There are some people who look at this election and see this as an aberration, a result of a bad Bush Presidency, that will not be followed by election results that support America moving to a Left-Center electorate. There are already research reports and other people doing the research that shows that beyond a simple change in leadership we are at the very beginning of a period that will become know as a sea-change election which means that the electorate of the country has permanantly be reshaped and has move from a Center-Right country to a Center-Left country.
KEY FINDINGS From the Democracy Corps/Campaign for America's Future poll:
* The top reasons polled voters supported Barack Obama: Would withdraw troops from Iraq (35 percent), would be for the middle class (32 percent) and has a plan for affordable health care for all (29 percent) * The top issues that voters think Obama should focus on: Reducing unemployment and getting the economy moving (62 percent), investing in alternative energy and getting us off foreign oil (44 percent), changing the health care system (21 percent)
* Economic policies at or near the top voters want Obama to address: Repealing the Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 and cutting taxes for people making less (60 percent), making job-creating investments in infrastructure (60 percent), raise the minimum wage (54 percent), enacting a three-month moratorium on all foreclosures (51 percent), repealing tax breaks that benefit companies that export jobs overseas (50 percent)
* Voters agree that: The middle class is more threatened by global trade and greedy CEOs than by loo-lenient immigration and affirmative action policies (60 percent), they are more worried about giving additional tax breaks to the rich and corporations than about going too far (61 percent), we need to reform public schools and invest properly in them rather than give parents private-school vouchers (68 percent).
* But voters are split on investment vs. spending: 49 percent fear going too far in increasing government spending; 48 percent worry that the country won't make the investments needed to strengthen the economy. The results are based on a poll of 2,000 voters conducted November 4 and 5, 2008.
For progressives like us it is a good thing to see that more Americans are seeing a role for our policy and our governance to be more progressive at to be more oriented towards working class people. As a nation it seems that preserving and protecting lives is more important than a war in Iraq that may be going better today than it was 3 years ago, but is still costing countless lives, billions of dollars and was based on reasons that nobody in the current administration has ever been able to show were true.
We have a new agenda for the nation before us. People are truely afraid to get sick, even with insurance, because you never know where a serious illness is going to take you financially. And if you don't have insurance for your family and yourself you may someday have to face a decision between pills and Pilsbury. Discount drugs from enormous institution seem like such a small concession given what they have been able to get away with over the year.
So even as we move forward into the Obama era we see that there are many things for us to do that are more important than ever. We have new friends in our beliefs, but it is imperative that we remain committed to our progressive values and continue the work to take them from concepts or state programs to perminent, nationalal funded, nation-wide programming.
Our work is cut out for us now that we have elected Barack Obama. We need to work to keep our new allies on the team and we need to work harder to support Barack when he steps in new and long awaited directions.
