I think that among all the outcry on this "historic" election (and I accept that in some aspects it was indeed historic) we tend to forget that in terms of electoral politics, it was just a textbook one. If anything, I am reminded of Tony Blair's victory over John Major in the UK in 1997. Obama's victory follows the basic rules of elections in a majority voting system:

• Elections are won in the center. Voters in the center can hurt you twice, once by not voting for you, and once by voting for the other guy. Voters on the wings can only hurt you once, by staying at home.
• United parties win elections. The candidate of an united party can afford to position himself towards the center and design his campaign to appeal to independent and undecided voters, without losing too many of his own following.
• Divided parties lose elections. Most people don't vote for divided parties, and the candidate of a divided party has to worry as much about keeping his own base together as about winning new voters. As a veteran, McCain should have known that you can't win if you have to fight both the battle in front of you and the one behind you.

Obama swept to victory because he managed to unity his party behind him despite the rather bitter primaries. He could afford to design his rhetoric (which at times was as brilliant as it was vague) to appeal to independent voters. If anything, he could be confident that Liberals were not going to desert to Nader this time. McCain lost because the McCain-Palin ticket symbolized the divisions of the Republican Party rather than healing them. What's the point of keeping George W. out of the picture --- even to the point of asking him to vote early, so he didn't appear on television on election day --- if you put a female equivalent on the ticket in the person of Sarah Palin?

I think the worst Republicans can do now is listen to the outcry from the Republican so-called "base" of extreme-right so-called "social conservatives" and "neo conservatives". And yes, despite the attempts of these people to style themselves as "the real Americans" -- which should be a serious warning flag in itself -- this is an extremist right-wing club, with a lot of ideology and very little reason. I grant that these people are vocal, committed and high motivated, which makes them effective campaigners. But they are also a minority within their own party, as the Republican primaries demonstrated, and they are out of touch with mainstream America. Worse, the sheer irrationality and acerbity of their attitude puts any candidate who wants their backing in an extremely awkward position. If the GOP allows itself to be dragged further to the right, it will face a dozen years in the political wilderness.

The best the GOP could do now is to lie low for a while. It needs to define a new set of policies for the problems of the 21st century, while respecting the conservative traditions. The pedigree of conservative politics, including names such as Edmund Burke, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, is very impressive. There are plenty of concepts and notions in there that allow the GOP to adhere to traditions while it aims to define the future of America. But at the same time the GOP should be willing to show the door to those who don't belong in the party.

I'm convinced the Republican party is on the road to committing suicide. They're almost extinct in the NE. You wisely suggest they lay low, but if the howls of rage in Moneybox, BotF and elsewhere are any indication they think the solution to their troubles is to double down on their so-called conservatism, which smacks more of obscurantism and the occult (free-market fundamentalism). They have become the party of Dixie and like the Democrats who were that party from 1860 to 1932, they will likely experience long periods wandering in the wilderness. Emblamatic of their difficulties was the race in MD's 1st district, where the incumbent Republican, Wayne Gilchrist, was ousted in a primary for insufficient frothing. He turned around and hosted gatherings for the Dem candidate, who seems to have eked out the win and a heavily Republican district. Said Gilchrist, "It was my vote or my eternal soul."

Frankly, as a Democrat, if they want to run off a cliff, I'm not going to get in their way.

Thanks for your excellent post.

I think there might be something to the "Big Sort" theory (as discussed in a current Slate guest blog), that as people are are choosing to live in more politically homogeneous districts, politics in these districts are getting further away from the center. I think this last election emphasized recent Republican successes were more dependent on this geographical polarization than on broader appeal Reagan was able to muster accross the country.

The effects of the sorting (if they are indeed due to geographic sorting) seems more obvious on the right, because the left has been playing it safer, trying to take back the center for the better part of 16 years from the Gingrich congress and the the Bush / DeLay machine.If you're whole world is Sugarland Texas and the Jack Abramoff / the Republican majority on Capital Hill, pretty soon you start thinking like Tom DeLay and become a little politically tone-deaf. I wonder if Rove, with his much less parlochial view as national vote counter for the party, foresaw that his own strategy of squeaking out electoral college victories based on more homogenous Republican strongholds was about to run out of gas...once the breeze starts blowing even gently against you in Ohio and Florida, your goose is cooked with the Rove strategy, it seems.

I think what this dialogue has sort of left mostly unmentioned is the divide between how Republicans will campaign in 2010 and beyond, and how they will govern should they find themselves back in power.

As I wrote in an earlier Fray post, I think a lot of the old campaign tactics will resurface because, in certain areas, they just work. When you have pissed off lower class whites in hard-hit rural economies, you have to rechannel the natural economic class tensions into something that works for you as a rich, connected fat-cat politician, and that something is usually race or cultural "otherness".

What I think won't be tolerated as much by Republicans of their next president, once they get him or her elected, is 1.) cowboy diplomacy (they'll still be quicker to use military force than liberals, but they probably will be less likely to start wars that have no exit strategy and unleash ethnic hostilities that have been long suppressed) 2.) the vastly expanded powers of the executive and disregard for the rule of law we've seen under Bush 3.) tolerance of "loyalty machines" that continue to spin out of control long after its obvious that cabinet secretaries or others need to be replaced (Rumsfeld, Brownie, etc.). I think they'll raise more hell, put more pressure on the White House to pink slip people who are failing big time or made huge decisions that backfired.

The rhetorhical direction being debated in the Slate dialog is important, but there won't be any one ideological master plan that will result in the banishment of social conservatives or the libertarian wing or anything. I think, after spending most of my life under Republicans and centrist democrats who are consistently outmaneuvered by Republicans, that rumors of the death of Gingrich conservatism, Reagan conservatism, etc. are greatly exaggerated.

Like many people have said, 52% is no landslide. There are still a LOT of voters who will more or less respond to the same brand of conservative we know as long as the officeholders show more competence (which in Bush's case would have meant quietly abandoning things like free market fundamentalism and reigning in Wall Street before it was too late). In the end, Bush did abandon lots of conservatives principles, but had things turned out better, none of his anti-conservative moves would have cost the party much (I'm thinking of the bailouts, pre-emptive war, the medicare drug benefit, and Homeland Security which, while effective in keeping us safe, has been a classic example of big government and pork-barrell politics). The swing voters really don't care about the ideological heresies. They just react to the bad news or the lack of it. (Except in 2004...what the hell happened there?)

Interesting post. I agree with you to some degree - the election was uncomfortably close, considering Sarah Palin was on the ticket. But it really won't get any better until the US develops a multi-party system.

One thing though, you say that "If anything, I am reminded of Tony Blair's victory over John Major in the UK in 1997. ". It has to be pointed out that 11 years later, Labour is still in power, and the changes in the UK have been very tangible.