Your Weekly Address from the President-elect

President-elect Barack Obama announces he has directed his economic team to assemble an Economic Recovery Plan that will save or create 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011. For more informatio...

Obama Vows Swift Action on Vast Economic Stimulus Plan

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama signaled on Saturday that he would pursue a far more ambitious plan of spending and tax cuts than anything he outlined on the campaign trail, setting the tone for a recovery effort that could absorb and define much of his term.

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Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

Senator Harry Reid said urgent economic steps were needed.

Video: Obama’s Address (change.gov)

In the Democrats’ weekly radio address, Mr. Obama said he would direct his economic team to craft a two-year stimulus plan with the goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs. He said it would be “a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face.”

Mr. Obama said he hoped to sign the stimulus package into law soon after taking office on Jan. 20. He is already coordinating efforts with Democratic leaders in Congress, who have said they will begin work next month.

Advisers to Mr. Obama say they want to use the economic crisis as an opportunity to act on many of the issues he emphasized in his campaign, including cutting taxes for lower- and middle-class workers, addressing neglected public infrastructure projects like roads and schools, and creating “green jobs” through business incentives for energy alternatives and environmentally friendly technologies.

In light of the downturn, Mr. Obama is also said to be reconsidering a key campaign pledge: his proposal to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. According to several people familiar with the discussions, he might instead let those tax cuts expire as scheduled in 2011, effectively delaying any tax increase while he gives his stimulus plan a chance to work.

“The news this week has only reinforced the fact that we are facing an economic crisis of historic proportions,” Mr. Obama said in his address. “We now risk falling into a deflationary spiral that could increase our massive debt even further.”

His address, a video of which was made available on YouTube, was part of an effort to calm financial markets roiled by the failure of an outgoing president and a lame-duck Congress to come up with a plan to lift the economy and restore investor confidence.

On Monday, Mr. Obama plans to introduce his economic team, starting with his Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner. News that Mr. Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, would get the job helped send the stock market up by nearly 500 points on Friday after days of sharp losses.

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers is to be the director of the National Economic Council in the White House, the president’s principal economic adviser and policy coordinator, according to an Obama aide.

The economic team will also include Peter R. Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, who will be the next White House budget director.

Mr. Summers, who served as a campaign adviser to Mr. Obama, has advocated for a forceful stimulus plan in recent newspaper columns, saying the federal government should be doing more, not less, in areas like health care, energy, education and tax relief. Mr. Obama seemed to echo those thoughts in his radio address.

“We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead,” Mr. Obama said, “but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”

Mr. Obama’s announcement came after market declines and the prospect of a collapse by automakers and other storied companies had sparked growing criticism last week that he was sitting on the sidelines.

Although advisers say they have not begun to fill in the details, Mr. Obama’s proposal would go beyond the $175 billion stimulus plan he proposed in October. That included a $3,000 tax credit to employers for each new hire above their current work force and billions in aid to states and cities.

Separately, Democratic leaders in Congress have been calling for a robust economic recovery initiative of up to $300 billion, including major investments in infrastructure to create jobs. President Bush has refused to consider a package so large, but even some conservative economists have said $300 billion is the minimum needed to spur the economy.

“There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis, which has been many years in the making,” Mr. Obama said Saturday. “And it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.

“But January 20th is our chance to begin anew, with a new direction, new ideas and new reforms that will create jobs and fuel long-term economic growth.”

(By JACKIE CALMES and JEFF ZELENY/nytimes)

Jihadi Leader Says Radicals Share Obama Victory *

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The leader of a jihadi group in Iraq argued Friday that the election of Barack Obama as president represented a victory for radical Islamic groups that had battled American forces since the invasion of Iraq.

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Back Story With The Times's Michael Slackman

The statement, which experts said was part of the psychological duel with the United States, was included in a 25-minute audiotaped speech by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization that claims ties to Al Qaeda. Mr. Baghdadi’s statement was posted on a password-protected Web site called Al Hesbah, used to disseminate information to Islamic radicals.

In his address, Mr. Baghdadi also said that the election of Mr. Obama — and the rejection of the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain — was a victory for his movement, a claim that has already begun to resonate among the radical faithful. In so doing Mr. Baghdadi highlighted the challenge the new president would face as he weighed how to remove troops from Iraq without also giving movements like Al Qaeda a powerful propaganda tool to use for recruiting.

