson once wrote “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” One can imagine the outrage which this violation of Civility by Jefferson would have provoked at the Huffington Post (if they deemed him conservative). Compared to Jefferson or Paine Rick Perry thus far has proved himself to be a model of rhetorical restraint.

Will 2012 go down as the year of Constitutional Populist Realignment in which the American political rank and file decisively reins in the elites? A populist realignment, sweeping both the White House and the Senate into conservative populist hands would be epochal and is by no means out of the question.

The populists’ paladin should expect ridicule at the hands of the smug, failed, modern day royalists. The prize is big and the scorn worth bearing. That’s the way to the White House: jobs through free markets. As our Founders knew, as we now rediscover, as Perry, Bachmann, and Paul, among others are agitating for: jobs need real, rather than funny, money. Onward to gold.

The prize is big indeed and the scorn is worth bearing, but the way there is clear- in the primary you must be active in both the Republican and Democratic parties in advancing solid conservative constitutional libertarians who believe in our Founding Principles, and in the general election you must vote for whomever of whatever party better fits that label better and get your friends and family and coworkers to do the same. Let's dream big, my friends, and dream about taking back our nation, one election at a time, over a generation or two, and then perhaps America will once again be the great nation of freedom and liberty and prosperity that it once was.

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