Election Eve: Overview of the 2008 Presidential Election

Moderator: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. Today we have with us Allan Lichtman who is Professor and Chair of the Department of History at American University. He will give you an overview of the 2008 election and its importance.

Dr. Lichtman: Thank you very much. Let me say at the outset, I speak only for Allan Lichtman, nobody else, certainly not the United States government or anyone official. These views are my own.

I will give some very brief opening remarks and then I’ll take any and all questions about any aspect of American politics ant the current election.

Let me begin by saying this is one of the most important elections in the history of the country, and indeed in the history of the world since what happens in America these days affects every country around the globe.

Now there are some obvious reasons why this is an important election. Quite obvious is the fact that we are going through a financial crisis in the United States and the world is going through a financial crisis, perhaps the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression afflicted the entire world in the 1930s. Obviously the next President is going to be called upon to develop two kinds of economic policies: one, for the immediate relief of the current economic problem; but two, even more importantly, to set the long term direction of the relationship between the American government and the American economy; the American government and governments worldwide; and the American economy and economies worldwide. This is obvious.

The election is also important, obviously, because two wars are raging. The United States has now been in Iraq and in Afghanistan longer than it has fought World War II. In Afghanistan, 50 percent longer and more than it fought in World War II, and at this point neither war has come to a conclusion. Obviously the next President is going to have to make some very hard decisions about what to do about both of these wars and both John McCain and Barack Obama have some very different approaches, particularly to the war in Iraq.

This election is very important because we may see a sea change in America’s relationship to the world. During the past eight years America has taken a primarily unilateral approach to the world, an approach which says America is first and foremost going to protect what it perceives to be its own national interests and not necessarily focus on multilateral relationships or approval of other nations with respect to American policy. And of course we’ve seen that America’s standing in the world is at a relatively low point historically.

This election is of great importance because the entire world faces one of the gravest challenges in the history of mankind on this earth, and I am talking of course about the real possibility, according to the world’s leading scientists, that if we don’t do something immediate and drastic about our dependence upon fossil fuels and carbon emissions, we could be facing catastrophic, and I say catastrophic climate change all around the world which will change the face of the globe and which of course will hit the poorest nations by far the hardest. This has not been discussed much unfortunately in the presidential campaign. But global climate change and the United States and the world’s dependence upon the fossil fuel economy might well be the greatest long term challenge facing the next President and policymakers worldwide, and it’s going to call for some very drastic changes in international cooperation and some very drastic changes in how the world derives and uses its energy.

Those are the obvious, on the surface reasons why this election is one of the most important in the history of the United States and the history of the world.

There is a deeper reason, though, why this is such an historic election.

The United States for almost 30 years has been living in a conservative political era. American politics is very cyclical. Once every generation or two we change the nature of our politics. An entire political era shifts. That means shifts in the balance of party power, shifts in how people vote, and shifts in our most fundamental and most important policies.

The United States entered the current conservative era with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. That was one of the most important historical turning point elections in American history, and I believe 2008 will mark the end of that conservative political era and the beginning of a new political era in the United States. Every era comes to an end and the conservative era is coming to an end in 2008. It will surely come to an end if as expected, and I’ll talk about that a little more in a moment, Barack Obama wins the election tomorrow. He will bring with him a strong Democratic Congress. Both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate will be strongly Democratic. And he will have a chance to put his stamp on national policy and national life, just as Ronald Reagan did when he came in in 1980 and began the conservative era; and just as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in 1932 when he ended the conservative era of the 1920s and began the new liberal Democratic era of the 1930s and 1940s.

Even if there should be an upset and John McCain wins, it will not mark the continuation of the conservative era. John McCain will also have a strongly Democratic House and a strongly Democratic Senate. He will not be able to turn back the clock to the policies of George W. Bush. Indeed, he has pledged to be fundamentally different than George W. Bush. In fact to listen to the McCain campaign and the Republican campaign, you would think George W. Bush is dead and Ronald Reagan is still President of the United States.

So even if McCain wins, we’re not going back to where we were. McCain will have to move to the left. It won’t be as decisive a break and as decisive a beginning of a new political era, but nonetheless, a new political era no matter what happens tomorrow will ensue in 2008.

This has been perhaps the longest and most expensive presidential campaign in the history of the United States, and indeed in the history of the world. This campaign has been going on a remarkably long time, two years. Sometimes I think it’s been going on for my entire lifetime and I’m not that young. [Laughter]. And we’re going to be winding up spending perhaps, overall on all the campaigns, as much as $5 billion in this campaign.

