A Transformative Election Without A Transformative Candidate

I caught the debates tonight. Both candidates acquitted themselves well, but in the current political context this is greatly to the advantage of Bush.

Political scientist Walter Dean Burnham famously argued that American democracy features pivotal and transformative elections, (which Burnham called "critical elections") during which the parties realign, new political collations form, and one party begins to dominate. These elections occur roughly every 36 years; examples are the elections of 1824, 1860, 1896, 1932, and 1968. The last major transformative election of this sort-- i.e., one that produced a major realignment-- occurred in 1968, as the New Deal coalition began dissolved and the South moved from the Democratic to the Republican parties. The 1980 and 1994 elections confirmed and solidified this change. Thirty-six years from 1968 is 2004. Thus, the time is ripe for another transformative election, one in which, one might think, the Democrats would form a new winning coalition.

The problem is that the current Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, does not appear to be a transformative candidate. He does not offer a message of transformation. Rather, he offers a message of greater competence and better judgment in prosecuting the war on terror. 2004 will not be a transformative election unless the people of the United States see a clear choice between the status quo and a new approach, and believe that by choosing one candidate they are making a decisive change in the direction of the country. Although it is certainly possible that Kerry might produce such a change, there are few signs of this in his campaign or in the way he delivers his message. This is probably his greatest weakness as a candidate. He is offering competence and judgment when he should be offering a decisively different vision for leadership. He should be campaigning for a decisive rejection of the politics of the past and offer a bold vision for the future. This, so far, he has failed to do.

There are two possible explanations of the current situation. One is that the country is indeed ripe for a transformative election, but it will not occur until 2008, when, tried of eight years of incompetence and kleptocracy by George W. Bush, the people of the United States will decisively reject his policies. The other, and far more troubling possibility from my perspective, is that 2004 is indeed a transformative election, but the transformative candidate is George W. Bush, who is ushering in a long-term Republican majority.

If the second scenario holds, the best analogy would be to the 1896 election, in which the Republicans forged a new winning coalition that replaced the configuration that emerged directly after the Civil War. The Republicans dominated the Presidency from 1860 to 1896, and they dominated the Presidency from 1896 to 1932, but the Republican Party had changed greatly in the interim.

I hope that the second scenario does not come to pass. If it does, I fear greatly for the future of my country, for the new Republican party that Bush appears to symbolize is a toxic combination of plutocracy, intolerance, and foreign misadventure.