President-Elect Obama went to see his new digs today. Anyone who sees the video or still images of the two couples meeting can’t help but comprehend the uniqueness of the sight. Not only are the visual images of the two Presidents different but could the ideology of the two men be any farther apart? With the economy in shambles, the foreign policy a disaster and the current American leader effectively neutered, is there anyone out there who would just as soon see Obama become President, say, yesterday? I would make a hunch that even those who didn’t vote for Obama would like to see him President sooner rather than later just to get on with it. Gallup issued a poll today that contained the clearest indication of what a folly President Bush’s administration is. In the history of Gallup tracking no President, not Truman and his seemingly endless Korean War, not even Carter following economic woes and the Iran hostage crisis dipped as low as President Bush. President Bush now stands at 27% approval (For some reason Nixon’s favorability rating was not listed on the Gallup poll). As the economy melts down around us we are forced to endure a lame duck period which seems to have gone on for four years now with the exception of Iraq.

We are starting to get a hint at what Obama wishes to do when he becomes President. As is usual, the executive orders that were signed by Bush will be reviewed. It appears the ban on government funded stem cell research will be ended. We can only hope that science will now be king again. Bush is planning on opening up more areas for drilling, principally areas of Utah with an executive order. Obama will surely shut this down. The crazy Republican chant of “Drill Baby Drill” will go the way of Dick Cheney. Obama has also addressed the possibility of closing Guantanamo as an enemy detention center. As a Constitutional law professor Obama has a unique understanding of the complexities of the situation.

But it is the economy that is dominating the Obama timetable. Usually, winners of Presidential elections take a couple months before they begin filling their cabinets. President-Elect Obama has already begun to fill his. All indications is he plans to hit the road running on January 20th. As a student of history, Obama, by all indications, comprehends the errors made by the Clinton Administration in their early going and will do all he can to avoid similar missteps. For example, Clinton took his time naming his cabinet and quickly became embroiled in the debate over gays in the military while dealing with a changing situation in Somalia that led to poor decisions and withdrawal.

There is little doubt Obama will have one key asset. He will go into office as the most popular President perhaps in the history of the United States in terms of world perception. Even in the US he has a 70% favorability rating. How long it will last is anyone’s guess but with two wars to fight I’m sure some of Obama’s actions as a wartime President will not always jive with the wider world. But Obama has a wonderful opportunity to bring in allies to put pressure on the those who endanger us. As Thomas Friedman eloquently says, Obama must get the world to “show us the money“. Patting the new President on the back and smiling will not be sufficient under the current political global climate. It seems like with all the problems that face our nation and the world there are many that just want to get on with it. Maybe we should ask DSL and Circuit City workers how they feel about the effectiveness of a lame duck period.

There were some amazing images from Tuesday night. As a liberal I cannot remember a more memorable positive political night than November 4th. The feeling of joy from Chicago, to the White House gate, to my house, to London and beyond were sights I would never forget. It was like waking from the most horrible nightmare to realize I am 10 years old and it is Christmas morning.

The 2008 election was a repudiation of the Bush Presidency and everything it stood for. For a junior Black Senator to win the highest office in the land required a perfect storm. It was no narrow victory, either. Barack Obama won 53% of the vote. Ronald Reagan in 1980 won just under 51% (granted Reagan cleaned up on the electoral college map).  The 2008 electoral map is very revealing. By stretching the playing field Obama was able to seize all but the Deep South, Western Appalachia, the Prairie Midwest (with Missouri being on the fault line), and the underpopulated Mountain States plus Arizona. Is this the result of a poor campaign run by McCain or does it reveal the diminishing support of the Republican party? Only time will tell. The result of the vote, no doubt, was largely influenced by the economy. And finally there is Sarah Palin. That darling of the anti-intellectual right wing so epitomized by Joe the Plumber found a way to spend campaign dough that nearly matched the “Bridge to nowhere” earmark. McCain’s selection of the Alaska Governor was a disaster. Not only was she ill prepared for the job but she didn’t have the political savvy to follow a game plan.

One is seeing in these days what a serious person Obama is. One would think after a grueling campaign that lasted 21 months he would be on some Hawaiian beach somewhere but the President-elect has not slowed down a bit. He is now privy to all the highly classified information that a sitting President receives. After an intelligence briefing he met with key figures to begin working out a way to approach the economic mess he will inherit. As I have always said about voting for Obama, you begin with smarts and you go from there.

