The robocalls have stopped. Television ads have gone from
attacks on candidates to the usual pitches for medications and exercises
that will enable you to live forever. Political post-mortems are under
way. And the 2016 wannabees are lining up financing and staffs for their
runs at the Democratic and Republican nominations. This will be a
relatively easy task for the Clintons should Hillary decide to make a
run, but might be more difficult for New Jersey governor Chris Christie,
whose embrace of the president during their televised tour of the
damage from Sandy helped Obama to dispel the notion that he couldn’t
work across party lines. They say that revenge is best eaten cold, and
Republican primary voters just might serve up that dish three or four
years from now.
The
Obamas don’t have to move back to Chicago, the Democrats still control
the Senate, the Republicans still control the House of Representatives,
and two fiscal “events” still loom. Before year-end America will hit the
debt ceiling, which prevents it from borrowing money to meet its
obligations—the ugly word for that is default. Then, as we ring out the
old and ring in the new, we fall over “the fiscal cliff.”
Avoiding both events will require compromises, not
politicians’ long suit. Don’t be fooled by President Obama’s victory
speech, calling for a bipartisan coming together. It is almost verbatim
the speech he made after his victory in 2008, before passing Obamacare
without a single Republican vote and pushing through a stimulus package
on almost the same partisan basis. So the country finds itself with a
presidential believer in big government confronting an opposition that
just as passionately believes in reducing the role of government in the
lives of most Americans.
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