The dust is settling, the polls are dimming, and the election junkies are going through withdrawals--we are, believe me. What to do with the ashes of this election and the seeds of the upcoming Obama presidency? What else, but speculate!
The election of Barack Obama is not limited to a change of party in power. This is almost an afterthought, since Barack never really embodied a Democratic mantra as much as he did a Liberal tag. Neither ever delineated his appeal or approach. As a founding member of pragmatic progressivism, President-elect Obama has an opportunity to sit on a throne brimmed with unprecedented power, supported by new momentous alliances, and responding to a hunger for reform and innovation not seen since 1932.
Barack Obama changed the way people voted during a time of crisis. For the first time ever, a new president from a party that was not the incumbent's will assume office during a time of war. Not since FDR won has a president from a non-incumbent party triumphed in a time of financial crisis with such a astounding political mandate.
A Southern Strategy, where some Southern appeal was needed by a Democratic presidential candidate in order to be competitive, is now nothing more than a monument to the past 40 years. Barack won three Southern states, while losing the rest by a larger margin than Kerry lost in 2004. And still he obtained a technical landslide in the popular vote, and a sweeping electoral vote count. No longer is an intellectual, an unaccented, or a man of non-Southern roots (vis a vis Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton) an immediate underdog in a contest with the fully Southernized Republican party.
Barack changed demographic alliances (obtaining a higher percentage of the while male vote of than any Democratic candidate in decades), electoral maps (turning Red States into Swing States, and Swing States into Blue States), and the qualifications of a candidate (no longer do they have to be WASPs, or Washington fixtures, or of a wealthy upbringing). Barack, before even washing his hand to take the oath on the Bible, has changed American politics forever.
With his diverse support base and an endorsement by the people that stretches evenly throughout the nation, Barack is entering his term as the most powerful president ever. One thing Barack has to thank George Bush for (not many to count, I am sure) is the expansion of presidential powers he has bequeathed him thanks to his crony lawyers and his bossy nature toward Congress. Sheaves of legal arguments ranging from torture to military courts to international agreements produced by Bush loyalists are now the custody of Barack Obama. A bullied Congress, lurching at the beck and call of the President, is now the property of Barack Obama. If Barack learns how to wield the sword, he will have the best chances of slaying the mightiest of dragons.
Barack has power, a political mandate, and the urgency a crisis and war provide to use at his disposal. He can either become a run of the mill president who muddles through crises and makes some modest changes to our politics and policy, like Nixon or Carter, vulnerable to having his weak legacy contested by the following generations. Or he can flex his will and skill and attempt greatness, and possibly achieve it just like Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, or Ronald Reagan did. Their legacies were strong went they left office, and have become a thing of veneration ever since by those who agree and disagree with them. Barack already has a generation rapt and ready to chip in. JFK had the same problem/opportunity. If he takes note (which I am sure he has, as the lover of history that he is), Obama will wield that double-edged sword with skill. He can change the horizon, as he has changed our expectations, but only if he makes change a virtue and not just a slogan.
lhp
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