Tonight Barack Obama spoke in front of a throng of supporters in Manassas, Virginia. There is significant symbolism to both the occasion and the location. Manassas was the site of the first land battle fought during the War Between the States; the most violent conflict in American history and the event that began the long process of creating a society that would better perfect the founding documents; the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. The fact that Barack Obama had gathered the night before the election in Virginia speaks volumes about this election. The last time Virginia voted for a Democratic nominee for president was in 1964 for Lyndon Johnson of Texas who would go on to sign the Civil Rights Act that ensured the fracturing of the Democratic Party. Neither Jimmy Carter in 1976 nor Bill Clinton were able to carry the state despite their geographic affiliation. In 2008 a Black man is on the precipice of of taking a state that is the home of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both slave holders and was the location of the capital of the Confederate States of America in Richmond. To look at that huge crowd that had gathered to hear the northern politician speak and understand the historical significance of time and space should make you proud to be an American no matter your party affiliation.

As you prepare to go to the polls I make one final appeal to assuage your vote; one final attempt to influence you to vote for Obama during this election.

1. Of the two candidates who is the smartest man to extract us from the problems that face this nation?
2. Barack Obama is loyal to both his wife and his two children. Those who rightly found Bill Clinton’s dalliances objectionable should look long and hard at the marital history of the two candidates.
3. The foreign policy problems that face this nation cannot be solved unilaterally. With the world holding its breath in anticipation of a Barack Obama victory, we may be able to hit the reset button on the affection and support this nation experienced following 9-11. Barack Obama will have unprecedented international support to begin his presidency; something that will be greatly needed in the wake of economic woes and ballooning national debt.
4. Barack Obama’s middle name has been a negative during this campaign but it may be an ace in the hole when dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Since Clinton and his foreign policy team were inches away from drafting a peace deal in the twilight of his administration, perhaps a renewed vigor from an Obama administration can do what no president has been able to do in the region.
5. Barack Obama’s favorite book is Team of Rivals, a book about Abraham Lincoln and the people who Lincoln surrounded himself with that would go on to help him win the Civil War, people who had once run against him for the presidency. Obama has promised to create a bi-partisan cabinet. I hold him at his word.
6. Barack Obama has never openly courted the Black vote. He has run an inclusive campaign but anyone who has been paying attention knows the weight African Americans are putting on this election. It is said the Black electorate tomorrow will be off the charts. Obama’s calls for Blacks to take responsibility in their lives and the mere role model he represents will at the very least force the community to take a long hard look at themselves.
7. Finally, the fact this nation elected a minority as President will send a signal to the world like no other that the America they always loved and admired once again is the beacon of freedom and liberty and not torture and war. Obama will be a symbol of that like no other man we could have elected.

Whatever your preference please get out and vote tomorrow. It is the greatest symbol of love and acknowledgement you can give for the sacrifice of those who have given their all for this great nation and for what it represents.

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I would like all my readers to post who they think will win tomorrow and what the electoral college tally will be. You can go to the following website to play around with the electoral college map:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/

It should be no surprise that  I predict an Obama victory. My guess is Obama 332, McCain 206. Of the battleground states I think Obama will win Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Nevada. McCain will take Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri.

Let’s hear what you have to say.

When I was in the Peace Corps a volunteer friend of mine received a subscription to a magazine called The Economist. I remember asking him about the periodical and he said, well it is a right wing magazine but the articles are real good. I have since checked out their web site from time to time and tonight I clicked on over and what did I see? The Economist is endorsing Barack Obama. The right wing magazine is endorsing the socialist, pinko commie, terrorist comrade. Outside of Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Alaska Daily News endorsing the Democratic candidate, this may be the most surprising.

The Economist

It’s Time

IT IS impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be. Back in 2000 America stood tall as the undisputed superpower, at peace with a generally admiring world. The main argument was over what to do with the federal government’s huge budget surplus. Nobody foresaw the seismic events of the next eight years. When Americans go to the polls next week the mood will be very different. The United States is unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its self-belief and values are under attack.

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Tonight I was checking my daily news sources and came across the headline on the Drudge Report. Is Obama Marxist? was the big header. Vice President Joe Biden was interviewed by one of those local shock factor news stations and the anchor was grilling the Senator with a series of harshly worded questions. It really has to be seen to be believed and I’m sure the right wingers were digging the nature of the questions but if they watch closely they will see how a true professional addresses each and every question. The real issue of this interview is how would Sarah Palin fare under such a grilling? My guess is she would melt like Alaska snow in the Miami sunshine if a radical left wing host would go at her with the same vigor as this anchor goes after Biden. I have to say, Joe Biden shows great restraint in dealing with such ridiculous questions.

