Brace yourself. It's going to be a rough several years.
What kind of president will Barack Obama be? As I have anticipated this night for the last several days, I've been frightened, very frightened, at the answer.
Americans have been through times like these before, 80 years ago, during the Great Depression. While most schoolkids learn that the great savior, FDR, rescued the United States through his public works, it was of course the industrial mobilization of World War II that pulled America out of a funk that was extended greatly by government intervention.
Those four terms changed our federal government from small, distant and unimportant to one that is now huge, bloated and very much a part of people’s lives. Even many Republicans ascribe to an interventionist form government. That is the danger we have now: an even greater extension of federal power.
Or is it? It was noted on Fox News tonight that Obama has always chosen the road easier travelled; bent in any way the wind was strongest. He made these choices down to his church, his friends, his donors – with a spirit of convenience that can only be derived from old-time city politics. Maybe running a diverse country will moderate his politics.
His track record belies none of this though. He has been unabashedly liberal both in the Illinois and US Senates. Will the easiest path for Obama be in following Reid and Pelosi? Will he outlaw conservative talk radio? Take away guns? Redistribute our wealth? If so, his first midterm will be as disastrous for him as Clinton’s was in 1994.
But in the end, we know none of these things. We’ve never had a president as new and as unknown as Barack Obama. And even though that’s very dangerous it will be even more dangerous if Republicans don’t act. And smartly. Republicans can’t afford to act like they did during FDR’s early years – shrill and disjointed, whiney and uncoordinated.
I can’t say the jury’s still out on Barack Obama – the jury was quite explicit today. But I do know there will be many actors trying to right the ship in these years to come. Be a part of it. Don’t let him get away with anything.
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written by Jay Golub , November 05, 2008
"Republicans can’t afford to act like they did during FDR’s early years – shrill and disjointed, whiney and uncoordinated. "
We can't? I thought all the things you listed above were McCain's campaign strategy.
I love the way the Democrats are already saying that Obama will have a hard time coming through on any of his campaign promises because "Bush" has left him such a bad economy.
This should really be fun...
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