“And the other truth that politicians are embarrassed to admit,” Mr. Baghdadi said, “is that their unjust war on the houses of Islam, with its heavy and successive losses and the continuous operations of exhaustion of your power and your economy, were the principal cause of the collapse of the economic giant.”

The audio statement came amid a very public discussion in the Middle East over what Mr. Obama’s election meant for the future — and what it said about the past. Most of the public reaction, in newspapers and on television and radio stations, was euphoric, with many commentators marveling at the election of a black man whose father was from a Muslim family. There was a general assessment that Mr. Obama’s election was a repudiation of the course taken by President Bush and his inner circle over the past eight years.

“Obama’s election was a message against such destruction, against unjustified wars, wars that are fought with ignorance and rashness, without knowledge of their arenas or the shape of their surroundings,” wrote Ghassan Charbel in Thursday’s issue of the Saudi-owned, pan-Arab daily newspaper Al Hayat. “It was a message against the pattern that became a burden on the U.S. and transformed the U.S. into a burden on the world.”

Some even pointed to Mr. Obama’s election as a lesson to the rest of the region. In Kuwait, Sheik Hamed al-Ali, an Islamic scholar known for his support of jihadi fighters, posted a message titled “We Want Change!” on his Web site.

Sheik Ali said, “It remains the obligation of our Islamic nation to benefit from this example and request change, also, and to get rid of any regime that leads with ignorance and injustice, plunders from the country, enslaves the worshipers, drives us to destruction.” The comments were then circulated on other Islamic Web forums.

But there was also a growing chorus of caution, as commentators began to try to tamp down expectations of any change in American policies in the region. And other commentators echoed Mr. Baghdadi’s view that the election was a victory for the insurgents in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

“It would be no exaggeration to say that we Arabs and Muslims were the main unseen voters who decided the outcome of these elections,” wrote Abdelbari Atwan in Wednesday’s issue of the London-based pan-Arab daily newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.

He wrote, “The transformation that will begin in the U.S. starting today in various political, economic, military, and social domains may well have been delayed for decades, had the new American century been crowned with victory, and had the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan taken the directions sought by the neo-cons — in other words, had there been political stability and economic prosperity, and had the citizens of the two countries targeted by the U.S.’s designs been totally subjugated by it.”

Mr. Baghdadi also used his address to offer Mr. Obama an unlikely deal, one certain to do little to bring any resolution to the conflict between radical Islamic groups and the United States. He offered a truce of sorts in exchange for the removal of all forces from the region.

“On behalf of my brothers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Chechnya, I offer you what is better for you and us: you return to your previous era of neutrality, you withdraw your forces, and you return to your homes,” Mr. Baghdadi said. “You do not interfere in the affairs of our countries, directly or indirectly. We in turn will not prevent commerce with you, whether it is in oil or otherwise, but with fairness, not at a loss.”(nytimes)

Chosen CEO Google Become The Economic Team Obama

Economic team transition compiled by Obama, for example, Robert Rubin,former Finance Minister and Economic Council Director National; Professor Larry Summers, former Rector of Harvard University, ekonom World Bank,and also the former Finance Minister second period governance Bill Clinton; Eric Schmidt, CEO And Leader Google; Paul Volcker, former Governor of Central Bank ACE a period of/to President of Carter and Reagan; Laura Tyson, former economic adviser Bill Clinton; and also Jamie Dimon, CEO
and leader of JP Morgan Chase. ( AP/AFP/CNN/ BBC / oki)

The President and the Planet, on a Budget

Obama fanBarack Obama in Berlin in July. (Credit: Jae C. Hong/ Associated Press)

President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20 will become the most important leader of a species that has exploded in just six generations from a total population of 1 billion (around 1830) to a point today when teenagers alone number 1 billion, a species that is on a path toward more or less 9 billion people by mid-century. In numbers, think roughly of adding two Chinas on top of the one that exists today. Expectations that he will exert planet-scale leadership are high, as indicated in this letter from Nelson Mandela to the next president.

