Reports out of the McCain campaign this weekend that Sarah Palin is “going rogue” in some of her appearances, contradicting the party line on various issues, basically starting to distance herself from the sinking ticket and look out for numero uno. In honor of this, and having (finally) received my voter registration card from the state of New York, I thought I’d “go rogue” myself with a few thoughts that might otherwise seem a bit premature.
Assuming Obama’s lead holds between now and election day, it’s more a matter of how many electoral votes he’s able to swipe and how large of a “mandate” he’s able to draw from that than actually winning or losing at this point. Yes, yes, there’s the so-called “Bradley Effect,” and I’m the last one to want to count any chickens before they vote, but let’s pretend this happens and imagine what an Obama administration — with control of both houses — would look like.
There will be an enormous mess to clean up, perhaps the biggest one in U.S. history. When the market collapsed in 1987, there weren’t two wars simultaneously being fought, with other potential conflicts brewing on the horizon. This October is shaping up to be remarkably similar to that one, with about a 22-25% decline in stock prices. It took years for the economy to fight its way back. It’s not even clear what should or can be done, though at least in this case Obama definitely has a mandate to go in and try — whether that means restoring basic protections like Glass-Steagall, passing new laws, making some fairly fundamental changes to the way Wall St. operates, etc. — after all, his surge in the polls coincided with the recent panic.
On the war front he faces a trickier challenge. Let’s assume he sticks to his plan — a fairly speedy pull-out in Iraq and the diverting of resources and personnel to Afghanistan. He’ll need political cover, because even though we’ve been in Iraq longer than WWII, the right will scream that he’s accepting “defeat.” This is where a figure like Colin Powell will come in handy, and I’m convinced that Powell will take a large role in the Obama cabinet providing such cover. Gen. Petraeus will need to be on board, too. Even then, it won’t be easy — Democratic presidents are always vulnerable to charges of being soft, and feel the need to over-compensate with tough rhetoric. This may be the most difficult and divisive area for Obama to wade into, but wade he must.
A host of other issues — the alternative fuel, energy independence project he’s touted, the health care plan, education, etc. — will require political unity among Dems (not always a guarantee) and enough votes in both houses. They will also require money. It’s not at all clear where we’ll be able to find the money, given that the right is already screaming about taxes and socialism, especially since eight years of Bush have eroded the tax base and made everyone believe that taxes should always only go down, not up. If people start to see that some tax increases are necessary to pay for these projects, and go along with them for the good of the country — fine. I think it’s possible, but it will take shrewd PR, with all the forcefulness but none of the lies that accompanied the Gulf War rollout. If not, support and votes will disappear, and we’ll be stuck with a milder version of the ineffective dithering we have now.
Finally, let’s remember that in two short years, mid-term elections come up. You can bet that the right is already trying to figure out what went wrong this time, and will emerge with a new-old message and plenty of straw men to argue with, starting with the president himself. It will be a tough fight to maintain control of both houses. Four years from now, another presidential election. Sarah Palin will have four more years of “executive experience,” fighting oil companies on behalf of Alaskans and keeping an eye on Putin. She will also, presumably, master the art of the unscripted interview.
I have a lot of hope for an Obama presidency — much more than I ever did for Clinton. But the challenges will be the greatest of any president during my lifetime. And if Palin “rears her head” in 2012… let’s just say I’m keeping my passport up to date.
