There is now a high probability that the Democrats will have a filibuster-proof 60 Senate seats before the end of this year, once the Republican’s delaying legal tactics challenging the Democrats’ Senate win in Minnesota reach the ultimate end of the line.

While Specter’s decision was no doubt heavily influenced by his chances of retaining his Senate seat in Pennsylvania at the 2010 congressional election, it also has some potential lessons for the Liberals in Australia as they continue to wrestle with their direction in the post-Howard era.

This rather mournful piece in the New York Timesby Senator Olympia Snowe from Maine – one of the very few remaining Republican moderates - highlights the major electoral dangers of trying to impose a narrow ideology on a party that needs to gain broad public support.

She quotes Ronald Reagan, the Republican’s touchstone in the modern era, when he spoke about the approach that party should take:

 “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”

Leaving aside the rather obvious fact that Reagan actually didn’t deliver terribly well on most of these ‘litmus test’ issues, except tax reduction and arguably national defence (depending on your definition of ‘sound’), the principle (or strategy) of nailing down some core values and then giving people a lot more space on all the rest is a very sound one.

While there are many aspects unique to the USA system which doesn’t translate to Australia – the primary system and the much greater scope for politicians to vote against the party line being two of the big ones - the importance of remaining acceptable to a broad spectrum of members and voters is something the Liberals (and their Coalition/merged colleagues in the Nationals) need to stay very conscious of.

I am not saying they should necessarily adopt the same litmus tests Ronald Reagan outlined.  John Howard didn’t even deliver on the ‘tax reduction’ litmus test, although he  certainly did on economic growth,  and I find it hard to see how some of the Conservatives in the ‘Liberals’ and Nationals could genuinely say they sign up to ‘maximum individual liberty’.

But whatever litmus test they want to use, the key thing is getting agreement across the broad range of views in your party on a few core principles which you can at least maintain a plausible façade of all signing up to, and not spending energy internally brawling about the rest.

Personally, I still think there is a prospect that many Australians could be attarcted to voting for a Malcolm Turnbull led Liberal Coalition, if they could be surer what the core principles of that Coalition are. 

Fewer Australian voters now stick to supporting the one party for life, regardless of that party’s actions or policies. But if they are going to shift from one to another – especially from the government party to one that’s out of government – they need to have a reasonably good idea of the key things that alternative option presents.

I’m sure I’m not the Coalition’s target demographic, but for me the big problem is not that I disagree with all of what the federal Coalition stands for at the moment, it’s that I can’t really be sure what that is, let alone what it might be by election time.

And while I doubt the thoughts of President Obama or many US Democrats are on recent lessons from Australian political history at the moment, there is still a parallel message they need to be conscious of too.  The surprise appearance of a filibuster-proof Senate majority for the US Democrats is not too dissimilar to John Howard getting a (mostly) unexpected Senate majority after the 2004 election. History showed John Howard indulged in ideological over-reach with the almost total Parliamentary power he gained. President Obama will need to be careful not to fall into the same trap.

I don’t think there is any doubt that there has never before been such widespread global interest in the ascension of a new USA President into office and the first words he would speak in that role.

I think it was a good balanced, measured speech.  It did not hit the rhetorical heights that might have been expected, but it was a right speech for the time – focused on the here and now, and the stark reality of the often grim but not insurmountable challenges that we face.  There was enough of a shout out to the peoples of other nations and other beliefs, combined with a clear intent to emphasise inclusiveness when it came to action, to give me some hope that there is a chance of a shift to a more positive direction.

My favourite aspect of the speech was the theme touched with these words:

“we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man ……. we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.

our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.”

We’ll have to wait and see how well those ideals are lived up to, but acknowledging them in such a way is a good start.

As to all the commentary of others, there’s way too much to even start commenting on everyone else’s comments.

But there was one piece I did like – this one from the Political Base blog site, which doesn’t focus on the speech, but on highlighting just a few of the quotes from a few ‘experts’ who dismissively wrote off Obama’s chances in the period after he first announced his candidacy. 

The more often we get reminded that many of the ‘experts’ can be little different to anyone else offering an opinion, the better – I refer to myself in that context as well of course. At least Crikey’s Bernard Keanehad the good grace to out himself for his earlier comments that Obama’s nomination was “a McGovernesque disaster” and previously describing him as “the least substantial candidate in a generation”.

Anh Cao becomes the first Vietnamese-American in US Congress, rounding off an election which delivered a few other results demonstrating the racial and cultural diversity of the USA.  Despite being a Republican, his election will probably also help rather than hinder efforts to get comprehensive immigration reform measures passed through the Congress – a big task but one which will be important for Barack Obama and the Democrats if they want to retain the levels of support they currently have from Hispanic Americans in particular.  There will be some on the Republican side who are likely to support this – probably including John McCain – but also some of the small number of the ‘new guard’ of Republicans, of which Mr Cao has just become the newest.