It is hard to understand when Obama wishes to cut taxes on the middle class, the right sees socialism or even Marxism in the proposal. Bush cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans in 2000 and no one called him a Marxist for spreading the wealth upward. Now that Obama wishes to dial back those tax cuts and apply them to those of us who need it most all of a sudden it is socialism. Anyone who has studied modern history knows one of the greatest causes of the Great Depression was the uneven distribution of wealth. The tax policies introduced by Ronald Reagan with his “voodoo economics” as George HW Bush called them (or trickle down economics as they are better known) and revitalized under the current administration has created an uber-wealthy in this nation and has gutted the middle class that was so vibrant in the decades following the Second World War. As the nation’s treasure now exits the country in the form of foreign wars and a significant amount finds its way to the nation’s ailing banks, the middle class will once again be the target of America’s recession as layoffs and unemployment grip this nation in the months and years ahead.

For John McCain to base his tax policy on the same schematic that George Bush uses is not only unfair but economic suicide. It makes as little sense as using a plumber named Sam who makes $40,000 a year as your campaign figurehead and saying he will most benefit from McCain’s plan and be most punished by Obama’s. In microcosm this is the fallacy that the Republicans have created to get average Americans to vote for their party. The irony is McCain is calling him Joe and addressing the issue like the man makes $250,000. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to use Joe the hedge fund manager as the ideal front for your campaign? Many people in the middle class whom I know would gladly do their patriotic duty (as Joe Biden says) and give up even their Obama tax cut if it meant eliminating the debt and winning the war faster so our boys can come home but unfortunately the Bush administration has so severely weakened this nation economically that the revenue generated from such a drastic step would not even balance the budget never mind chip away at the 10 plus trillion dollar deficit. The reality is we are already a socialist state. We stepped over that line when the government began buying interest in US banks. The true wave of what is occurring has yet to take hold in this country and I would just as soon have someone with the intelligence and temperament of Barack Obama as that of John McCain. After all when Bush leaves it will most likely be with a wink from Karl Marx and not from Sarah Palin.

General Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama is as close as you’re going to get to an apology. Since leaving his high profile job in the White House General Powell has never second guessed his role in the war. Then Secretary of State Powell was a central figure in the misguided runup to war against Iraq. His speech at the UN outlining bogus intelligence was a defining moment in those days leading to war. The image of Secretary Powell holding up a vile and schematic drawings of mobile weapons labs while CIA Director Tenant looked on are now infamous. Following the invasion of Iraq his “If you break it you own it” quote about Iraq rang all too true and the inside battles he waged against Vice President Cheney are well documented. His opposition to the manner in which the war was being run ultimately caused “The Decider” to make Powell and “outsider”. Colin Powell turned out to be the good soldier, however. No anti-Bush book was written, no acrimonious speeches were given. Powell simply faded away.

This morning on Meet the Press Colin Powell, in a respectful way, complimented McCain but endorsed Obama. He based his decision not to support McCain on the negative tone of McCain’s campaign and his poor choice of VP. His reason for supporting Obama were the Illinois Senator’s problem-solving skills and his transformative message. This is a signature moment since Powell is a Republican. It also is significant because Powell, as Mark Halpern of Time Magazine states, is “a brand unto himself” and is a different kind of endorsement. Many will discount the Powell endorsement simply due to race but if anyone thinks the issue of race is a part of the equation merely has to look at a former soldier who chose the Republican party despite the fact there are only a small sliver of African-Americans who make up its rolls.

What will be the impact of Powell’s choice? The former Secretary of State has said he will not campaign for Obama but it is assured Obama will have Powell’s ear in regard to foreign affairs. There also exists the possibility of Obama coercing Powell to join his cabinet if he wins despite Powell’s admission on Sunday that he has no intention of reentering public life. Today’s announcement will surely consume a lot of oxygen these next few days, time the McCain camp needs to close the gap in the race with just over two weeks remaining. Perhaps Colin Powell will  have a chance to make amends for his role in moving this nation to war in 2003 by transforming the image of this nation around the world within an Obama administration. As Americans, we always hope for happy endings.

You always heard, back in 2000, that George Bush was a guy you could sit down and have a beer with. He was just like you. I thought then, as I think now, that this isn’t a quality that makes a good President. I was always looking for someone I knew was smarter than I am or someone who was inquisitive. In the 1990s and before 2001 we had the luxury of electing those who had significant flaws. With Clinton it was moral flaws. He was plenty smart enough and had tremendous political skills but that one flaw diminished the status of the office and torpedoed his potential Democratic successors chances. And then there is Bush, Jr who had so many flaws that his own party didn’t want him to attend the Republican convention. His brand is toxic. But we no longer have the luxury of electing an average president. The conservative columnist, David Brooks, has one of the most eloquent articles I have read in sometime about what is wrong with his party and how the decisions they have made has harmed the country:

September 16, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Why Experience Matters

By DAVID BROOKS

Philosophical debates arise at the oddest times, and in the heat of this election season, one is now rising in Republican ranks. The narrow question is this: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be vice president? Most conservatives say yes, on the grounds that something that feels so good could not possibly be wrong. But a few commentators, like George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum and Ross Douthat demur, suggesting in different ways that she is unready.