Mr. Obama will of course be mainly focused first on economic renewal and finding a way forward in Iraq and Afghanistan. But inevitably issues related to humanity’s growth spurt — both in numbers and resource demands — will come to the fore. The Times columnist David Brooks wrote an interesting piece the other day, “A Date With Scarcity,” focused on resource and financial limits facing an American generation that came of age expecting ever more, explaining a time when “demands on the nation’s wealth outstrip the supply.” As he projected, “There will be fiercer struggles over scarce resources, starker divisions along factional lines.”

Many students of global population and resource trends say the same constraints and consequences are likely to play out on a planetary scale. Keep in mind, as I said above, that we essentially live on “Planet Teen” right now. Depending on the level of governance and economic opportunity they experience, today’s young people could either become soldiers or students, agitators or innovators, terrorists or teachers.

While global commerce and communication may be “flattening” the world, as my colleague Tom Friedman has pointed out, when mapped in terms of population trends, energy choices, vulnerability and prosperity, the planet is distinctly un-flat. The ruling class in São Paulo commutes by private helicopter from walled compounds to skyscraper roofs over a sea of congestion and poverty. Industrialized countries shield themselves from the threats posed by climate extremes with wealth and technology while the equatorial poor are alternately pounded by drought or flood.

So what’s a president to do on issues like climate, population, international development and health, particularly in an era of huge deficits and pressing real-time problems? I’d like to send Mr. Obama’s transition team your 10 best proposals, as determined by their ranking by readers using one of Dot Earth’s newest features.

Here are a couple of thoughts to prime the pump:


Defense and Development: The Pentagon has recently made fostering stability in turbulent states a top priority, on a par with maintaining the capacity to wage war. What resources and initiatives in the military might be adjusted (without new money) to advance development?

Defense and Energy: The military also has the world’s largest budget for basic research and development, to the tune of some $75 billion a year (we spend about $1 billion a year on all energy research, as I pointed out the other day). Military leaders already have energy efficiency as a top priority (much of the activity on a battlefield is focused on protecting fuel supplies).

Climate and Energy: Mr. Obama has already pledged to convene a world energy forum, somewhat akin to recent efforts by the Bush administration to bring together established and emerging powers that are the top energy users and emitters of greenhouse gases. Given the importance of abundant, clean energy supplies, and the clock ticking toward a pivotal climate-treaty conference in December 2009, many experts see this as a prime priority. Some environmental campaigners, led by Bill McKibben of 350.org, have pressed Mr. Obama or a top surrogate to attend the next climate-treaty conference, in Poland in December, even before he takes office. I’ve heard mixed reactions to that idea from seasoned experts on environmental diplomacy. (Our Green Inc. blog has European reaction related to global warming.)

Family Planning: The world has focused for years on curbing the scourge of H.I.V. in Africa, but population groups say this effort, while laudable, has raided money for family-planning programs that could cut the risk of infection and also help speed the transition out of poverty in the world’s poorest places. The graph below, from Population Action International, shows the spending trends. Can United States’ international H.I.V. policy and family planning programs be more integrated without big new investments?


spending on HIV and family planningFrom a study by Population Action International of United States investments in controlling H.I.V. and fostering family planning.(By Andrew C. Revkin/nytimes)

The UncabinetA guide to key appointments Obama should resist.

Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty. Click image to expand.With Barack Obama's presidential victory in the bag, speculation has begun about who he'll appoint to his Cabinet. Actually, it began some time ago. Russell Baker of the New York Times many years ago invented a spectral figure called the Great Mentioner to describe how the Washington cognoscenti come to view this or that public figure as a candidate for political advancement. Sometimes the Great Mentioner passes along names under consideration by the deciding person or body. Sometimes the GM passes along names that the cognoscenti merely feel warrant consideration. Because the deliberations are secret, it's hard to know the difference (and also a lot less fun).

It used to be that you needed a lunchtime reservation at Washington's dog wagon of the moment either to learn who's on the list or to add some names yourself. Today the GM's picks, like all other human knowledge, have migrated to the Internet, where they've been democratized to a fare-thee-well. A college kid elevated Sarah Palin to the GOP's potential veep choice merely by creating a Web site. You don't even have to be American! The world is flat, and nous sommes tous Washington insiders. No harm in that. Indeed, this digitization saves Washington journalists like me a lot of time. But like the names I'd likely hear whispered over chardonnay at Acadiana, the Googled mentionees—mostly those very same names—are a hodgepodge of good prospects and bad. Somebody's got to winnow.