Obviously there are some remarkable features of the campaign. The fact that for the first time in American history an African-American, Barack Obama, has been nominated by a major party is a great watershed in American history. It’s not something that anyone would have expected five, ten or fifteen years ago; and Barack Obama was unknown ten years ago. He really has been known to the American people only since he made that extraordinary speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. He’s only really been known for four years, and yet he is the most significant breakthrough candidate in all of American history. All of our candidates have been white males as nominated by major parties. And perhaps what’s surprised me most about the Obama campaign is his extraordinary ability to raise money. He will have raised before this campaign is over perhaps $750 million, approaching a billion dollar fundraising. That is just amazing for someone who has been on the political scene for such a brief period of time. He out-raised the Clinton fundraising machine in the primaries; and of course he has totally out-raised the Republican fundraising machine. John McCain is relying on public financing; Barack Obama is raising hundreds of millions of dollars; and that gives the Democrats up and down the ticket a very big advantage in this campaign. So the amount of money, the amount of time, a breakthrough African-American nominee. Barack Obama’s ability to raise money have been extraordinary features of this campaign.

We also have on the Republican side only the second woman ever nominated for vice President by a major party. No woman has ever been nominated for President, and only one previous woman, a Democrat, Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984, has ever been nominated for the Vice Presidency.

So no matter what happens, whether Obama wins or McCain wins, we are going to have something new in the White House. If Obama wins, I believe it is possible that he could do for race in America what John F. Kennedy did for religion in America.

In 1960 John F. Kennedy was only the second Catholic to run for President on a major party ticket. The previous Catholic was Al Smith, the Governor of New York, who ran on the Democratic ticket in 1928, and was badly beaten.

When John Kennedy ran in 1960 he faced enormous anti-Catholic opposition and a very strong anti-Catholic vote. John Kennedy only won a third, only a third of the White Protestant vote when he ran in 1960. He won 85 percent of the White Catholic vote -- a 50 point gap. Enormous. It’s hard to believe today that anti-Catholicism was such a strong factor in American politics just 48 years ago, but it was.

Once John F. Kennedy became President, though, it no longer became a factor because Kennedy governed as the President of all Americans, proving that a Catholic would not be a Catholic President, but a true American President. Ever since then the issue of Catholicism has been non-existent when other Catholics like John Kerry have run for President of the United States.

If Obama wins and Obama governs as the President of all Americans, as I am confident he will, he can do for the issue of race the same kind of transformation that John F. Kennedy achieved for the issue of Catholicism in 1960.

I believe in fact that for a very long time this has been a very predictable election. I believe that 99 percent of the coverage of this election has been off-focus because the pundits, the pollsters, and the media don’t understand how elections really work.

I tried to outline in my book, The Keys to the White House, how in fact elections really work in America. According to the pollsters, the pundits, the media handlers, and everyone else, elections turn on campaigns. They’re like horse races, with candidates scooting ahead and falling behind, depending upon the day to day events of the campaign.

In my view, elections are entirely different. Elections are essentially votes up or down on how well the party holding the White House has governed the country. In other words, it’s governing, not campaigning, that counts. It’s substance, not froth that counts in presidential elections. And for a very long time it was obvious to me that given the problems that George W. Bush and his administration has had governing the country in the second term that the winds of political change were blowing through America and that this was going to be a big change election with a change in the party holding the White House and a change in our political system.

In February of 2006, nearly three years before the election, I published an article in Foresight Magazine, the international journal of applied forecasting, saying that based upon the keys which measure how well the party holding the White House has governed the country, there is going to be a change in the party controlling the White House. This was long before, long before we even knew who the nominees were, much less what the course of the campaign was going to be. Even in early 2006 I could foresee that the economy would not hold up for another four years; that there were grave foreign policy troubles in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere; that the Republicans would lose the mid-term elections of 2006; and that George Bush would have a very difficult time in his second term imposing his agenda.

By the way, The Keys to the White House have successfully predicted the popular vote outcome of every election since 1984. That’s six elections in a row. I predicted three Republican winners and three Democratic winners from 1984 to 2004, so this is a totally non-partisan prediction. That’s about as non-partisan as you can get.

So I believe that the dye was cast in this election a long time ago, and that if you looked at the fundamentals of this election and didn’t look at the day-to-day ups and downs of the campaign, it was quite obvious where the people were going to be going on November 4, 2008.