The issue starts with an evaluation of Palin, but does not end there. This argument also is over what qualities the country needs in a leader and what are the ultimate sources of wisdom.

There was a time when conservatives did not argue about this. Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement. Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said.

But, especially in America, there has always been a separate, populist, strain. For those in this school, book knowledge is suspect but practical knowledge is respected. The city is corrupting and the universities are kindergartens for overeducated fools.

The elitists favor sophistication, but the common-sense folk favor simplicity. The elitists favor deliberation, but the populists favor instinct.

This populist tendency produced the term-limits movement based on the belief that time in government destroys character but contact with grass-roots America gives one grounding in real life. And now it has produced Sarah Palin.

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The discourse among the McCain campaign has become angrier than that of the candidate himself. The clips from the stump speeches, especially Palin’s, border on ugly. After Palin’s ridiculous statements of Barack Obama having associations with radicals you could hear the most offensive things being shouted from the audience. “Kill him”, “traitor”, etc… Those who introduce Palin now take great pride in referring to Obama’s middle name to make him seem somehow unamerican.  It is obvious the McCain camp has tacked hard toward a negative campaign, hoping the race will turn in his favor through character assassination. This tactic has come from the most unlikely of sorts.

Lee Atwater was the driving force behind McCain’s faltering in the 2000 race by linking the Arizona Senator to an illegitimate Black baby (the baby in fact was a Bangladeshi child which Cindy McCain adopted and brought back from Asia). This tactic was utilized in South Carolina and would eventually give us the illustrious George Bush. They say time heals all wounds. Many people thought it was remarkable in 2004 when McCain campaigned with George Bush after the 2000 incident. But now we are seeing the essence of a man that prides himself on character. We are learning McCain’s time spent in the Hanoi Hilton did not create a moral man. When he returned from Vietnam he found a wife handicapped from a car accident while she waited for the POW to be released. He left her for an attractive wealthy heiress named Cindy Lou Hensley. And to trump it all he has hired the same Lee Atwater who brought down his campaign in 2000 with racist overtones. Are you seeing the picture clearly? So now you have the last desperate gamble from the heroic Vietnam veteran who has made character the central theme of the campaign even though we are facing some of the greatest challenges this nation has faced in sixty years. The Republicans are invoking the name Hussein, not just among the elite but among all loyal Republicans. The name itself is used to replace the N word. In my mind one’s birth name is no different than one’s skin color; it is something of which one has no control. And why would Senator Obama wish to change his name since the name Barack means Blessed and Hussein means Handsome? We can be sure that neither blessed nor handsome are terms that describe the nature of either McCain nor his campaign.

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Senator John McCain’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card

Senator Barack Obama’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card

Senator Joe Biden’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card

Senator Claire McCaskill’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card

Senator Kit Bond’s Veteran’s Affairs Report Card

The first debate is over and did we really learn anything new from the two candidates? Not in what they said. Anyone who has been following the race has heard both sides to the story. But there is one component of the debate that left me unsettled. Throughout the debate Senator McCain refused to look at Barack Obama; not when the Arizona Senator spoke about Obama and not when Obama was addressing Senator McCain’s stance. Why is that a big deal? Senator McCain speaks about his ability to reach across the aisle and make compromises. He rails about the climate in Washington; the partisan nature of politics. But in his first opportunity to express himself to the nation he looked down, out across the audience and at Jim Lehrer but never at Barack Obama, the leader of the party that he hopes one day to unite with his own to change Washington. This aspect of the debate should tell you more than you need to know about the self-proclaimed maverick. Never in my life have I seen such poor manners.

What was the tenor of the debate for Barack Obama? He engaged Senator McCain. He looked McCain squarely at his face, which the Arizona Senator kept fixed on the horizon. In the course of the debate Obama frequently eluded to points which he shared with McCain. A fact that McCain’s camp quickly seized on for political gain by making an advertisement saying Senator Obama takes McCain’s policies. But don’t we want a President who will unashamedly highlight the opposition party’s strengths in negotiations and debates while at the same time sticking to their key principles? Isn’t that the climate that we want to change in Washington?

If Senator McCain can’t make eye contact during a personal Presidential debate, what will be his stance with people in the Democratic party while he is President? For me, John McCain’s failure wasn’t so much in what he said, it was in his body language that spoke volumes. This should give everyone pause.