The Age of Obama

　　The 'Decade of Greed,' etc., R.I.P.

　　By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

　　OCTOBER 29, 2008

　　Nineteen eighty-two was a lucky time (as your columnist can attest) to be leaving college. Whatever faults various authorities find in the "decade of greed," which was followed by another decade of greed, it marked the start of 25 years of exceptional prosperity and opportunity. Freer trade and the epochal joining of a couple billion Chinese and others into the global division of labor played a role. The ideas of Reagan and Thatcher, bringing the private sector back to a place of honor, played a role.

　　Is the age of Obama the beginning of a less golden age? We cast no aspersion on the man or his program. Mr. Obama, in his short career, has not strongly associated himself with any policy idea. His relation to his own proposals during the campaign has been pleasantly noncommittal, if generally liberal (as voters and the media are only now getting around to noticing).

　　His rise offers little insight either. His Senate primary and general election races were smoothed by the serendipitous bowing out of formidable opponents in each case, in divorce-related "scandals." His presidential hopes have been turned overnight into landslide hopes by a financial crisis that has left the public angry and confused, though not one that plays to any expertise of Mr. Obama's.

　　Yet if he wins next week, it could be with a sweeping mandate to decide, er, what his mandate will be. He's a presidential vehicle perfectly designed, or self-designed, to be driven by history, rather than driving it. And he comes just at the moment when, overnight, crashing down is just about every normal restraint against intrusive, redistributing, regulating government.

　　This is the door the remarkable Mr. Obama is about to waltz through.

　　In a two-party system, both parties need to be capable of governing, of having some long view of the central challenge -- which, arguably, in our case remains the financing challenge of the American welfare state. John McCain may not be much of an economist and hasn't adopted the "ownership society" as his slogan, but his health-care plan falls right in with tradition on the center right -- a spectrum that once included Bill Clinton -- of invoking a new role for individual responsibility and individual choice in making the welfare state work.

　　Democrats, in contrast, never really tell us where they want us to go. That hasn't been the Democratic way and Mr. Obama, in this, is a perfect Democrat -- as opaque on the big question as his party has been. Al Gore let on that he favored a single payer health-care system only two years after he lost the White House. Politics -- simple politics -- instead has been Democrats' governing philosophy, and Mr. Obama is, again, the perfect heir.
　In an interesting piece of work, economist Henning Bohn has forecast the future voting propensities of an aging electorate based on two things: how much in taxes a median voter would expect to pay until retirement, and the present value of his or her expected Social Security and Medicare benefits.

　　His conclusion: It will make financial sense for the median voter to vote for higher taxes on his remaining working years and on younger people in order to secure his benefits.

　　If he's right, Democrats need to say only one thing when running for office -- and that's nothing intelligible about the funding dilemma of the welfare state or the need to address it. Mr. Obama has evidently learned his politics well. This week, he told Time Magazine's Joe Klein that, after the current financial crisis, "a new energy economy . . . That's going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office."

　　This is a cipher, an air sandwich. Mr. Obama here affords himself a placeholder for a priority to be named later. He knows that such impractical, centrally planned "energy revolutions" have been preached by candidates and op-ed writers for decades, only to be forgotten after inauguration day in favor of less rhetorical agendas.

　　Mr. Obama's knack for eliciting pleasing feelings of self-regard in his followers is certainly a political virtue. (That so many of John McCain's supporters must hold their noses is, in its way, the equal and opposite virtue.) More than that, the vagueness of Mr. Obama's governing philosophy is a natural fit for a party that has long been wedded to the strategy that you get where you're going (a bigger welfare state) by not saying where you're going.

