- Obama’s Challenge | Stratfor – “Obama won the popular vote by a fairly narrow margin, about 52 percent of the vote. Obama and his supporters will say there is no danger of a repeat of Bush — who believed he could carry out his agenda and build his political base at the same time, but couldn’t. Building a political base requires modifying one’s agenda. But when you start modifying your agenda, when you become pragmatic, you start to lose your supporters. If Obama had won with 60 percent of the popular vote, this would not be as pressing a question. But he barely won by more than Bush in 2004. Now, we will find out if Obama is as skillful a president as he was a candidate.”;
- Zakaria: Obama’s Third Way | Newsweek.com – “As free markets, an open society and a diverse population gained strength, the traditional order that conservatism defended has been overturned in dozens of ways by working women, divorce, immigration, and minorities. People began working, living, marrying, and making families in varied ways, and the old structures of society seemed old. Margaret Thatcher’s free market reforms slowly upended Britain’s settled, class-based society—upon which the British Tory’s political dominance had rested. Something similar is at work as red America’s youth slowly but surely turn blue.”;
- Real Time Economics : Economists React: Obama Election Makes ’08 Reverse of ’80 – “Barack Obama is a lucky man. The worst of the recession may be happening before he enters the White House. He can take credit for the recovery, unless he prolongs the recession by raising taxes. Hopefully, his economic advisors will tell him that the economic situation is so bad that his administration must begin by stimulating the economy. In other words, the New Deal must take precedence over the Fair Deal.” – Ed Yardeni;
- Election 2008: what really happened | Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State – “Obama didn’t redraw the map; he shifted the map over in his favor. (Or, to put it more precisely, the economy shifted the map over in the Democrats’ favor and Obama took advantage of this.)”;