So my advice to understanding American presidential elections is that it’s governing, not campaigning that counts, and keep your eye on the big picture. It’s the big picture events of governing. Foreign policy successes and failures; the long term economy; the short term economy; policy change, mid-term congressional elections. These are the driving forces behind American presidential elections, and I believe tomorrow we are going to see the results of those driving forces with real historical change in the United States.

Thank you for listening, and I’m happy to take any and all questions.

Question: I am Nikolai Zimin, with Itogi Russia.

Sir, you clearly stated two points. One is that in any case we should expect changes in American foreign policy towards the world.

Dr. Lichtman: Correct.

Question: In another one, you expect Barack Obama will be the winner tomorrow.

Dr. Lichtman: Correct.

Question: So I would like to hear from you your expectation, what might be foreign policy changes in Barack Obama’s administration, especially towards Europe and Russia? Thank you.

Dr. Lichtman: Let me say, I don’t speak for Barack Obama, and you never know based on a campaign exactly how a President is going to conduct foreign affairs. That’s a very difficult inference to make. Let me give you an example.

In 2000 George Bush said in his campaign that we have to have a humble foreign policy. He was very critical of nation-building efforts by the Clinton administration. He said we shouldn’t go around the world telling other people what to do. And of course when he actually conducted foreign policy, it was very very different. As I said, he adopted very much of a unilateral approach to foreign policy, very much focused on what he believed to be the United States national interests, and he took on in Iraq and Afghanistan the most daunting, perhaps most daunting nation-building endeavors in the history of the United States. You’ve got to be very careful in figuring out what a future President is going to do.

I would suggest the following general outlines of a Barack Obama presidency, and this would apply to Russia and the EU as well.

Number one, I expect his foreign policy to be much more multilateral than that we’ve seen over the last eight years. I would expect Barack Obama to reopen negotiations with the EU and other nations, including Russia and China, on the problem of global climate change. Those negotiations really haven’t stalled for the last eight years; I expect them to be opened up and Obama to make that a real priority of his policies over the next eight years, as well as opening up other multilateral negotiations that really have been stalled over the last eight years as well.

I would expect him not to advocate, like John McCain did, throwing Russia out of the G8 group of nations. I‘m sure that’s not something that Obama is going to do. I don’t think he’ll simply capitulate to everything Russia wants, I think he’ll take a strong stand as he did on the situation in Georgia, but I do think he’d be more willing than we’ve seen to this point to have a negotiating posture with Russia.

I think he’ll take us out of Iraq within the first year and a half of his administration, which will obviously affect everything in foreign policy all around the world, but I do suspect that he might actually step up the war in Afghanistan and shift some of the troops that are currently in Iraq, perhaps as many as 20,000 them, to continue to prosecute the war in Afghanistan.

I believe he will promote free trade policies, but perhaps with more conditions than that we’ve seen under the Bush administration and that John McCain would support. He has indicated that he supports free trade, but he would like conditions when it comes to issues like the rights of labor and environmental standards. So I don’t expect a return to protectionism. By no means is Obama a protectionist, but he will have certain conditions with respect to trade relations.

Question: Hi, my name is Ilin Stanev, Bulgarian Newspaper, Capital Weekly.

You said that you expect a major shift in politics in the United States but if you remember before 15 years Clinton also wins the President with significant majority and policy agenda and one year after that his policy agenda was blocked by the Republican majority in the Congress.

Second question, the first major shift, you mentioned the conservative shift. The Reaganism had drastic effects on the world. Do you think that Obama will have similar effects on world politics?

Dr. Lichtman: Great question. What he said was, I said Barack Obama is going to transform policy, but Bill Clinton came in in 1992 and some of his policies, particularly his approach to health care reform was stymied by the Congress. In fact it was a Democratic Congress that stymied his health care reform, and then the Republicans took over in 1994.

I think there are several fundamental differences between 2008 and 1992. First of all, Barack Obama is not Bill Clinton. Barack Obama is proposing much bolder policy initiatives than Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton talked about being a new kind of Democrat and he was very much of a middle of the road type of Democrat. In fact health care was really his only big liberal initiative. I think Barack Obama will be a much bolder President than Clinton and will advance a much wider liberal agenda than that which Bill Clinton did.

