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| |  |  | VOA Online Discussion: The New President and Congress
| Guest: Allan Lichtman, Dr. John Coleman & Chris Hennemeyer, Political Experts
Date: 05 Nov 08
Moderator: Erin Brummett |
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| | Erin: Welcome to T2A chat as we discuss the historic election of the first African-American U.S. President – and a Democratic majority Congress. President-elect Barack Obama has a daunting mandate as he prepares to take office January 20, 2009. He campaigned on a platform to help the struggling U.S. economy, successfully fight wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and repair the country’s international image – along with plans to address many other domestic and international issues. Joining T2A to put things into perspective are Allan Lichtman, Presidential historian at American University here in Washington – John Coleman, Political Scientist at the University of Wisconsin – and Chris Hennemeyer, Vice President of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
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Erin: I’ll start by asking all three of you to give your thoughts on what happened, where we are and what lies ahead.
Allan: We had an historic election in the United States. Barack Obama is the first African-American president of the US and represents a new generation of leadership. He has inspired young people to become involved in politics and put together a diverse coalition. His election marks the end of the conservative political era in the US that began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the beginning of a new more liberal era. With a solidly Democratic Congress Obama will have the opportunity to move domestic and foreign policy in new directions. Although many Republicans are blaming John McCain for running a weak campaign, no Republican could have been elected president in 2008 when 90 percent of Americans believe that their country is on the wrong track and President Bush has the highest disapproval ratings of any president since the 1930s. Obama also has daunting challenges. The world is suffering from an economic crisis, the US faces a deficit of about $1 trillion dollars, and two wars are still continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will take great leadership skills to deal with these and other major problems facing the US and the world.
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Erin: We just had a live comment from Brazil, a supporter of Obama. Thanks for joining T2A!
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| John: The signs of change in this election were clear even in the nomination stage, not only because you had a serious woman contender for the nomination in the Democratic party and a serious African American contender -- but in both parties the nominees were insurgents within their own party who bucked the party establishment and did not rise up through channels of getting support from the hard core of the party. Barack Obama, when you saw exit polling during the primaries, he was having a hard time winning the white Democratic vote in primary states, pulling in much of his support from independents. McCain similarly was pulling in much of his supports from moderates and independents as opposed to conservative Republicans -- so from the start there were signs that there was some kind of tranformation afoot in this campaign. Last night's results confirmed that transformation. It was only 4 yrs ago Bush won re- election and the Republicans increased their majority in the Senate and the House and it's been a very long years for the Republican party since. What's striking in terms of coalitions is that it's not so much that Obama won a lot of groups that Democrats don't normally win -- but the thing that stands out is the Democrats are winning large shares of growing groups like black, hispanics and other minorities and the Republicans haven't yet figured out a way to chip in to those groups. Obama also did exceptionally well with young voters and with first time voters. The positive signs for the Democrats going forward are very substantial from that. We still have some basic facts of life here -- the victory was not a victory among every group in the population certainly -- white voters would have elected McCain -- it's racially healing but we don't want to exaggerate that into some degree. Racial groups still have different political preferences and that is likely to continue for reasons of income and occupation and other factors as well. I agree with Allan's comment that Obama's in a terrific position in terms of leadership potential coming, in with a Congress very eager to work with him, a country eager for change -- but also as Allan noted he comes in with a number of very significant challenges that might get in the way of some of the agenda they want to pursue.
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Chris: I've been in contact with people from West Africa and Western Europe today by phone and email and the reaction to the Obama victory is not surprising but it's extraordinary nonetheless. I've been telling people using the famous Churchill quote Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing after they've exhausted all other alternatives. I think though that this outpouring of joy has to be temeprtrfd with an understanding of the challenges the President elect faces. There are many who will want to see a greater re engagement of the U.S. on the international scene and people in developing countries particularly will want to see a more robust foreign assistance engagement. The reality is that President Obama will have massive problems to tackle which will limit his ability to engage on those fronts, facing an almost trillion dollar federal deficit, involved in a 70 billion dollar financial assistance package, and spending over 12 billion dollars a month on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The time, energy and money remaining to tackle other issues will be in short supply. So I urge people to be patient with this administration and to recognize that changing America's image and posture in the world will be a longterm process and perhaps may not deliver concrete results until late in the Obama administration or perhaps -- and this may be wildly premature -- sometime into the second Obama term should we get to that.