Back in October 1987, Paul Glastris published a deeply researched magazine piece in the Washington Monthly under the headline "The Powers That Shouldn't Be." Glastris now regrets what he says was at least one bad call: He wrote that the next Democratic president should not elevate William J. Perry to secretary of defense. Perry subsequently performed that job with admirable skill during the Clinton administration. The impact of Glastris' misjudgment was blunted by the Democrats' failure to recapture the White House in 1988—a luxury I do not enjoy as I compile my own do-not-hire list. Hoping to avoid Glastris' error, I have researched this piece perfunctorily. But caveat emptor: I cannot eliminate entirely the possibility that one or two of the judgments rendered below flunks the test of time.

State Department. Do not appoint Bill Richardson, who by some accounts is the front-runner. Obama may feel he owes Richardson because the New Mexico governor endorsed him after dropping out of the presidential race and ended up being called a "Judas" by James Carville. But Richardson took his sweet time before embracing Obama; he dropped out in mid-January and didn't cough up the endorsement until late March. Richardson's résumé includes Clinton administration stints as energy secretary and as U.N. ambassador. He didn't perform either job particularly well. As energy secretary, Richardson rashly accused Los Alamos official Wen Ho Lee of espionage—a charge later proved false. As U.N. ambassador, Richardson didn't do anything anyone can remember except offer Monica Lewinsky a job three months before the story of her affair with President Clinton hit the Internet. "He has no great beliefs," observed Slate's David Plotz in June 2000, "which may be why he didn't mind flattering despots." Richardson has twice broken the world's record for most handshakes in an eight-hour period. He's very proud of this. Don't you find that alarming?

Also, do not appoint John Kerry. The 2004 election demonstrated that nobody likes him. That isn't disqualifying for a senator, but it is for a diplomat.

Also, do not appoint Anthony Lake. He made himself unconfirmable for Central Intelligence Agency director back in 1996 in part by saying on TV that he wasn't sure Alger Hiss was guilty. Heads up: Alger Hiss was guilty. If you think Hiss wasn't guilty and you want to get confirmed by the Senate, be my guest. But don't shoot your mouth off about it, because if you do, you'll be easy prey for the GOP. Also, I have to say that anyone who performs the mental calisthenics necessary to believe Alger Hiss may have been innocent runs a substantial risk that he won't have enough additional mental energy left to run the State Department.

Supreme Court. Do not appoint Hillary Clinton. The Supreme Court needs jurists, not politicians. Plus, Bill would drive the other justices crazy.

Treasury Department. Do not appoint former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. I explained why last week. (See "Robert Rubin's Free Ride.") Rubin has said he doesn't want the job anyway. Lawrence Summers, who succeeded Rubin, is said to be interested, but he's too closely linked to Rubin and to former Fed Chairman (and current Public Enemy No. 1) Alan Greenspan to be a wise choice. Plus, the hash Summers made out of Harvard's presidency suggested that even after holding one of the highest positions in government, Summers still was pretty clueless about getting along with other people—a crucial skill for whoever ends up managing the worst financial panic since the Great Depression.

Energy Department. Do not appoint Arnold Schwarzen)egger. The supposed reason would be that Schwarzenegger is the rare Republican ))))governor who's doing something serious about global warming. But if there's a shortage of Republican governors addressing climate change, can we really afford to remove one from state government? There's no shortage of Democrats who are at least as committed as Schwarzenegger to reducing greenhouse gases. Pick one of them.(By Timothy Noah/slate.com)

A Foreign-Policy Repair Manual Six priorities for President Obama.

Barack Obama. Click image to expand.Barack Obama"President-elect Barack Obama"—the phrase alone does more to repair the tarnished image of America in the world than any action George W. Bush might ponder taking in his final weeks of power. The very fact of a black president with multinational roots unhinges the terrorists' recruitment poster of a racist, parochial, Muslim-hating United States. It revives Europeans' trans-Atlantic dreams just as their own union seems to be foundering. It is bound to inspire reformers everywhere who seek to break through their own socio-political barriers. It revivifies America as a beacon of democracy—not through thumping arrogance and brimstone but, more elegantly and potently, by sheer example.

