As we prepare to escort 2008 into the history books tonight, a little reflection on an extraordinary year is in order. Of course, each year has its share of drama, intrigue, tragedy and comedy. But 2008, if only because it was the first presidential election year since 1928 in which no sitting president or vice-president was on the ballot in November, provided unparalleled political spectacle.
That spectacle included a most improbable scenario — a half-Kenyan, half-Kansan political neophyte, whose pinnacle of fame to date had been delivering an inspiring speech at a political convention four years earlier — emerged the winner in a grueling primary race. Then, shattering centuries of shameful bigotry, he was elected president. Along the way, the unusually engaged electorate witnessed a litany of firsts. It was the first time in modern history that both major party candidates were sitting senators. The first time the Republican party nominated a woman for vice-president. The first time a former first lady was a contender for the White House. The first time since Watergate that a major party candidate refused public financing. And the first time in modern history that a candidate commanded crowds of 100,000 at his rallies.
Even with all that history being made, economic developments in the fall forced us to look back to the recessions of 1991 and 1981 and even to the Great Depression of the 1930s. At the end of last year, the American Dialect Society named the term “subprime” as its “word of the year” for 2007, but the fallout from the bad mortgages for which subprime was coined hit the fan in 2008. Those bad mortgages, aided by sharply higher energy costs and deficit spending by the federal government, contributed to a lending slowdown that in turn chilled Wall Street, and the world’s economies.
Another phrase, “too big to fail,” became the currency of negotiations between private businesses and the federal government. Some, like brokerage houses Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns, were apparently not too big to fail. For others, the federal government came to the rescue — in theory, anyway — crafting an unprecedented $700 billion bailout plan that has just begun seeping into the soil of the U.S. economy.
If you hadn’t bitten on one of those too-good-to-be-true mortgages, you felt another kind of economic pain this year, as gas prices climbed as high as $4.50 a gallon in midsummer. The high fuel prices in turn affected grocery prices, so disposable income became less disposable, and the downward spiral gained momentum. But just in time to free some of that disposable income for Christmas shopping, gas dropped to $1.70 a gallon in the late fall.
As bleak as things looked in the U.S., disaster and tragedy elsewhere in the world put things in perspective at home. China experienced an earthquake that claimed 70,000 lives, and a cyclone in Myanmar took 130,000 lives, though the military dictatorship did its best to keep the disaster an internal matter. In the wake of the assassination of a reform presidential candidate in Pakistan, the sitting president, Pervez Musharraf, resigned in the face of impeachment threats. And 20 years after the Cold War ended, Russian troops moved into South Ossetia, triggering tough talk about potential U.S. response.
It wasn’t all bad news. Violence in Iraq, particularly that aimed at American troops, declined, and most observers credited the “surge” in troop strength. Candidate Barack Obama and others suggested a similar strategy for the other U.S. war in Afghanistan. And in Beijing, China, American Michael Phelps swam his way to an unprecedented eight gold medals.
Also in the sports world, Mainers saw the highs and lows. The New England Patriots ended their undefeated year by losing the Super Bowl to a dreaded New York team, but the Boston Celtics returned to their glory years, hanging their 17th championship banner from the rafters.
While Maine’s Democratic governor completed his sixth year in office overseeing a balancing of a state budget that faced a $90 million shortfall, two other Democratic governors provided fodder for late night talk show hosts. New York’s Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned after the FBI claimed it had evidence he was patronizing high-priced prostitutes, and then Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was implicated, the FBI asserts, in trying to sell his appointment to the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama.
The biggest question looming over the passage of 2008 into 2009 is probably one that is cast in the negative: Have we seen the worst? Has the economy bottomed out, and begun to recover? Or does the coming year hold tougher challenges?
One thing is certain, and that is change. Whether it is the cleansing change promised by our soon-to-be new president, or more of the above, only time will tell.