Will.I.Am has a new video to celebrate the election of Barack Obama. I am glad they are happy but I hope that his most fervent supporters also realize that he may not live up to their heightened expectations. On this score, I had an interesting and short exchange with an Obama supporter tonight during the No on 8 protest march in San Francisco. He was wearing a Obama t-shirt that an abominable snowman poking out of the O. I thought the design cute and even cuter once he informed me that it was abominable (actually an Obaminable) snowman as opposed to my description of a muppet. I then confessed that I remained an Obama skeptic, quickly adding that I just didn’t think Obama a liberal but a centrist. Shockingly, he didn’t disagree.

I may have to break down and buy the t-shirt.

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Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post looks the relationship between President-elect Obama and the media.

What did the media make of Barack Obama as history was made on Tuesday November 4? And how did Obama use the media to launch his Presidency?

If Howard Dean’s 2004 Presidential run showed the promise of the Internet in the evolution of Presidential campaigns, then it certainly is worth examining the role of the media in the election of Senator Obama as President. I’m hardly an expert on the media but I can tell when it is in the tank for a candidate. One would have had to have been dumb, deaf and blind not to recognize that media during this campaign had a “favourite”. It should be interesting to watch their ongoing relationship.

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This might be my only chance to applaud one of the most conservative members of the United States, so I’ll jump on it. Kudos to Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina for his call to expel Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, now a convicted felon, from the United States Senate when it returns to session. The full story from Politico:

South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint is pushing his party’s leadership to expel Sen. Ted Stevens from the Senate during this month’s “lame duck” session, according to people familiar with his plans.

DeMint, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, is said to be angry with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for tolerating a convicted felon in the GOP caucus.

McConnell called on Stevens to resign last week after the Alaska senator was convicted on seven federal felony counts. McConnell said there was “zero chance” Stevens wouldn’t be expelled from the Senate if he didn’t resign — but he also made it clear that Stevens would have a chance to appeal his conviction first.

Stevens, who has rebuffed calls to quit, claims he has “not been convicted yet” because he still has the right to appeal.

Of course, all the back-and-forth will be moot if Stevens loses his still-too-close-to-call reelection contest against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. As of Thursday night, a defiant Stevens led Begich by a few thousand votes, with thousands of absentee ballots yet to be counted.

Not that I am in the business of offering the GOP advice but your long road to recovery might begin by jettisoning the felons among you.

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So he’s thinner than Grover Cleveland and lacks a moustache but otherwise I’m thinking this is yet another recess in another Gilded Age. Where is William Jennings Bryan or better yet James Weaver?

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In today’s New York Times, Paul Krugman argues that Obama has a mandate to enact a broad progressive agenda. I am not quite sure that I entirely agree with my former economics professor on this.

Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, is a date that will live in fame (the opposite of infamy) forever. If the election of our first African-American president didn’t stir you, if it didn’t leave you teary-eyed and proud of your country, there’s something wrong with you.

Here I do agree. I cried when the networks called it for Senator Obama even though when Pennsylvania was called I thought it a done deal and when Ohio was called it was effectively over. And I am happy if only because of the historical significance of this moment for the United States. I am also happy because because after Obama there is a (D). What that (D) means to President-elect Obama is still not clear to me.

I didn’t see President-elect Obama’s news conference today but I did catch Chris Matthews gushing over it. “Pragmatic” and “governing from the center” were the catch phrases used. Matthews’ interpretation of Obama’s tax proposals were that they were meant to be a stimulus to the economy and not redistributive in nature. If that floats your boat, so be it. It does little for me. I won’t say it capsizes my boat, more like my boat has been left aground. It’s a push for a renewed consumerism, not for a broad adjustment of social priorities. Just because John Edwards is in a political limbo doesn’t mean that poverty doesn’t remain a moral imperative. Just because Senator Clinton was vanquished by a better run campaign that was incredibly lucky doesn’t mean some fights aren’t worth fighting. But Obama isn’t President yet and so all this end-of-the-week blather by pundits is just that, blather by pundits. To this extent, it’s prudent to await January 20th, 2009.

But will the election also mark a turning point in the actual substance of policy? Can Barack Obama really usher in a new era of progressive policies? Yes, he can.

Right now, many commentators are urging Mr. Obama to think small. Some make the case on political grounds: America, they say, is still a conservative country, and voters will punish Democrats if they move to the left. Others say that the financial and economic crisis leaves no room for action on, say, health care reform.

Let’s hope that Mr. Obama has the good sense to ignore this advice.

Well I can only say that California failed to defeat Proposition 8 this past Tuesday by a four point margin. So even here in “liberal, progressive” California, a state that Obama won with 61% of the vote, 52% of the California electorate saw fit to enact discrimination into the state’s Constitution. 70% of African-Americans voted for Proposition 8 while Hispanics were more equally divided. It would seem that the United States remains a conservative country in many respects. (more…)