　　安息吧，“贪婪的十年”

　　By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

　　OCTOBER 29, 2008

　　1982年可是个离开大学的幸运时间（您的专栏作家可以证明这一点）。不论有关专家在这“贪婪的十年”里发现什么瑕疵，而且其后另一个贪婪的十年又接踵而来，它开启了一个25年异常繁荣和充满机会的时代。更加自由的贸易，几十亿中国人和其他国家的人划时代地加入全球劳动大军，发挥了作用。里根和撒切尔让私有行业重归荣耀的主张也发挥了作用。

　　奥巴马时代会是黄金成色开始褪色的时代吗？我们无意诽谤这个人或他的计划，然而奥巴马先生在他短暂的职业生涯里，从未对任何政策主张表现过强烈支持的态度。在选战期间他对自己的个人主张的表述给人的感觉一直是八面玲珑、态度暧昧，如果大体上看是主张变革的（正如选民和媒体直到现在才开始注意到）。

　　他的崛起也没有多少玄机了。由于强大对手的意外放弃和离婚“丑闻”，他的参议院初选和大选角逐可以说是一片坦途。他的总统希望由于一场让公众感到愤怒和困惑的金融危机而有望一夜之间获得压倒性胜利，尽管这场危机没有考验过奥巴马的任何才能。

　　然而如果他在下周的大选中获胜，可能就会出台一系列内容广泛的政令，这样就可以知道他的政令将是怎样的了。他是个完美设计或自我设计的总统机器，由时势所造，而不是去驾驭它。当突然爆发的经济崩溃按惯例将要对政府实施干预、重新分配和监管政策形成遏制时，他就横空出世了。

　　这是神奇的奥巴马先生正要跳着华尔兹顺利通过的大门。

　　在两党体系下，两个党都需要具备统治力，要能够对核心挑战提出长远观点，而值得商榷的是，在我们这种情况下，这种核心挑战仅剩下对美国福利国家地位的金融挑战。约翰·麦凯恩可能不是个好的经济学家，也没有接受“所有权社会”作为自己的口号，但是他的卫生保健计划正好符合了中右传统，这一传统的范围曾经包括了比尔·克林顿，它主张在保持福利国家正常运转的过程中为个人责任和个人选择赋予新的角色。

　　相比之下，民主党实际上从来没有告诉我们他们希望我们何去何从。这可不是惯常的民主作风，而奥巴马先生由于和他的党一样对重大问题态度模糊而成了完美的民主党人。艾尔·戈尔直到在争夺白宫总统宝座失利两年后，才透露说他支持一个单一付款人的卫生健康系统。权术，仅仅是权术，取而代之成为民主党的统治哲学，而奥巴马又正是其最佳继承者。

　　在一篇有趣的文章中，经济学家海宁·波恩基于以下两点对逐渐老龄化的选民的未来投票倾向进行了预测：中间年龄段的选民预期到退休前将支付的税款，他或她预期将获得的社会保险和医疗保险的现值。

　　他的结论是：如果中间年龄段的选民为了确保自己的利益而选择投票支持对他的剩余工作年限和对更年轻的人征收更高的税，那从金融方面是讲得通的。
如果他是对的，民主党人在竞选公职时只需说一件事情- 这个福利国家的融资困境不是那么容易理解的，无需多言。奥巴马先生显然深悟此道。本周他告诉时代杂志的乔·克莱恩，在现在的金融危机结束之后，“一个新的能源经济…将成为我就职后首先要考虑的事情。”

　　这等于零，一个空中三明治。在这一点上奥巴马先生为自己日后才会公布的优先权留了一个预留位置。他知道尽管这样一个不切实际、自上而下设计的“能源革命”被历届总统候选人和时事评论者鼓吹了几十年了，总统就职日一过它就会被忘掉，取而代之的是不那么华丽浮夸的议事日程。

　　奥巴马先生激发其追随者自我关注的满足感的本事无疑是个政治美德。(让约翰·麦凯恩的支持者肯定会捂住鼻子的是，这本身就是个南辕北辙自相矛盾的美德。) 不仅如此，奥巴马先生统治哲学的暧昧含糊天然就适合一个长期以来奉行走一步看一步战略（比如一个更大的福利国家）的党，而不告诉你们到底往哪里走。

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