High anxiety

I think Ambinder is more or less correct here.

There is absolutely a generational component to the anxiety. Three generations of Democratic activists view the possibility of Obama's election through different lenses; the first came of age in the 60s and 70s before the flowering of modern conservatism and the triumph of Nixonian resentment politics. The second rose to power with the election of Bill Clinton, and today, they approach politics with instincts as developed in the 1992 campaign and refined by Clintoncare, the government shutdown and the Monica Lewinsky affair -- careful, wily, programmatic, triangulatish, risk-averse, incremental. The third generation rejects all of that, believing that such caution kicked the legs out from under the Democratic Party. This generation rejects baby steps in favor of bold, often populist action; they reject the notion that the default liberal ideology cannot be majoritarian.

Who's right? Well, the Reagan revolution is no longer the dominant political environment. But did Americans really know what they were voting for in 2008? Didn't Democrats win the last two election's because the Republican party imploded, not because the political pendulum swung to the left.

I actually have a position on this one. I think the country is moving to the left. I think that demography and globalization are providing the momentum, and I think that, like the apparent retrogression of planets in orbit, there will be inevitably some backsliding as the American people adjust to the new equilibrium.

Though I'm not sure there is such a clear generational delineation. I became politically aware in the 70s, retired to a cave in the 80s, and became politically active in the 90s. But the lessons I took from that last decade was that it was a grave mistake to be risk-averse and tentative while a good thing to be pragmatic. And I think Obama learned a similar lesson.

And I think the voters -- both for and against Obama -- did understand what they were getting. How could they not? Even if they weren't listening to him -- either because of gushing fawnitude or fingers in the ears Ican'thearyoulalalala -- there was some McCain supporter on the teevee every night calling him a terrorist-loving socialist.

Of course, after the election the pragmatic aspect gave Republicans cause to think that he was secretly one of them and gave the Left the quivers, but he really never wavered in what he said he was committed to doing.

Here's to what should continue to be interesting times.

UPDATE: Oh, and forgot to mention this and this.