Two, Bill Clinton came in and it was kind of a tired old Democratic Congress, on its last legs, that was voted out of office in 1994. Barack Obama will be coming in with a Democratic Congress that has only been in the majority since 2007 and for the first time will have a Democratic President to lead it. You can’t govern from 538 Members of Congress. I think this Congress will be vastly more receptive to major policy changes on the part of Barack Obama than the old tired Democratic Congress was in 1993 when Bill Clinton came in.

Finally, Bill Clinton was still, even though he was a Democrat, was still taking office when the conservative era was going strong. Barack Obama will be taking office when the conservative era is coming to an end.

Finally, the country is much hungrier for change than it was in 1992.

Question: I want to follow up on the congressional -- Sorry, Maria Pena with EFE, Spain.

If you could follow up on the congressional makeup, how it’s looking. The McCain campaign has been warning about the one-party control of both the legislative and the executive branches and the impact that would have on the American political arena. So if you could focus on that. What are the dangers of having a one-party rule.

The other question, how significant the Hispanic vote will be. A lot has been done about that, but again, it depends on how many people actually turn out to vote.

Dr. Lichtman: Let me answer your second question. The Hispanic vote is the big growing power in America but it hasn’t turned out in recent years. Once the Hispanic vote begins turning out it’s going to transform American politics.

For example, Texas within the next 20 years is going to turn from one of the reddest states, one of the most Republican states, likely to a blue or Democratic state because it has such a large, about 35 percent of the Texas population is Hispanic. I believe you will see not Hispanics voting in proportion to their population or their voting age population or even their citizen voting age population, but I think you will see an upsurge in Hispanic turnout. For example, that’s going to turn New Mexico to the Democrats this year, a state that narrowly went for the Republicans last time, and be important in a number of other Southwestern Eastern states.

Now to your first question, the makeup of the Congress. I believe the Democrats will have, in effect, a filibuster proof setting. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster and get something done in the Senate. I’m not saying the Democrats will reach 60 votes, but I think they’ll come close enough, and they may reach 60. I think they’ll get something like maybe 58, which will be close enough by peeling off some Republicans. Republicans are not going to be 100 percent solid Republicans. Susan Collins and Arlen Specter will peel off and not filibuster on all of these things, so I think the Democrats will have in fact if not in actual numbers, a filibuster proof Senate and an overwhelming majority in the House. It doesn’t matter so much in the House. Even if you have a one-seat majority you can pretty much do whatever you want.

So as long as Obama can get the Congress to go along with him, he’ll have more than enough Democrats to get his policies through, and he’s got to do what Franklin Roosevelt did. Bring the people with him. Franklin Roosevelt, when he came in in 1933, pioneered direct communication with the American people by going on the radio through his so-called fireside chats. If Barack Obama can bring the people then the Congress will come because Congress is like Wall Street. It operates on two things -- fear and greed. [Laughter].

Question: George Jones from the Press Association in London.

Just on the issue of tax in this election. Barack Obama and Joe the Plumber. Is tax no longer an issue with many young voters or many voters? Are people in America prepared for higher taxes?

Dr. Lichtman: People in America are not prepared for higher taxes. The last candidate to actually say I’m going to raise your taxes was Walter Mondale in 1984. Do you know how many states Walter Mondale one? One. So neither candidate is saying I’m going to raise your taxes. It’s just who’s going to get the tax benefits? McCain is primarily talking about tax benefits for business and tax benefits for the investors; Barack Obama says he’s going to increase taxes only on those making $250,000 or more and cut taxes on those making less than $200,000. The reality is, either one of these candidates is going to be very hard-pressed to cut taxes.

We have a deficit that could be approaching a trillion, and I mean trillion with a T in the United States. They both have big spending plans. It’s going to be very difficult for either candidate to cut taxes. They may find themselves in the position of George H.W. Bush who in the 1988 convention said read my list, “No new taxes,” but the reality of budget deficits forced him to cut a deal with the Democrats that included some new taxes.

So I don’t think Americans should expect a lot of tax cuts. They may even have to swallow some tax increases perhaps, in social security by eliminating or upping the ceiling on social security taxes.

Question: My name is Francisco Aravena, from Radio Duna in Santiago, Chile.

You said that you predicted the outcome of, the eventual outcome of this election, but --

Dr. Lichtman: In February 2006.

Question: Yeah, but until mid September of this year, until the stock crash. Obama was even under-performing his own party numbers. How would you explain that? And if it weren’t for the stock crash, what would have happened do you think?

