What Will Obama Do?
The Choice Is His
Posted: November 8, 2012
First off, congratulations to President Obama and the Democratic Party. However you slice it or dice it — and Team Obama sufficiently and strategically sliced and diced the electorate into enough special-interest components to assure reelection — the president and his party did what was necessary to claim another four years in power. Theirs was a brilliant tactical triumph, much as it was in 2008.
At the same time, other than a sharp political victory, what was accomplished Tuesday that advanced the greater cause of this ongoing experiment known as America? Did this election provide heightened hope that our gnawing problems will be resolved? We wonder.
And so we find ourselves thinking thoughts similar to those expressed in print by Washington Times columnist Charles Hurt: “All that for nothing. It was the billion-dollar election that did not decide one single damned thing. Republicans control the House. Democrats control the Senate. And the White House remains in Democratic hands with absolutely no mandate whatsoever. Another four years with no hope of change.”
Why such a pessimistic outlook, at least initially? Because Americans on Tuesday voted for the status quo, which translates to this: the three D’s of debt, deficits, and dependency; high unemployment and even higher spending; gridlock in the capital and, given the razor-thin popular vote, polarization the nation over. Or, as Holman Jenkins of The Wall Street Journal noted Wednesday morning, “a divided government and overextended fisc whose options are steadily narrowing.”
We remain today much as we were the day before the election, a deeply divided and troubled nation. And yet Mr. Obama has it within his power and status as national leader to heal these divisions, if only he will. One hopes he will emerge from this electoral crucible a much humbler man. After all, he is the first president reelected since World War II not to increase his margin of victory in either the popular vote or the Electoral College.
Thus, this notoriously aloof president can set a different tone. He can start by spending more time at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue working closely with legislative leaders from both parties toward definitive solutions. Or Mr. Obama can continue down a path starkly evident in the latter days of his first term, one that saw him, frustrated by Congress, tack toward an imperial presidency, an administrative state. In this sense, not only does America’s future fiscal and economic course hang in the balance, but so, too, the very integrity of our Constitution.
The choice is Mr. Obama’s. We pray he chooses wisely.
At the same time, other than a sharp political victory, what was accomplished Tuesday that advanced the greater cause of this ongoing experiment known as America? Did this election provide heightened hope that our gnawing problems will be resolved? We wonder.
And so we find ourselves thinking thoughts similar to those expressed in print by Washington Times columnist Charles Hurt: “All that for nothing. It was the billion-dollar election that did not decide one single damned thing. Republicans control the House. Democrats control the Senate. And the White House remains in Democratic hands with absolutely no mandate whatsoever. Another four years with no hope of change.”
Why such a pessimistic outlook, at least initially? Because Americans on Tuesday voted for the status quo, which translates to this: the three D’s of debt, deficits, and dependency; high unemployment and even higher spending; gridlock in the capital and, given the razor-thin popular vote, polarization the nation over. Or, as Holman Jenkins of The Wall Street Journal noted Wednesday morning, “a divided government and overextended fisc whose options are steadily narrowing.”
We remain today much as we were the day before the election, a deeply divided and troubled nation. And yet Mr. Obama has it within his power and status as national leader to heal these divisions, if only he will. One hopes he will emerge from this electoral crucible a much humbler man. After all, he is the first president reelected since World War II not to increase his margin of victory in either the popular vote or the Electoral College.
Thus, this notoriously aloof president can set a different tone. He can start by spending more time at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue working closely with legislative leaders from both parties toward definitive solutions. Or Mr. Obama can continue down a path starkly evident in the latter days of his first term, one that saw him, frustrated by Congress, tack toward an imperial presidency, an administrative state. In this sense, not only does America’s future fiscal and economic course hang in the balance, but so, too, the very integrity of our Constitution.
The choice is Mr. Obama’s. We pray he chooses wisely.