It’s now two weeks since election day and we are starting to see how Barack Obama will lead take shape. Here is what we observed in week 2:
- Appointments — The balancing act begins. Running on the premise that he is a unifying force, Obama has a challenge on his hand to carry that through. Many voters in the middle and on the right who pulled the lever for him, took him at his word on this point. There have been a number of prognosticators who have made their picks of what Obama’s cabinet should look like. A name that keeps coming up on many of the lists is that of Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense. He is well respected in the job he is doing, and if Obama keeps him, he will go a long way toward demonstrating his ability to reach across the aisle. He will also go an equally long way toward angering his supporters on the left, who basically want everyone from the Bush administration behind bars. So who does he pick for the most prestigious cabinet post, Secretary of State. Kerry was lobbying for the position, but this past week Hillary Clinton’s name hit the news. She could well be the ideological counterbalance to Gates, but could start a firestorm among the Hispanic vote who were looking for Bill Richardson to get the nod. If Obama appoints her he could also have a tiger by the tail, in that they were arch rivals in the primaries and having her in his administration could be problematic if she becomes a loose cannon. From Hillary’s perspective, does she really want to work for her rival and do his bidding? This will continue to be interesting.
- Dow Jones Industrial Average — Down 648 points. The Dow which is considered a leading indicator dropped another 5% this week. Perhaps it’s time for Obama to try to stop the skid by dropping his talk of tax increases. If he does, he had better put his hands over his ears, because the squeal from the left will be ear drum shattering.
- Where’s Joe Biden, the voice of foreign policy experience? – This week Barack Obama had a phone call with the president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski and as a result of that conversation Mr. Kaczynski said that missile defense programthat was agreed to with the Bush administration, would continue. Obama’s team released a statement saying, not so fast. First of all, Obama publicly contradicts another head of state and one of our staunchest allies. Second, coming only days after Russian President Medvedev threatened to install missiles near Poland if the plan went through, it makes Obama look weak. If they’re still hiden’ Biden, they better get him out of the closet or we won’t have to wait six months for a crisis.
- Remember William Ayers, the guy from the neighborhood? Now that the election is over, Ayers is out on the circuit promoting a re-release of his book Fugitive Days. In it he wrote a new afterword which said: “[W]e had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign.” Sounds a bit more than just some guy in the neighborhood and makes it an outright lie that his career wasn’t started in Ayers’ living room. Unless, of course, it was held in the den.
Stay tuned…
