Okay, I Didn't Take the Whole Day Off...

I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's Comment is free America about some of the conventional wisdom that should go the way of the dodo in the wake of Obama's victory:

And while we're at it, there's one more bit of conventional wisdom I'd like to dispatch to the nevermore: any suggestion that more democracy is somehow bad.

Hillary Clinton was not mentioned much tonight; she wasn't on Obama's list of thank-yous, but she probably should have been. Despite the frenetic din of pleading, scolding, haranguing, begging, admonishing and outright mockery that was aimed at Clinton during the primary as she stubbornly refused to concede a primary that she hadn't actually lost, and despite the grim hand-wringing that a long primary would irreparably damage presumed nominee Obama, none of the grave warnings of the take-your-boobs-and-go-homers came to fruition. In fact, by engaging late-primary states like Indiana which haven't helped choose a nominee in decades, the extended primary actually helped wake up Obama voters sooner than usual. It forced them to pay attention to the minutiae of Democratic policies early in the election, and gave the Obama campaign the opportunity to test and perfect its ground operation. The result? Indiana is blue for the first time in 40 years.

Maude knows if Obama had lost, Clinton would be to blame. So a little credit where credit is due. Hillary ought to get a bit of the acclaim now that Obama has won. She was a tough competitor – and Obama emerged from his primary ready for a challenge, while McCain emerged from his as the hapless default victor of a dismal field of candidates, not the strongest contender, just the only dude left standing when the rest fell away. He was the best of a bad lot. The Democratic primary was a rigorous gauntlet that transformed the already effective Obama campaign into an unstoppable machine. The Republican primary was a clown car that picked up the McCain campaign in Disarrayville and dropped it off at Mount Meltdown.

More democracy was good for Obama, good for the Democrats, good for everyone who voted for him in the general election. Let us never suggest again that better candidates are forged in less democracy.

Read the whole thing here.