November 4th and Obama’s hereafter

Jack Carter is a businessman and politician. He is the son of former United States President Jimmy Carter.

With just a few days left until the election, Sen. Obama has a substantial lead over Sen. McCain. While many Democrats remember elections in 2000 and 2004 and fear that lead will somehow evaporate, I expect the margin to hold.

For all the negative advertising, its polling impact seems minimal. McCain has little else to offer, and the economy – represented by falling global stock markets – is still stealing the headlines.

Governor Palin has become a drag on the campaign, witnessed by the increasing number of high level moderate Republicans, including Colin Powell, who are endorsing Obama. And the “Experience Issue”, once the cornerstone of McCain’s campaign, has collapsed beneath the weight of his sporadic actions over the last two months, including the Palin VP pick.

On the other hand, Obama still has the advantages he began with in September: he’s a better campaigner; his issues are much more in line with the voters; he’s got the best campaign strategists and organization; he has substantially more money to spend; and, most people don’t want to vote for Republicans this year, anyhow.

Barring some political catastrophe, the combination of McCain’s problems and Obama’s assets should, if anything, continue to widen the lead. Which brings up some interesting questions…

1) What will the voting results look like in terms of Obama’s “Mandate” from the People? A simple win will determine the Presidency, but it will take more than that to hand Obama real control over his program. His coattails will need to add at least 7 or 8 new Senators in order to avoid procedural rules in that body which allow a minority to block legislation.

With more and more Bush States slipping into “battleground” status, this might occur. Recently, polling in the State of Georgia showed Obama by 1 over McCain. Making Georgia competitive was only a dream 6 months ago even with the disaster that Bush’s Administration had wrought on the Republican Party.

Georgia has an incumbent Republican Senator up for re-election, and now that election is a dead-heat.

With control of both Houses of Congress, President Obama can, with some modifications from within his own Party, put his programs into place.

2) More importantly, how will President Obama deal with the opposition party? President Bush had what I call a “51% mentality”, i.e., if I have 51% then I get everything and you get nothing. That led to an extremely partisan country where every vote became a symbol of winning and losing instead of an opportunity to compromise, unite, and form an enduring solution to America’s issues.

Obama has a chance to bring the U.S. electorate together again, but he needs to offer a seat at the table to a (potentially) badly beaten Republican Party.

3) How will President Obama deal with his own Democrats? The Congressional Democrats have been cruelly (they think) suppressed for 8 years, and they’re looking forward to getting all their pet programs in place now that they’ve finally been freed.

Obama must channel all that pent up desire into a National Policy to focus expenditures on results and control spending. President Bush never had nor, apparently, desired that control, and every Republican Congressman put his own constituency first. Spending exploded.

4) How will President Obama deal with the rest of the World? International policy is a place where Presidents have a great deal of autonomy – for better and worse, and his election is likely to be treated as a major victory across the globe.

From all the campaign rhetoric, I have a pretty good idea that President Obama will treat other countries as legitimate partners in eliminating terrorism and making a safe and secure place for all people. I expect him to place great emphasis on bringing peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and addressing other hot spots through cooperation and forging alliances.

He’ll start off with a raft of hope and good feelings. He’ll need to spend them wisely.

The key, though, is using his political skills to keep the American people engaged and behind him as we, as a country, join the community of countries as a leader of equals instead of a super power.

I have high hopes that Obama has the judgment, the political acumen, and the oratorical skills to ferret out the proper course, build popular support for it, and execute it well.