As he makes the shift from candidate to President, attention is now focusing on some of the ways he might use the internet and various online tools as President to transform political communication – and hopefully also political participation – in the USA.

But for all the focus on cutting edge communication techniques, it seems that the new President may have to go without something as ‘old’ and routine as email.

According to the New York Times, Obama is likely to have to give up using his Blackberry and even be prevented from sending emails, due to issues around email security and legal requirements regarding record keeping of Presidential communications.

At least he’ll be spared the modern nightmare of keeping on top of all his email messages.

According to the American Muslim Alliance, only nine Muslims were serving in state legislatures nationwide before Tuesday’s elections, and only one of them is a woman. There are two Muslim members of Congress — Democrats Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Andre Carson of Indiana.

Lawyer and community activist Rashida Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants who never attended high school, becomes the first Muslim woman ever to serve in the Michigan Legislature. She said she wouldn’t have run but for the repeated urging of her Jewish boss and predecessor, outgoing Democratic state Rep. Steve Tobocman.

“In my heart, I was more of a social worker than anything,” said Tlaib, 32. She said her top priorities will be immigrant rights and pollution, a major issue to her constituents who are surrounded by oil refineries and factories.

The eldest of 14 children of a retired Ford Motor Co. worker and his wife, she was the first in her family to earn a high school diploma. She went on to finish college and law school while helping raise 13 siblings.

Her mother was born in Beit Ur El Foka, near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Her father was born in Beit Hanina, a Jerusalem suburb.

The Michigan Legislature’s first known Muslim member was James Karoub. Born in Highland Park to an imam and his wife who came from what now is Lebanon, Karoub served three terms in the state House in the 1960s.

Tuesday’s election also brought another new Arab-American to the state House, Republican Justin Amash of Cascade in conservative western Michigan. He is Christian and the son of a Palestinian-born father and Syrian-born mother. His Democratic opponent, Albert Abbasse, also is Arab-American.

Meanwhile, US ethnic media outlet China Press reports that Carol Liu, elected senator of California’s 21st District, became the first Asian Woman senator in the United States. Liu was born in Berkeley and grew up in Oakland, CA. Her mother is a fifth generation Chinese immigrant and her father moved to the United States from China after the Second World War.

This provision obviously means no migrant has ever served as President (or Vice President) of the USA. However, it is open to people who are the child of a migrant. But for a country of migrants, the proportion of people who fit this category is quite small. Barack Obama will be the 43rd person to hold the office of  President, but according to this Wiki site, he will be only the seventh to have a parent who was not born a US citizen.  As is almost universally known, Obama’s father was Kenyan.  Only six previous Presidents had an immigrant parent – Obama will be the first since Herbert Hoover was elected in 1929.  Only one President, Andrew Jackson, had two immigrant parents.  (h/t ILW)

Given the global interest in Obama’s success and the inevitability the USA will no longer have a majority white-European population within the next few decades, it is worth looking beyond the mainstream media to the views of some of the ethnic news media in the USA.

This link goes to some snapshot responses from a range of media to a few key questions. When it came to the question “What is the most pressing change that your community wants to see happen?” many mirrored the mainstream media in highlighting the need to fix economy, as well as the partly related issue of fixing immigration policy.

(* The discriminatory prohibition on who can become US President is nothing compared to the bizarre constraints on who can become Australia’s Head of State, but that’s an issue for another post)

But however understandable it may be electorally, it is unfortunate that such an important issue has not been given some solid examination during this campaign. While immigration law and administration in Australia contain much that is discriminatory, unjust and inefficient, there is nothing like the inconsistencies and breadth of injustice that occurs in the USA.  It is one of the many paradoxes of the USA that it can simultaneously portray a message of liberty towards migrants (e.g. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”) while deliberately subjecting so many of them to major deprivation.

Perhaps because of this, the USA – unlike Australia – has a range of strong community based organisations promoting the rights of migrants, including a vibrant internet presence.  Not surprisingly, a wide range of virulent anti-migrant sites can also be found on the internet.

This lack of debate was not for want of trying on the part of a range of different pro-migrant and anti-migrant advocates. Amazingly for such a contentious issue, the word “immigration” was used just once in the three Presidential debates.  Both Presidential candidates seemed to mostly avoid the topic, apart from narrowcast advertising aimed at Spanish speaking voters -

“The ads, running on Spanish-language television and radio in states such as Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico feature Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain pointing fingers at each other for not having done enough on immigration.”