But President Obama will enjoy this gush of hope and favor for six months at most. After that, he'll have to earn it through his actions and policies. Here are a few suggestions:

Announce that America is back and open for diplomacy. Make a big speech to the U.N. General Assembly laying out your broad goals. This will signal that you value international institutions. Then send your personal delegate—Vice President Joe Biden or some trusted eminence like Colin Powell—to the Middle East to lay the initial groundwork for renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks (even if they go nowhere, the effort might make moderate Arabs more cooperative on other issues); open a line to Syria (offering full ties and other goodies in exchange for splitting from Iran and ceasing support for terrorists); and deliver a message to Iran (not to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but to the real powers), offering negotiations on all disputes. Reappoint Dennis Ross, or someone like him, as permanent Middle East envoy (a slot shockingly unfilled for the last eight years). These steps alone will give the impression that the United States is once more ready to act like a serious major power.

Get out of Iraq. The Iraqis have done you a favor by insisting that a new Status of Forces Agreement include a timetable for withdrawal. Take the deal. If it turns out they were bluffing and don't really want us to go, demand dramatic, substantive progress on political unity, provincial elections, division of oil revenues, and all the other issues on which the Iraqis have yet to budge. Nobody's talking about pulling out all U.S. troops (unless, again, the Iraqis kick them out). Use the troops that remain as leverage. Bush had a decent idea when he set "benchmarks" for the Iraqi government to meet. The problem was that he didn't enforce them—he neither rewarded the Iraqis for meeting certain deadlines nor punished them for failing to hit many others. Revive the idea with sticks and carrots. The whole point of the "surge"—and of any continued U.S. military presence—was, and is, to create the conditions for achieving political objectives: a stable, self-sustaining, democratic Iraq. Set benchmarks toward that goal. If the Iraqis don't meet them, withdraw another two or three brigades; if they do meet them, keep the brigades there a little longer, if they're wanted, to help solidify the progress. The more targets the Iraqis meet, the more stable the country will become and the less they'll need us in the long run.(By Fred Kaplan/slate.com)

Obama Country

The polls were right. Barack Hussein Obama easily cruised to victory last night and made history by becoming the country's first African-American president. The first-term senator from Illinois was elected the 44th president by beating John McCain in the key states that the candidates had spent months battling over, including Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, which voted for a Democrat for the first time since 1964.

A few states are still too close to call, but a preliminary tally gave Obama 349 electoral votes to McCain's 144, far more than the 270 needed to win the White House. Democrats also won big in the congressional races, even as they appeared to fall short of the dream 60-vote majority in the Senate. In all, Democrats picked up five Senate seats with four key races still undecided and were on the path to pick up as many as 20 House seats.

All the papers mention the historic aspect of Obama's candidacy in their banner headlines. USA Today points out that a mere "four decades ago, when Obama was 4 years old, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to ensure blacks can vote." The Los Angeles Times calls Obama's victory "a leap in the march toward equality." The Washington Post points out that Obama is the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win more than 50 percent of the popular vote. The Wall Street Journal notes Obama is the first northern Democrat to be elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960. The New York Times says the election amounted to "a national catharsis—a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama's call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country."

When Obama strode onto the stage at Chicago's Grant Park in front of tens of thousands of supporters (the LAT says 240,000; the WP and WSJ go with 125,000), he acknowledged his accomplishment and continued to espouse the main themes that have dominated his campaign over the past two years. "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," he said. McCain also acknowledged the historic moment in the "gracious" (WP) concession speech he gave in Phoenix. "This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and the special pride that must be theirs tonight," McCain said.

In the end, Obama won every state that the Democrats carried in 2004 and managed to grab several of the swing states that went for Bush last time. How did he do it? Although he lost among white voters, he won more of their support than John Kerry did in 2004. Obama won a majority of women and received huge support from black and Hispanic voters. The Democrat also won among independent and Roman Catholic voters. McCain did poorly among young people, getting around 30 percent of 18-to-29 voters, compared with the 45 percent that Bush won. The exact turnout figures won't be known until all the votes are counted, but by all accounts a huge number of people participated in the election, and voters often had to wait in line for hours to cast a ballot. The WSJ says that all evidence seems to "point to the biggest voter turnout in the period since women got the vote in 1920."

