PoliticalHeresy

Obama has set out to radically change the way we view politics and the presidential administration by bringing people into his government that are Washington outsiders, non-lobbyist and from both sides of the aisle, fulfilling his campaign promise to Americans of post-partisanship.

There are plenty of people out there still reporting on the history of Obama’s voting record and his past associations, etc.  Some of that might be important, but I think assembling a list of his new policies originating after the election would be much more interesting and informative.  I will try to keep an updated running list.

1.  America Serves
Obama will require middle school and high school students to serve 50 hours of community service and college students 100 hours of community service every year.  President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps.  He will also encourage retiring adults to serve.

With the appointment of Emmanuel Rahm as his chief  of staff, Barack Obama is quickly beginning to give definition to the way his administration will run and operate.  While running under the banner of post-partisan politics, Obama was able to garner the support of many who do not traditionally support the values which he has stood for through his voting record.  While the idea of ending partisanship is a noble idea in many circles, it quickly becomes a utopian-like holy grail of political operation.

While I have no misconceptions of the unreality of the elimination of partisanship, it seems that Obama must be careful in the appointment of the rest of his cabinet not to quickly lose all the centrist support that he worked so hard to acheive.  Rahm is quite well-known for his sharp and pointed attacks on the Republicans, as well as the ruthlessness with which he pursues his causes.  Provided that he will become one of if not the principal advisors in Obama’s Whitehouse, Emmanuel has the chance to take his personal ambitions and attacks to a whole new level, with no reason to believe that he will hold them within the check of post-partisanship.

As I have mentioned earlier, Obama’s career in politics has been defined by public opinion, only rivaled by his personal ambition.  With this in mind, the selection of Emmanuel, who is Jewish, makes complete sense considering the anti-Israeli sympathies that have often been espoused by the “radicals” with whom Obama has so often been associated.

It will now take a concerted effort in his appointments for his administration to rise above partisanship, by appointing several people with whom he does not necessarily agree…afterall this is what he has promised us.  A token effort of appointing Hagel and Lugar, both of whom had voiced their support for the Democratic ticket will not suffice.  What is needed is real bi-partisanship, the kind that made Abraham Lincoln a great president.  The appointment of actual conservatives with whom the heart of the Republican party can identify is the only way that he will gain the respect and the support of both sides of the aisle. 

I, for one, will be more than a little surprised if this administration would differ from the status quo of appointing cronies to positions of power.  Then again, that is exactly the kind of thinking that will be needed in order to move into an era of post-partisanship which was promised throughout his historic 2 year campaign for change.  Now that would be change we all could believe in.  Here’s your chance Barack.

Face the facts:
Barack Obama is President-elect.
The democrats gained 5 seats in the senate and roughly 17 in the house.

Where do Republicans go from here?
I hear whining and moaning about how Socialism has officially come to the United States and how the outcome of this election changes everything.  In all honestly, they might be right, but it is NOT because we elected Obama as president.  Let me be clear about this.  I wish things had gone differently yesterday, but they did not.  However, the saving grace in all of this was the congressional results.  The democrats did not secure the 60 seats that were needed to ram through their agenda without the republicans!

When Obama becomes president, it will be on his shoulders to figure out how to govern most effectively.  The one thing that can be gleaned from watching how he ran his campaign is that this is a man who knows how to hide his liberal stripes when he has to.  He is a slave to public opinion.  All of his career, he has flipped and flopped his positions on issues to please those with whom he is the closest.  This is not an admirable trait in a man who should be known for his backbone of steel, but it might be a glimmer of hope for those mired in dispair.   

He also knows that in order to be a successful president, he needs to keep himself positioned to be reelected in 4 years.  This will most certainly lead to a tempering of his liberal agenda in order to appease his supporters in the center.  Don’t get me wrong, there are many reasons why this man’s judgement is a cause for alarm, but we are still Americans and we still get our say.

As recently as the bailout only a month ago it was quite clear that if we as Americans deeply care about any particular issue, we can have a strong impact on the outcome.  Not only republicans, but democrats in the House stood in opposition to a bailout bill that was being pitched as the best thing since sliced bread by both president and senate.  They are still our reprsentatives…up for reelection every 2 years.  You’d better believe that they will listen if a majority of their constituents stand up to them.  We still have our voice.

No one knows what Obama will do over the next 4 years as President, but what you can count on is that he doesn’t want this to be one and done.  With congressional elections 2 years away and surely an almost immediate begin to his next campaign and with many major challenges facing our country immediately, Obama will truly have to show that he is the One in order to get even a handful of his ideas enacted…something he has never been good at.  His inexperience might be the republican’s saving grace on domestic issues.

Although it might hurt for a while, hopefully this is the low-point of conservatism and out of this will emerge a more clear, focused and Reaganesque GOP.  Get over your disappointment and make sure the representatives know that we’re the ones who gave them their jobs and we’re the ones that can take it away.