Since the advent of the modern American conservative moment in the wake of President Ronald Reagan's 1980 election, the term "common sense conservative" has been a part of our political discourse. During her slow slide towards eventual irrelevancy, 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin asserted that she was a "common sense conservative." Her running mate, Senator John McCain, delivered a speech to GOPAC in Washington in November 2006 in which he proclaimed that most Americans prefer "common sense conservatism" to the "alternative." Last December, the College Conservative penned an op-ed in which they argued that the Republican Party needed to return to Reagan's "common sense conservatism." The thinking behind the formulation of this phrase is that if a basic set of poll-tested conservative Republican solutions to our nation's most pressing dilemmas were presented in an easy to understand, reasonable, and pragmatic manner, the country would be supportive of these ideas. There was no need to be a radical right-winger the likes of Senator James Inhofe or Congressman Steve Stockman. Be a pragmatic but principled conservative appealing to what is in the public interest, rather than to explicitly appealing to the base, and you'll win elections. This formula helped Republicans - and more moderate Democrats co-opting Republican ideas (Bill Clinton) - win many elections but as the GOP moved even further right to where they were in the Reagan years and their solutions were discredited, the pattern broke.
In 2006, Democrats won back control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years on a platform of opposition to the policies of President George W. Bush. In 2008 and 2012, Americans elected Barack Obama to the presidency after he ran on campaign platforms that included raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, investing in infrastructure, ending the wars in Iraq (an '08 pledge) and Afghanistan (a '12 pledge), reforming health care, and expanding gay rights. Well aware of the left of center agenda of the Democrats and Obama, the country put the Dems in control of Congress and elected Obama by comfortable margins in two consecutive elections - a 365-173 electoral win and 53%-46% popular vote margin in 2008 followed by a 332-206 electoral victory and 51%-47% popular vote advantage in 2012. Consequently, even conservatives like Sen. McCain, who said that in that 2006 GOPAC speech that America was still a "right of center" country, resigned themselves to the fact that that talking point was no longer applicable after 2012. The morning after the 2012 election, Sean Hannity (desirively) declared that the American people "now deserve Barack Obama" because more than half of them "took a look at his...agenda" and said they approved of it. Charles Krauthammer, the conservative columnist, said on Inauguration Day that "Reaganism is dead." The Weekly Standard's Matthew Continentti said much the same as well. Why is this the case? It is becuase President Obama has been able to successfully sell progressive policies with a pragmatic touch in a common sense, easy to understand manner. While this has not been true for some specific legislation - notably, Obamacare - it is true in broad brush strokes considering the large majorities of Americans that agree with Obama's most notable proposals for his second term.
In his State of the Union address, Obama portrayed himself as that kind of common sense progressive that the Democratic Party longed for when they were in the wilderness as the GOP won elections. He embraced raising the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour - a left of center policy proposal, one that would certainly help ease income inequality and increase GDP as the wage-earners go out and spend that hard-earned money, that has support from 80 percent of Americans. He called for investing in high speed rail - a smart proposal that would lessen our dependence on gas-guzzling vehicles and create potentially millions of new jobs and strongly boost the economy - an idea that also has broad public support. Check out a recent Guardian article touring how a high speed rail network would be enormously beneficial for America. The President firmly declared that "Gabby Giffords...and the families of Newton and Aurora..deserve a simple vote," appealing to the emotional core of what is at stake in the gun debate in a way most Americans can resonate with and backing policies like universal background checks, which has the support of over 95 percent of Americans in public opinion polling. Even the assault weapons ban polls at over 50 percent support in recent polling. Obama called for government action to address climate change -- an idea with over 60 percent support in a recent poll, according to The Huffington Post. The President ambitiously laid out a proposal to make preschool education universal - an investment that would ensure those kids grow up to become productive members of society and would lessen future government spending on prisons and safety net programs because of that initial investment. This proposal has wide public support too and even GOP Senator Johnny Issakson says it's a "good" idea as long as it is paid for in some way. Finally, Obama also put his full support behind comprehensive immigration reform including a path to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants - a plan that is clearly not only reasonable and pragmatic when balanced with strong border security but one that the 2012 election proved was an election year winner. Even John McCain is saying that the party needs to support this reform because of the growing Latino population and the political realities of that change.
The Barack Obama that Americans saw last Tuesday night was a common sense progressive. He was a president clearly buoyed and strengthened by a convincing reelection and ready to take on a bold and liberal agenda - one that, while left of center, is backed by most Americans. The solutions are in many ways common sense in that they are reasonable, pragmatic, and have a history of proven success with statistics and real evidence to support the arguments behind them. America appears ready to embrace this agenda and that's a good thing because as Ezra Klein said, just "imagine" the country we would have would all of these policy items become reality. It'd the kind of nation that President Obama could rightfully say he left better than he found it after eight years in office.
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