Dr. Lichtman: McCain did get a very slight lead in the polls about two or three points after the Republican convention. That always happens. It’s always advantageous to go second. The Republicans went second this time. Because you always get a bump coming out of the convention. In my view, that was just a bump and that bump would have faded regardless of the economic crisis that kind of hit shortly after the end of the Republican convention because there were so many other problems facing the country.

Already McCain was disavowing himself, separating himself from George W. Bush.

That’s not to say the economic crisis isn’t relevant. I think it’s probably going to up Obama’s margin of victory. I think Obama might win a larger percentage than he otherwise would have gotten.

I think the economic effect probably canceled the racial effect. Obviously there’s going to be some Americans who are reluctant to vote for an African-American, and that might have been pushing Obama’s numbers down below the general Democratic numbers, and that’s probably now been offset by the economic crisis. But my predictions were not dependent upon that particular crisis, and I do think the very small bump in the polls that McCain got after the convention would have faded regardless.

Question: Alex Berezin with RIA NOVOSTI, Russia.

Sir, speaking out of experience, do you think that people will vote for Obama, not for McCain, speaking of the experience? Does Obama have enough experience to govern the country?

The second question will be short, who do you think is better for America to be President? Obama or McCain? And who is better for Russia?

Dr. Lichtman: [Laughter]. You better answer who’s better for Russia. I’m not going to do that. [Laughter]. But I will answer your question on experience.

I actually did a study of that. What I looked at was we have these polls where we poll experts on who were the greatest and who were the worst Presidents. Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt always come out in the top; and James Buchanon and Herbert Hoover come out on the bottom. So I compared those rankings with experience. How many years candidates had in high political office. I found it was actually a slightly negative correlation between experience and the ranking of a President. Our greatest President, our highest ranked President, was Abraham Lincoln who had precisely two years of experience. He was a Congressman for one term. That was his only experience in national government. He had zero administrative experience. He’d never run anything other than his two-person law firm. So I don’t think you really can look at experience and from that predict whether a President is going to be a successful or not a successful President.

Obviously whether you think John McCain or Barack Obama is better for America or better for Russia depends upon your values. If you believe we need a fundamental change in the country and we need kind of a return to the liberalism of an earlier year, obviously you would prefer Obama. If you believe that we basically need a continuation of the more conservative policies of the last eight years, obviously you would prefer McCain.

Question: Haykaram Nahapetyam. Thank you very much, I am from Armenian Public Television.

I would like to ask, there are many conflicts on the world political map, like Ossetia, Abkhazia and Karabachos as well. From time to time world powers dictates, like U.S., like Russia, more underliance of principle of territorial integrity within the framework of negotiation process of these countries. And from time to time the upside principle of self determination is more like underliance. That’s how Kosovo independence or [inaudible] or Ossetia was recently [inaudible] by Russia.

Do you think that if Obama will win, do you predict perhaps the principle, it will more lean to principle of self determination because it’s more associated with the democracy providers? Because I recall he has said, has made some kind of announcements before [inaudible] Karabach. Thank you very much.

Dr. Lichtman: Obviously, as I said, it’s very perilous to judge how a President conducts foreign policy from what that President said when he was a candidate or before they took office. There’s something about stepping into that Oval Office that does change you. But I think you’re absolutely right. If we were to guess and speculate, certainly Obama seems to incline more to the principle of self-determination than McCain does. McCain seems to incline more to the Bush approach around the world. It really has not defined major differences about how he would conduct foreign policy as compared to the general trend over the last eight years.

Question: I’m Prasad Dodangodage from Sri Lanka National Television. I have two questions.

One, you mentioned about the new President’s, gave some points about new President’s foreign policy. According to your view, how would be the nature of war against terrorism? I’m not talking about only Iraq and Afghanistan, but the United States is working against many other [inaudible] to battle against many terrorist groups around the world.

So what do you do about the overall battle against terrorism?

And question two, United States is one of the major donors in the world, so with the percent financial ties [inaudible], how would be the new President would tackle the role, play the role of major donor throughout the world? Thanks.

