THE WINDS OF CHANGE ★^1135of out- of- work persons even qualify for unemployment insurance, and it runs
out after a few months. The abolition of “welfare” (the national obligation
to assist the neediest Americans) during the Clinton administration left the
American safety net a patchwork of a few national programs like food stamps,
supplemented by locally administered aid. The poor were dependent on aid
from the states, which found their budgets collapsing as revenues from prop-
erty and sales taxes dried up. Hard- pressed for cash, states used their ability to
turn away applicants, greatly enhanced by the welfare reform of the 1990s, to
save money. In 2012, only one in five poor children received cash aid, the lowest
percentage in half a century.
The 2008 Campaign
In 2008, Barack Obama faced Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee,
in the general election. At age seventy- two, McCain was the oldest man ever to
run for president. He surprised virtually everyone by choosing as his running
mate Sarah Palin, the little- known governor of Alaska, in part as an attempt
to woo Democratic women disappointed at their party’s rejection of Hillary
Clinton, who had sought the Democratic nomination. Palin quickly went on
the attack, accusing Democrats of being unpatriotic, lacking traditional values,
and not representing the “real America.” This proved extremely popular with
the Republican Party’s conservative base. But her performances in speeches
and interviews soon made it clear that she lacked familiarity with many of the
domestic and foreign issues a new administration would confront. Her selec-
tion raised questions among many Americans about McCain’s judgment.
But the main obstacles for the McCain campaign were President Bush’s low
popularity and the financial crisis that reached bottom in September and Octo-
ber. Obama’s promise of change seemed more appealing than ever. On elec-
tion day, he swept to victory with 53 percent of the popular vote and a large
majority in the electoral college. His election redrew the nation’s political map.
Obama carried not only Democratic strongholds in New England, the mid-
Atlantic states, the industrial Midwest, and the West Coast but also states that
had been reliably Republican for years. He cracked the solid South, winning Vir-
ginia, North Carolina, and Florida. He did extremely well in suburbs through-
out the country. He even carried Indiana, where Bush had garnered 60 percent
of the vote in 2004, but which now was hard hit by unemployment. Obama
put together a real “rainbow” coalition, winning nearly the entire black vote
and a large majority of Hispanics (who helped him to carry Colorado, Nevada,
and Florida). He did exceptionally well among young voters. Obama carried
every age group except persons over sixty- five. Thus, he was elected even
though he received only 43 percent of the nation’s white vote.
What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term?