With the US Presidential Election now complete, I suspect that I will turn my attention to the issues that remain near and dear to my heart that over the past two months were suddenly shunted for lack of time. I am not quite sure how many polls I covered but it was well over 200. My only regret really is that I didn’t create BTF until April 15th and so failed to cover the first part of the primaries.

I am going to leave the categories intact for a little while but by early next year I suspect that I will cull them back to better reflect coverage on the blog. I am not particularly well-suited to covering domestic politics such as health care reform. Frankly, it’s just not my thing. My interests and strengths are more in the international realm and in history and economics but I also have a keen interest in energy issues though here I am more in avid learner category. I suspect that these will largely be my interests and topics going forward. And I will continue to put forward posts on income inequality, the rights of women and environmental issues as warranted.

I did cull the blogroll removing most of the PUMA sites. To be honest, most had been removed long ago when I became uncomfortable with the level of discourse on those sites. I’ll think about adding the Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo and Talk Left should they regain their former sanity. Correntewire I will not add, due to their fondness of expletives. Otherwise, it is a fine site. I am open to suggestions on the US blogroll.

And I do welcome contributions keeping within the spirit and approach of BTF. Currently, there are two other contributors.

It is also possible and somewhat likely that I will explore a life outside the United States come 2009. I have been in San Francisco since 1997 and it’s time to consider a short jaunt abroad again. Since first coming to the Bay Area in 1981, I have left and come back four times. A fifth departure might be good for my soul. I was not thrilled to see Proposition 8 pass in California. It has weighed heavily on my smile these past few days.

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Rahm Emanuel
President-elect Obama confirmed the appointment of Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff.

“I announce this appointment first because the chief of staff is central to the ability of a president and administration to accomplish an agenda,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “And no one I know is better at getting things done than Rahm Emanuel.”

To begin with, I am relieved it’s not former Senator Tom Daschle. It is also a partisan choice and to be frank I was never one who viewed Obama’s post-partisanship as a good thing. Some fights are worth fighting and Congressman Emanuel knows to how fight and is to put it mildly hard nosed. A consummate insider, Congressman Emanuel has intimate knowledge of the Washington power broker scene and the legislative process with close ties to Speaker Pelosi, House Majority Leader Hoyer and Senator Schumer. Though officially neutral in the primaries, Congressman Emanuel has close ties to the Clinton wing of the party. Politically, he is as centrist as they come.

So far, the appointment has received mixed reviews from the GOP, not that their view is of much importance at this point.

The selection of Mr. Emanuel, known by some as “Rahmbo” because of his toughness, was met with criticism by some Republican lawmakers. The House minority leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, said in a statement, “This is an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”

But Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who campaigned strenuously for his close friend Senator McCain called it “a wise choice.”

“Rahm knows Capitol Hill and has great political skills,” Senator Graham said in a statement.

He added: “He’s tough but fair. Honest, direct, and candid. These qualities will serve President-elect Obama well.”

My guess is that Congressman Boehner has been on the losing end of battles and that his comments reflect such. My read is that Senator Graham’s assessment is the more accurate view.

On the other hand, Rahm Emanuel is part of everything wrong with Washington, using your public service connections to make private money.

Still, Emanuel had political aspirations of his own, which necessitated some financial security. So in late 1998 he traded in Clinton as his boss for Bruce Wasserstein, a major Democratic donor and Wall Street financier. “Money is not the be-all and end-all for him,” says brother Zeke. “But he knew he needed money so that wouldn’t be a problem while he was doing public service.” Over a 2 1/2-year period he helped broker deals-often using political connections-for Wasserstein Perella.

According to congressional financial disclosures, he earned more than $18 million during that period. His deals included Unicom’s merger with Peco Energy and venture fund GTCR Golder Rauner’s purchase of SBC subsidiary SecurityLink. But friends say his compensation also benefited from two sales of the Wasserstein firm itself, first to Dresdner Bank and then to Allianz AG.

By 2002, Emanuel emerged as a wealthy man with a reputation as a battle-hardened national strategist. That year he won a tough primary race for a seat in Congress that paid $138,000. His 1994 White House demotion was ancient history.

$18 million for a two-year Wall Street career? With no finance background? Connections paid him that money. It’s not what you know it seems but who you know.

Still, this assessment from Ben Smith at Politico is likely spot on:

President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) as his White House chief of staff is the latest demonstration of a quality Obama showed repeatedly over the course of his campaign: He’s willing to do what it takes to win.

If his goal had been to create a cordial bipartisan tone in Washington — much less a calm, profanity-free West Wing — Obama would have looked elsewhere.

The selection of Emanuel, one of the Democratic Party’s most effective operatives over the past two decades, was a powerful signal of Obama’s determination to be effective under the existing rules of the Washington game.

So it’s clear that President Obama wants to get things done, the question that remains is what does he want to get done?

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The Map
In the end, the Obama-Biden ticket won 28 states plus the District of Columbia with a total of 364 Electoral College votes (67% of the total). Obama won 52.3% of the popular vote, the highest total for a Democrat since LBJ’s 61.1% in 1964. Obama became the first Democrat to carry North Carolina since 1976 and the first Democrat to carry Colorado and Virginia since 1964. As a measure of comparison, Bill Clinton won 31 states plus DC for 379 ECVs but he only won 49.2% of the popular vote in 1996 (Reform Party candidate Ross Perot won 8.4%).

Obama carried New England, the Mid-Atlantic region, the West Coast and swept the industrial heartland of the mid-west (The Big Ten states) in addition to making inroads in the Mountain West and the South.

Obama’s Near Sweep of the Battleground States
It should not go unnoticed that Obama won every single contested state but one and oddly enough that one was Missouri which in the past one hundred years erred but once back in 1956. Nevada, on the other hand, picked the winner for the eighth straight time. Obama swept the all important troika of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Since 1960, no candidate had won without winning two of these three states.

The Margin
The final margin looks to be just slightly more than six points which is surprising in some respects. My own expectations had been more on the order of an eight point win especially since Obama was racking up large landslide margins in some of the nation’s populous states. Obama would win five of the ten most populous states by landslide margin and lose but Texas by a landslide margin.

The Polls
Pre-election polls were largely accurate especially in the underlying trends and movement in the race. My thesis on the race was largely accurate and my own prediction of 349 ECVs for the Obama-Biden ticket deviated from the final results in just three states: Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina. In each of these the final tally was under a percentage point differential.

More troubling is the exit polling which for the third successive election failed to accurately call the election. The exit polling projected a margin of victory that far exceeded the actual six point margin.

Third Parties
Not much of an impact for the various third parties nationally. Only in North Carolina did a third party candidate affect the outcome of the race. Libertarian candidate Barr likely siphoned off enough to throw the 15 Electoral College votes from the Tar Heel State to Obama. Otherwise, McCain would have eked out a win.

Is The GOP Still A National Party?
The last remaining Republican Congressman in New England lost his bid for re-election. Senator Susan Collins did win her re-election bid in Maine. That leaves Collins, Senator Snowe and Senator Gregg as the sole Republicans in the Congress from New England. Here in California, the GOP’s fortunes are tied to Governor Schwarzenegger. Beyond that, it’s hard to see another California Republican on the horizon.

For the GOP, it’s back to drawing board and if I have any advice to offer the GOP it’s don’t take any advice from the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the CATO Institute or the Hudson Institute. They are the ones that got you in this mess.

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