Dr. Lichtman: Your first question, with respect to international cooperation on terrorism, one of the remarkable things about this campaign is while, as you say, there have been big differences on Iraq, some differences on policy towards Russia, differences on trade that I’ve tried to lay out, there’s not been much difference in terms of fighting the war on terror. Both candidates have pledged to very vigorously fight the war on terror. Both candidates have pledged to cooperate as much as they possibly can with the international community on fighting the war on terror. Both have pledged to hunt down Osama bin Laden. There might be some differences in terms of how far the two candidates are willing to go in the United States on the tradeoff between security and liberty. The Bush administration has come down pretty hard on the side of security. I think John McCain would too. Barack Obama might come down a little more on the side of liberty, being less supportive of things like wiretapping on Americans without a warrant, strong interpretations of the Patriot Act. I think that might be the biggest difference.

Secondly, you’re absolutely right. The next President of the United States is going to face an enormous fiscal crisis here at home, whether it’s Obama or McCain, it doesn’t matter. They’ll be facing deficits of unprecedented proportions. And they’ll be facing enormous commitments that are written into law that we have on social security and on Medicare, medical care to the elderly, that we do not have funding sources for indefinitely into the future.

The next President is going to have to make some very hard choices on priorities. They’re not going to tell you that now. Now they’re like the perfume commercial which says “promise her anything”. They’re going to promise the American people anything and everything. Every goody they can dole out.

We saw in the last debate when they were pressed on setting priorities, they wouldn’t do it. But once you're President, you're going to have to set some priorities and you're absolutely right -- The foreign aid component of the budget, particularly the development aid and the humanitarian aid, is very very small. I don’t think that will be a target for cuts, but it’s going to be a very difficult time for any expansion of international developmental humanitarian aid, and I think that’s very tragic if that proves to be the case.

Question: I’m Martin Ologa from the Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria.

The first question is, if Obama wins, given the fact that actually the breakthrough you have been talking about is not as a result of support from the Black community alone, it is as a result of a combination of factors.

Dr. Lichtman: Correct.

Question: What do you think will be his own foreign policy towards Africa, given the fact that if from a specific [inaudible], from a specific African country.

The second one is, what’s your perspective on the [inaudible], the career, the book, the Post American War. What do you think will be his own policies toward the rise in power like China, India, Brazil, and some of these powers? Thank you.

Dr. Lichtman: Let me focus on Africa, because I did talk about his general foreign policy previously.

Africa has always been neglected by American policymakers. I’ve been to Africa many times, I love the people, I love the place, but it has been kind of shunted aside. Whereas American foreign policy, look at the contrast between how much of American foreign policy is focused on the Middle East compared to how much of American foreign policy is focused on Africa.

There have been some very good initiatives on the part of the Bush administration to try to get a little bit more focus on Africa, particularly dealing with the problems of AIDS, HIV. But Africa really has not been a fundamental focus of American foreign policy. I would hope if Barack Obama wins, given his African origins, that he would fundamentally change that. Africa needs a lot of help. It needs a lot of help with respect to health care. It needs a lot of help with respect to economic development. It needs a lot of help with respect to political development. In many parts of Africa life expectancy has gone down to levels that we have not seen in 100 years around the world.

I would believe, and again I don’t speak for Barack Obama, but I would believe given his values, given the direction he would like to put American foreign policy, that in fact Africa would become a new priority under an Obama administration. But everything has to be qualified. I hate to be the harbinger of gloom here, but everything has to be qualified by the financial crisis and the enormous budget deficit that the United States is going to be facing.

Obama has promised to cover 50 million uninsured Americans. He has promised to invest a lot more in education, early childhood education, college education, teacher pay. He has promised to invest $150 billion over ten years in new energy technology. It adds up to a lot. And frankly, his toughest task, and I keep repeating this and I can’t stress it too much, is going to be setting priorities. I hope Africa, which doesn’t require that kind of money, will become a new priority. But it’s going to be very difficult.

Question: [Inaudible]

Dr. Lichtman: Well, I kind of described already what I thought would be Obama’s approach to the world.

Question: Gabiella Bodan, Nine O’Clock Daily, Romania.

You said that the wind of change already blows in America and that Obama comes on a wave of [great expectancy] on the part of all Americans. In this respect, do you believe that the outcome of tomorrow’s election will be a particular vote for something, for a program, for a new solution, for Obama’s new vision? Or it will be in a bigger measure a vote against, a negative vote to sanction the mistakes? Thank you.

Dr. Lichtman: That’s a very interesting question. Very difficult to answer. But in my view it is primarily a rejection of the current direction of the country. Ninety percent of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track. That’s a record. That’s extraordinary. You can’t get 90 percent of Americans to agree on the spelling of their name, and here in the polls they think the country is on the wrong track. George W. Bush has the lowest approval rating of any President, excuse me. The highest disapproval rating of any President in the history of polling, and that goes all the way back to the 1930s. So we’re talking about 70-some-odd years.

