to attack greed on Wall Street (at least in words), criticize Bush's handling of the Iraq War, and rail against the "status quo" in Washington.
Not to be outdone, McCain raised the exact same issues, but from a slightly different angle. It is significant that these far more concrete issues took center stage, as compared to past elections when issues such as abortion, gun control, gay marriage, and "terrorism" in the abstract were the main issues being discussed. However, McCain's party was held accountable by many for the economic crisis, and from the beginning he faced an uphill struggle to overcome that heavy baggage. His age and bizarre onstage antics didn't help him either. Nor did his choice of a late-night comedy skit caricature as his vice presidential running mate. So he turned to an old trick in U.S. politics: accuse your opponent of being a socialist or a communist. Just a few years ago, such a tactic would have had at the very least a noticeable, if not a decisive effect.
It is therefore revealing that in the context of the growing economic crisis, the word "socialism" has once again entered the mainstream. Even more significant is that McCain's red baiting didn't damage Obama in the slightest. Most people just had a chuckle about it. On the one hand, they understand that Obama is by no stretch of the imagination a socialist. On the other hand, the word "socialism" itself no longer has the same "evil" connotations as it did just a year ago.
Obama has made it clear that he is anything but a socialist. His health care, education and economic plans have nothing to do with genuine socialism. Throughout his campaign he as consistently appealed to the ubiquitous "middle class," rarely mentioning workers, and virtually ignoring the poor. He himself responded to McCain's attacks as follows:
"Now, because he knows that his economic theories don't work, he's been spending these last few days calling me every name in the book. Lately he's called me a socialist for wanting to roll-back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class. I don't know what's next. By the end of the week he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
So all joking aside, the only "socialism" Obama supports is "Wall Street Socialism." Despite his promise to raise taxes on the richest 5 percent of Americans, the $700 billion bailout is a case of "socialism in reverse," a massive handout to the rich, which will have to be paid for by the working class either in higher taxes later on, or through even further cuts in our quality of life. But the fact remains: Americans are at the very least increasingly open to the idea of genuine socialism. This has important implications for the future.
Obama needed 270 electoral votes to win the election. As of this writing, with 96 percent of the votes counted, he has 338 electoral votes, more than double McCain's 163. In the popular vote, he has won by 52 to 46 percent. His victory came despite reports of fraud, voter intimidation and disenfranchisement, particularly of Black voters. In St. Louis, for example, text messages were sent out to Black voters telling them that Obama supporters should vote on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. The only part of the city to report breakdowns in voting machines was in North City, a predominantly Black area. Despite all of this, Obama's victory over John McCain was overwhelming, and the Republican conceded relatively early on election night.
In the absence of a mass party of labor, most of the attention has been focused on the two main capitalist parties. With "Obamamania" in full effect, it was a hard year for third party candidates. Nonetheless, Ralph Nader won nearly 600,000 votes (after raising an estimated $4 million for his campaign), and Cynthia McKinney won nearly 120,000 (with a campaign budget of just $188,000). Between them and several other left-wing candidates, they received more votes than the right-wing third-party candi