Now we have the very hard job of continuing to solve our nation's problems against an obstructionist Republican (aka Tea Party) controlled U.S. House. Now we will see if today's Republicans really want to govern or stick with their old our-way-or-no-way behavior of the past. Personally I'm pessimistic that Republicans will ever change, after all they've been in their collective psychotic state for decades.
I hope my fellow Americans realize that President Obama will continue to have a very difficult chance to improve our nation as long as the Republican House continues to obstruct anything Obama.
"Question for the Victor: How Far Do You Push?" by PETER BAKER, New York Times 11/7/2012
Excerpt
For President Obama, now comes a second chance. An electorate that considers the country to be on the wrong track nonetheless agreed to renew his contract in hopes that the next four years will be better than the last.
A weary but triumphant president took the stage in Chicago early Wednesday morning before a jubilant crowd, clearly relieved to have survived a challenge that threatened to end his storybook political career. While he was speaking of America, he could have been talking about himself when he told the audience: “We have picked ourselves up. We have fought our way back.”
Mr. Obama emerges from a scalding campaign and a four-year education in the realities of Washington a far different figure from the man sent to the White House in 2008. What faces him in this next stage of his journey are not overinflated expectations of partisan, racial and global healing, but granular negotiations over spending cuts and tax increases plus a looming showdown with Iran.
Few if any expect him to seriously change Washington anymore; most voters just seemed to want him to make it function. His remarkable personal story and trailblazing role are just a vague backdrop at this point to a campaign that often seemed to lack a singular, overriding mission beyond stopping his challenger from taking the country in another direction.
More seasoned and scarred, less prone to grandiosity and perhaps even less idealistic, Mr. Obama returns for a second term with a Congress still at least partly controlled by an opposition party that will claim a mandate of its own. He will have to choose between conciliation and confrontation, or find a way to toggle back and forth between the two.
“Will he be more pugnacious and more willing to swing for the fences on domestic issues, judicial appointments and so forth?” asked Christopher Edley Jr., a dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, and a longtime Obama friend who has been disappointed at times. “You can react to a narrow victory by trimming your sails, or you can decide ‘What the hell, let’s sail into the storm and make sure this has meant something.’“
No comments:
Post a Comment