Most of the post-election discussion I’ve seen has focused on the impact of religion, and quite a few commentators have suggested that the Democrats need to shift their policies to appeal more to religiously-motivated voters. This approach would entail some fairly substantial compromises in the search for marginal votes.

If we’re the mood for pragmatic populism, there’s a policy option that might well have delivered the Democrats the election, without the risk of fracturing the Democratic base as an appeal to the religious right would have done. That option is protectionism, of the kind espoused during the campaign by Gephardt[1]. Gephardt had his electoral problems, but I think he could have carried Ohio and his home state of Missouri, as well as having a good chance in West Virginia and even Indiana. He might have lost some coastal states but overall he would have had a better chance of a majority in both the popular vote and the electoral college.
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While I’ve tried to be open to more optimistic possibilities, it’s far more likely that the second Bush Administration will be more of the same, and worse. The problem for the winners is that the consequences of the Administration’s policies, still debatable in 2004, will be grimly evident by 2008, and there will be no one but Republicans to take the blame. In purely partisan terms, as I argued several times before the election, this was a good one to lose.
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At this stage, as I’ve said, I think a Kerry victory would produce the worst of all possible worlds – responsibility without power. The alternative looks awful, but I thought I’d sketch out the optimistic scenario, which is, roughly speaking, a repeat of Reagan’s second term.

In his first term, Reagan was, in many respects, worse than Bush has been. His buildup of nuclear weapons, undertaken with the support of advisers such as Perle, ran a severe risk of destroying the entire world. In economic policy, he discarded the mainstream Republican economic advisers and went for what George Bush senior called “voodoo economics”, massive tax cuts undertaken on the basis of the supply-side economic theories of people like Arthur Laffer and Jude Wanniski. This produced a peak deficit equal to 6.2 per cent of GDP in 1984, considerably higher than the peak under Bush so far.

In his second term, Reagan ignored his foreign policy advisers and signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Gorbachev. Whereas Perle and others saw Reagan’s rhetoric about bargaining from a position of strength as mere words, covering the creation of a nuclear capacity that could fight and win the inevitable showdown with Russia, Reagan actually believed it, and when he found a suitable partner in Gorbachev he put it into practice. START I, initiated by Reagan and Gorbachev, followed in 1991.

Meanwhile, on economic policy, Reagan listened to his mainstream advisers and took steps to wind back the deficit. He left the US with a big increase in public debt, partially unwound under Clinton, but the outcome was far better than it would have been if he hadn’t changed course.

At about the same time, the Plaza Accords produced a concerted policy of depreciating the overvalued US dollar and reducing the trade deficit.

What are the chances that we’ll see something similar from Bush? In foreign policy, this would entail a shift towards bilateral or multilateral peacemaking, and in domestic policy, a serious attempt to balance the budget and the trade account. In my judgement, close to zero. But I’d be interested to hear what others have to say.

If Kerry does win after all, it will be under the worst possible circumstances. A minority of the popular vote, a hostile Congress and the need to prevail in a vicious legal dogfight in Ohio. The Republicans will be out for impeachment from Inauguration Day, if not before that.

All things considered, I’d prefer a Bush victory at this point. That said, I think a second Bush Administration will be a disaster in all respects, economically, socially and internationally. To those who supported and voted for him, I’ll say “be careful what you wish for”.

Kerry is definitely doing worse than the exit polls suggested. However, it’s very hard to tell what’s going on with partial counts. None of the US networks appear to do the kind of matched-precinct counts that are standard in Australia, so the results may reflect the fact that rural and suburban votes are counted faster. In addition, there were large numbers of prepoll votes and the very limited evidence that came out suggested they were heavily Democratic. It appears these votes are counted after all the others, but no-one seems to be quite clear about this.

Of course, it’s a tight race but it appears that the networks have been burned by their experience in 2000 and are unwilling to take the chance of making a premature call. So we may be waiting a while. This is not good for me, as I have to write a column about the economic challenges facing the winner (they are huge!)

Update 2:30Well, I’ve written the “Bush wins” version. Unless something startling happens with the prepoll votes, Bush is safe in Florida. That means, if I’ve worked out the rules correctly, that Kerry has to come from behind in both Ohio and Wisconsin to win. Not impossible, but a long shot at this stage.

Further update 2:52 Kerry is now leading in Wisconsin. If he wins in Ohio (still against the odds), it will be on absentee and pre-poll ballots, which implies a gigantic legal bunfight for the second time running.

Yet further update 4:05 Most pundits are calling Ohio for Bush, though his lead has narrowed in the last half hour. Just in case, I’ve written my “Kerry wins” piece, which is very pessimistic about the prospects for a Kerry Administration (see post above this one).

Final update 5:36 Premature calls. Now I’m working on the “cliffhanger” version. Even with Ohio, where Kerry hasn’t conceded, Bush is still one vote short according to MSNBC. I assume he’ll win at least one of New Mexico and Nevada, which will bring it all back to Ohio. I still can’t see Kerry winning, but I wouldn’t concede either in his position.

This post by Chris Bertram made a point that’s central to a post I’ve been planning for some time, so I may as well jump in and complete it. Talking about US airstrikes in Iraq, he writes

The risk of the operation is transferred by deliberate and systematic policy from soldiers to bystanders. Such a policy runs contrary to traditional views about who should bear the risk of operations: we can’t insulate civilians completely but where there’s a choice soldiers both in virtue of the role they occupy and the fact (here) that they are volunteers should take on more exposure in order to protect civilians. It is hard to escape the thought that were co-nationals of the people dropping the bombs the ones in the bystander position, different methods would be used.

An obvious comparison is with the police force. If any of us were involved in a confrontation between police officers and armed criminals, we would expect the police to risk their lives to save us[1]. A police force that viewed protecting the safety of its own members as the primary priority would not be very effective. A police force that was prepared to pursue criminals with deadly force, and treat deaths among the general public as “collateral damage” would be worse than useless. But that is, in essence, what has been given to the Iraqi people.

This raises, I think, a fairly general point in relation to the kind of liberal/humanitarian interventionism exemplified by Bosnia and Kosovo, and (from the viewpoint of some of its backers, particularly on the left) in Iraq. Unless the intervening powers have the willingness and capacity to provide peacekeepers who will operate as a police force, with the associated attitude that protection of the civilian population is the top priority, then intervention is bound to produce bad outcomes.
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