So I think the main thrust of this election is a rejection of the current direction and a hunger for change. But that puts Barack Obama on the cusp of history. The question is, will he become a Ronald Reagan or a Franklin Roosevelt, who responds to change in a positive way and implements his vision? Or will he become a Jimmy Carter or Herbert Hoover? One-term Presidents who don’t rise to the challenges of their times. That is really the big question that would surround an Obama presidency. It’s an open question at this point.

John Kennedy said to be a great President you have to have two things. You have to have vision and you have to have pragmatism. You have to have the vision to know where to take the country, and you have to be very pragmatic, you have to be practical, you have to know how to implement it. Jimmy Carter had some great visions, but he didn’t have the practical skills at that time to put that vision into play.

I have a lot of confidence that Barack Obama has both. He’s certainly proven to be an inspirational visionary, and he’s run an absolutely extraordinary campaign. I don’t think his campaign is why he’s winning, because I think the winds of political change were blowing before that. But boy, he has run a very skillful campaign. He has stayed on message. He’s not been distracted. He’s been cool. He’s been calm. He’s been unruffled in the face of some pretty heavy-duty attacks against him. And he has raised extraordinary amounts of money, record amounts of money, and that’s an attest to his practical skills. And he’s put together the most impressive “get out the vote” operation in the history of the country.

So I think he’s shown in the campaign that he has vision and has practical skills. The big question is, will he be able to translate them to his presidency at a time of national and international crisis.

Question: Shan Huang from Caijing Magazine, Chinese business financial journal.

You were talking about America, the conservative era in America is coming to its end.

Dr. Lichtman: Correct.

Question: I just wondered, could you give us a little bit empirical evidence for supporting your claim about that?

Dr. Lichtman: Yes. Let me give you several pieces of empirical evidence. Piece number one is the big democratic victories in the mid-term elections of 2006. Mid-term elections alone are not a harbinger of change, but they are a pretty good indicator of change.

When the conservative era, the last conservative era, the one of the 1920s, was coming to an end, likewise the Republican party suffered big losses in the mid-term elections of 1930, prior to the era coming to an end in 1932.

Two, party identification. The parties that Americans identify with have shifted sharply against the Republicans. The Democrats now have the biggest lead over Republicans really in decades in terms of party identification in the United States. The Republican brand as a brand, and most, there are some Democratic conservatives, but conservatism is probably lodged within the Republican party.

Three, as I’ve already indicated, 90 percent of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track.

And fourth, as I’ve already indicated, the current conservative President has the highest disapproval ratings in all of history.

Finally, obviously, we’ll see if the proof comes tomorrow with the Democrats controlling the presidency and both houses of Congress. There’s plenty of empirical evidence out there.

Question: Bertran Vannier, Radio France, France.

Dr. Lichtman, what do you make of the disconnect there is? You mentioned all the historical challenges that the next President will have, but in this campaign in fact these have not been addressed at all. Medicare, Medicaid, the huge deficits, global warming. In fact the campaign has been run on totally other things.

What do you make of that? Is that the norm in American elections? Or is it just that the two candidates have been running scared, away from the challenges?

Dr. Lichtman: Sadly, that is the norm in American elections.

If I were to change one thing about American politics, here’s what I would change. I would get rid of, I’d banish them to some small diminishing island somewhere, the consultants, the handlers, the ad men, and the pollsters. They have brought our politics down to lowest common denominator politics, and made every candidate afraid of challenging the American people. Made the candidates afraid of saying something risky for fear it will be a big mistake. They really have avoided the hardest issues, and as I’ve said, not set their priorities and made a lot of promises which obviously neither candidate is going to be able to keep.

John Kennedy, when he ran in 1960, called for sacrifice. Nobody calls for sacrifice any more. Now we can have it all. Unlimited military spending, balanced budgets, universal health care, refurbished education, rebuilt infrastructure, tax cuts, alternative -- No. But no one is going to address those hard questions because of our consultant-drive and pollster-driven politics, but they’re going to have to confront them come the next presidency.

Thank you very much.

I know we have someone here from China. I’d like to quote an old Chinese saying. Some say it’s a curse. “May you live in interesting times.” These are very interesting times. They’re perilous ones for the United States and the world.

Thank you for the great questions.

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