With the networks calling Ohio for Obama, the only question remaining for today is the size of the win. I have to work on my Fin column, so I’ll throw it open to you to discuss the implications.
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John Quiggin 
“la moral de la revolucion esta tan alta como las estrellas�
I think I can start breathing again.
I refused to believe it would happen… a black liberal Democrat whose middle name is ‘Hussein’, whose dad was a Kenyan muslim and whose stepdad was an Indonesian muslim. Elected President in America seven years after 9/11. Holy #%@&! Only a President as dreadful as Bush could have made this possible.
No wonder Howard said what he said. He never thought the guy had a chance. But remembering the racist rodent’s comments about Barack and al Qaeda make this all the sweeter – I wonder what he’s thinking as he watches the Bush GOP joining him and Tony Blair in the toilet bowel of history. it’s a beautiful day in the history of the world.
Rodent will be feeling silly.
It’s a funny thing… I was almost hoping for a McCain victory to put a stop to the sort of hyperbolic commentary that is going gush from left wing bloggers like those above. But I wasn’t and I don’t – Obama as President will be a good thing for the US and the world if it can bring some unity back to politics.
Change is good. But let’s not get all carried away with how much things will change under Obama. They won’t.
It’s almost 12 months on since Rudd replaced Howard. It’s worth reflecting on what’s changed.
Try to list five ways in which your life has changed as a direct result of Rudd policies as opposed to Howard’s. Frankly – I don’t think my life has changed at all. Same job, same house, same wife and kids, same friends, same hobbies, same beer drunk on a Friday night, same crap on TV.
Life goes on!
Just one more thing that John Howard failed to see coming, or didn’t want to see coming.
Barack Hussein Obama; truly amazing effort.
PS: AWB payments to trucking company Alia in Iraq needs a closer look.
Andrew,
I agree. The thing I liked most about McCain’s concession speech was how harshly he dealt with the crowd heckling when mentioned Obama. I expect the same thing from Obama. Haters on both sides contribute very little.
exactly, andrew. the ship of state does not change course easily. it’s difficult to say what would happen if america came under control of progressive and competent people. it hasn’t happened in my lifetime. jfk talked a good game but did little. perhaps that little was too much for some.
[insert ‘rule by pollies’ diatribe here]
now, the reality of american politics is that the president can not initiate legislation. normally, a new president will get co-operation, and obama will a have lot of reps grateful for his coattails. but in the end, he can only say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to legislation passed by the house or senate.
what he can achieve is sharply limited to the structure of american government, and it’s culture.
so the wars will go on for a year or more in iraq, indefinitely in afghanistan. the situation in pakistan is already at flash point and can not improve without radical change in american tactics.
“america’s future, for idiots” (begins)
there’s america’s national infrastructure. and health care. and schools. and finances. and foreign trade. and military-industrial complex. environmental degradation. and global warming.(ends)
i’ll bundle that, as ‘af,fi’. whenever anyone says what a ray of hope is our saint obama, i’ll just reply: “af,fi”.
should cool him down.
btw, who was it that said rudd would not meet anyone’s expectations, save mine? could it have been me? no credit of course, for i am always pleasantly surprised when any politician doesn’t put me in jail. it’s true i’m harmless, but not for lack of contempt. anyway, it will be a labor pollie who institutes censorship, just as it was the labor party that dustbinned citizen initiative from its policy.
come to think of it, it was saint curtin that sooled the army on the miners.
gore vidal said america was burdened with a right wing party and a farther right wing party. perhaps oz will come to that, but right now it’s center-right fascists and center-left fascists.
For all those who think nothing will change- have a look at how moving his acceptance speach was.
Critics will say “there he goes again”, all fine words, show me some substance.
But Obama has the words of a fine man, he has the manner of a fine man and the mind of a fine man.
We’re immediately in a much better position than has been the case over the last eight long years of Bush.
With the level of support Obama has received from the grass roots, we are likely to see change coming from the ground up in America for the first time in generations.
Obama has the means at his disposal to achieve great things, now is his time.
Although Camus once famously said that hope is the only thing leaders willingly offer the governed, I think we can rightly hope for a better future under Obama.
If confidence can be restored then Obama has done a good thing – but it wont be easy and the reality is that he has no “real” money to finish the New Deal.
#8 timboy, I hope you are right. Fine words or not, the only concrete policy outcome I got from Obama’s acceptance speech was that he is getting a puppy for his daughters. He doesn’t appear to stand for much other than sunny days, warm feelings and holding hands. None of which I object to of course.
tin tin
I think the positive thing about fine words is that it gives the electorate a high standard to hold their elected leaders too.
I mean if we vote for the cynic who won’t speak in lofty terms, and talk about higher ideals, I think we are doomed to cynicism.
Now is the right time to talk about values and ambitions. The policy detail will come, and when it does come it will have to match the idealism, otherwise the electorate will react accordingly.
Unfortunately when ideals hit reality there is always a lot of disappointment – and there will have to be a lot of disappointed Obama fans
Sorry to throw a bucket on the party, but … Obama still has to make it to inaugaral day, then as Gore Vidal once observed; like all other presidents before him he will be enveloped by the reality of American political horse-trading system and slowly become the ‘Oval One’. This man will face a set of problems like no other American President, recalcitrant republican states and their constituents, the fossil fuel industry, an economy that has just fallen off a cliff and two expensive and useless wars combined with a rapidly changing climate, in other words, America, out of ideas, out of water and out of gas. It will take more than running the Harvard Review to pull of this gig.
After though, if I was a conspiracy theorist I would expect and accident before inauguration, with a declaration of an emergency and the final change to an American Facist State. But I am not so, best of Luck Obama, were all going to need it.
#13
you forgot Iran, Pakistan… I wonder sometimes if the world is free riding on the US and when that will break them.
Don’t forget the warm winds of change and healing blowing in from faraway Afhganistan too rog (from AP)-
“We want him (Obama) to change the policies of President (George W.) Bush. He could end the years-long war by withdrawing U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan, ” Qari Mohammad Yusuf Ahmadi, spokesman for the Taliban, told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic press….
“Even if a soldier is tied to every stone in Afghanistan, the West would not be able to (bring into ) being a government of its choice in Afghanistan,” an earlier report by the Taliban spokesman as U.S. election results were still coming in said….
observa’s right – getting out of Iraq will be messy, getting out of Afghanistan much messier still. Afghanistan will keep its reputation as the graveyard of empires; it’s hard even to see what US victory would look like there, let alone how to achieve it. Maybe their best hope is to offer a deal to the Taliban to “make Afghanistan free from ALL foreigners, including Arabs”. The only alternatives I can see would be the sort of aprroach the Romans used (“they make a wilderness and call it peace” – Tacitus).
I reckon when budgetary push comes to shove, as it will, Obama and the Dem congress will opt for deep cuts in the military, from which an isolationist foreign policy must flow. There aint much payoff to their constituents from trying to keep an overextended empire, and the alternatives to address the deficit and hence keep the greenback as a reserve currency will all be deeply unattractive.
The quality of a leader is surely in the quality of those around them. If ever there was a job that relies on delegation it’s this one. Who will he appoint? Will he choose for ability or for loyalty – or to repay pre-election favours? That US Presidents can and do pick staff across party lines is a strength in their system that Australia seems reluctant to emulate. Will Obama be prepared to let them apply their own thinking and methods to the tasks set or will he want to micromanage? His capacity for winning over the public needs to matched by a capacity for winning over the smart and capable within the US government.