An online network of pro-migrant groups put together a detailed questionnaire on immigrations issues, which it asked both candidates to respond to.  While Obama obviously chose not to make immigration a frontline issue in his campaign, to his credit he did not dodge this request, providing a detailed response which, while still leaving some wiggle room in some of the trickier areas, still contained answers of substance. By contrast, John McCain did not respond at all.

John McCain’s actions in 2007 when he tried to advance some type of migration reform was at one stage thought to have derailed his chances of obtaining the Republican nomination. In the end, it obviously wasn’t a barrier to his obtaining the nomination, but even though he tried to reframe his stance to one of ‘enforcement first’, he was certainly far more boxed in than most other Republicans would have been when it came to trying to attack Obama for being soft on ‘illegals’.

This analysis from the Immigration Daily website gives a fairly good summary of the stances on the two candidates and the platforms of their parties (which in some cases diverge from their candidates’ stated positions).

Republicans and Democrats take different approaches on the subject of immigration. The Republican Party Platform supports border security and employment enforcement, but not amnesty or legalization, while McCain himself supports a pathway to citizenship, which he carefully terms as “addressing the undocumented.” The Democratic Party Platform supports comprehensive immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship, but remained silent on the border fence, while Obama and Biden both initially supported the border fence and additional security, while remaining fairly quiet on the subject today. On these issues where the candidates adopt a stance different from their respective party’s stance, the candidates actually meet.

I thought their concluding comments about the politics and policy significance of immigration were particularly apt:

Immigration is such a hot-button issue that many have compared it to a downed power line, electrocuting anyone who touches it. One thing is for sure, the issue of immigration will not go away. Whether it gets addressed sooner or later, the immigration system remains desperately in need of reform, and so one hopes that no matter who is elected, it will gain the necessary attention it deserves.

Australia as a nation has a very different history to the USA – for better and worse – but there is much in this assessment from the pro-migrant blogosphere that has echoes we could draw on:

It’s obvious that Obama has tapped into a powerful vein of energy and emotion coursing just underneath our society’s skin. So many people want to believe that we can be better. The genius of the Obama campaign has been its ability to ignite and draw upon that widespread desire and idealism without getting caught up or pulled into the previous generation’s embittered battles and intractable stalemates. This isn’t a repudiation of what came before and what paved the way. It’s a fresh attempt to take previous high points and apply them to a new era. This doesn’t mean that I agree with all of Obama’s politics; it means that I understand, appreciate, and respect what he’s trying to do.

Along with tracking a lot of the polls, the site has also been tracking which candidate each of the major newspapers are officially endorsing. It’s unclear whether the editorial endorsement of a newspaper actually provides any benefit to a candidate, but the justifications some of them provide can still be interesting.

One newspaper to endorse Obama is the Chicago Tribune. In one sense this might seem to be no surprise, as it comes from his current home town in Illinois. But it is also the first time the paper has endorsed a Democrat Presidential nominee since it was founded in the 1840s, so it carries some significance (and has drawn a huge amount of reader feedback). They have seen him operate up close for longer than any other major media outlet, putting them in a good position to assess whether or not Obama is just a celebrity who is lacking in substance. They clearly think the opposite.

Many Americans say they’re uneasy about Obama. He’s pretty new to them.  We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.

The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics.

Not bad coming from an editorial page which describes itself is “a proponent of conservative principles.”

In a separate but also significant development in the USA for the cause of equality for lesbians and gay men, this story on DemConWatch notes that Jared Polis, the Democrat candidate for the second congressional district in Colorado, looks set to become the first openly gay man to be elected to the US Congress without already being an incumbent.  Other gay men have come out after being already elected, and then been successful getting re-elected, but he will reportedly be the first to be openly gay prior to being elected the first time.

The current incumbent for the Colorado Second district, Mark Udall, is contesting a Senate spot this time (and in with a good chance of making this a Democrat gain from the Republicans). The district is considered a safe Democrat one, making Polis a safe bet to win the open seat. Of course, he had to triumph in the Democrat primary first to be the party’s nominee in this seat.  As far as I am aware, no openly gay man or woman has won a seat in the single member electorates which constitute Australia’s House of Representatives.

Among the many idiosyncracies of the process used to elect the President of the USA is the fact that each state has different laws governing the process, which means there is a wide variation in different parts of the country on things like who is eligible to vote, how they vote and when they vote.  And of course the whole process in each state is overseen by politically partisan officials.

This site shows the wide variations in the laws of each state regarding early and absentee voting.  It states that 31 states allow no-excuse pre-Election Day in-person voting – either early voting on a voting machine or in-person absentee voting; 4 states and the District of Columbia require an excuse for in-person absentee voting and 16 states do not allow early or in-person absentee voting.

In 1 state (Oregon) all voting is by mail.