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Erin: Allan, talk about the importance of the transition and the pressure on the Democrats with one leading the White House and lawmakers running Congress...
Allan: Obama will face important challenges in the two and a half month transition to his new administration. First, he needs to put his cabinet together quickly so that he can hit the ground running on January 20. Second, He needs to decide whether or not to put Republicans into high cabinet position, something that John F. Kennedy did after his election -- possibilities include Colin Powell, former Senator Chuck Hagel, and even Mitt Romney as Treasury Secretary or Secretary of Commerce. Third,he also needs to emulate Kennedy in setting up task forces to develop specific proposals for implementing his policy ideas. Like Kennedy he needs to consult with both old Washington hands and exciting new thinkers. The dangers of having unified control of government is that it is often difficult to deal with divisions within your own party as President Bush learned when he tried to implement immigration reform and divided the Republicans in Congress. Obama can get the Congress to implement his program if he brings the people along with him like Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.
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John: Following up on Allan and the so-called Achilles heel with one party running the White House and Congress at the same time...Even his strongest supporters would use phrases like paper thin resume to describe Barack Obama's experience for the Presidency That will be the ultimate unkown; how well will he handle this job. He has not had executive experience, no long legislative experience, he hasn't needed to work across the aisle very much but at least with the U.S. Senate, he'll have to do that to some degree. So to a degree we just don't know, we know Obama is a visionary, we know he's charismatic, what we don't know is can he get the trains to run on time, manage a government, can he get legislators to agree, get them to compromise, to sacrifice for his agenda? In the exit poll data from Tuesday, 48% of the respondents said Obama did not have the experience to be President and about 15% of those people nevertheless voted for him ,so there's a doubt in the public as much as there's excitement -- a doubt based on a paper thin resume. He'll need to demonstrate quickly that he has complete control over his pending administration and as Allan said, will need to hit the ground running in January to convince people he has the qualities needed not just to win the election but to run the country.
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Erin: Chris, talk more about domestic challenges weakening President-elect Obama's ability to make progress in foreign affairs.
Chris: The first thing I'd say is that Obama, despite the challenges we've referred to, an ailing economy and 2 wars, is a man who down to his very marrow is a multi-lateralist and an internationalist and he's made that clear in many speeches and policy positions. He's surrounded himself with what the New York Times described as a mini state department of 300 foreign policy advisers and specialists in a variety of areas. Many of these people are very competent, bright individuals and drawn from the ranks of the Clinton Administration, including former National Security Adviser Tony Lake, Susan Rice, Madeleine Albright...one of the questions that begs itself is whether the Obama Administration will avoid the many and painful missteps of the first term of the Clinton Administration which badly mishandled the Balkans Crisis, stood idly by while Rwanda went up in flames -- I tend to think many of his advisers have absorbed those lessons and I also think Obama, unlike Bill Clinton, who had an intellectual appreciation for foreign affairs, Obama has a visceral appreciation for obvious reasons, his early years in Indonesia, his bi-national parentage, so I expect him to be a President engaged on many fronts, not solely economic and national security but also on reforming assistance and improving America's standing in the world.
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Reuben Kojo Gbelly: AMERICIA IS TRULY THE FATHER OF DEMOCRACY GOVERNMENT. IT DOES NOT MATTER THE COLOR OF YOUR SKIN BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR PEOPLE.
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Erin: Thank you Allan, John and Chris…that wraps T2A chat about the historic Presidential election that brought Barack Obama to the nation’s highest office – our thanks to Allan Lichtman of American University – John Coleman with the University of Wisconsin – and Chris Hennemeyer with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems – and our thanks to you for joining us. We hope you can come back on Wednesday, November 12th at 1800 utc for our next T2A chat on voanews.com!
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