The WP's David Broder points out that while history books will rightly focus on Obama's historic victory, the fact that the Democrats managed to strengthen their majorities in Congress "will be almost as significant for the governing of this country." It marks the first time since the early years of Bill Clinton's presidency that Democrats will control both houses of Congress and the White House, "setting the scene for Democrats to push an ambitious agenda from health care to financial regulation to ending the war in Iraq," says the WSJ.

Democrat Kay Hagan managed to beat Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, and in New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen defeated Sen. John Sununu. In the race for open seats, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner easily cruised to victory, and Tom Udall picked up a seat in New Mexico while his cousin, Mark Udall, won in Colorado. A little piece of good news for the Republicans could be found in Kentucky, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell managed to beat back a strong opponent. The race in Minnesota that pitted Sen. Norm Coleman against Al Franken is still too close to call, and there's also no word yet on whether Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska managed to hold on to his seat. In the House, Democrats also made strong gains, although it seems they will fall short of the 30 additional seats that many were predicting.

USAT points out that some analysts "see a turning point in American politics like what occurred in 1980," when Ronald Reagan's victory ushered in a new conservative era. But many also caution that it all depends on how the Democrats govern and it could all end up being "a one-time repudiation of a Republican president" at a time of high economic uncertainty.

The LAT fronts the early returns from the measure to write a prohibition of marriage among same-sex couples into California's Constitution. It's still too close to call, but support for the measure is winning, 52 percent to 48 percent.

The WSJ and WP both front extensive post-mortems that look at how Obama actually won the race. They both start by highlighting how Obama's calm and measured response to the financial crisis helped him, which is hardly news, but then go on to publish some interesting insider tidbits from the campaigns. The WSJ points out that McCain's staffers realized they had a problem when they were moving to the general election campaign and in a strategy session five top advisers couldn't reach a consensus on the basic question of why McCain should be president. "Without an overriding rationale, our campaign necessarily turned tactical rather than strategic," one adviser said. "We focused more on why Obama should not be president, but much less on why McCain should be." The WP notes the Obama camp was uniquely prepared for the general election after the hard-fought primaries and goes on to note that while much of the Democratic establishment started freaking out when McCain chose Sarah Palin, Obama's camp saw it as a gift. Not only did the pick undercut McCain's main argument that experience matters, but one of Obama's top advisers knew the Alaska governor better than most since she had run a campaign against Palin two years earlier and the adviser was convinced Palin wouldn't pass the vetting test.

There will be plenty of looking back in the weeks ahead, but now that Obama has been elected, it's up to a leader with almost no executive experience to take on some of the biggest challenges a new president has encountered since Franklin Roosevelt. Suffice it to say, everyone agrees he'll now have little time to rest as he has to quickly begin work on the transition. The WSJ, which goes the farthest in exploring Obama's options by even listing his possible Cabinet choices, says that a shadow Treasury Department could be set up by the end of the week. The NYT says Obama will name the three leaders of his transition team today and might announce some top appointees by Friday.

Most importantly though, Obama will now have to decide how he will run his administration. As the LAT puts it: "Which Barack Obama will dominate as he begins to govern?" During the campaign he espoused twin ideals of setting out to change Washington while also remaining calm and collected during stressful times. Now, he could use his political capital to push legislation through Congress, but that would undoubtedly cause partisan bickering. By the same token, if he emphasizes compromise and bipartisanship, he would risk angering the people who elected him if he's seen as too cautious and slow to make decisions. Ultimately, can Obama "fulfill his promise to govern in a unifying and inclusive way yet also push an ambitious progressive agenda?" asks the WP.

The NYT talks to Obama advisers who insist "he would not be passive and would move quickly to demonstrate leadership." Of course, dealing with the economy will be his first priority, but it could be risky for Obama to try to espouse too much power before the inauguration. The LAT highlights that Obama is likely to "seek early, high-profile legislative victories with bipartisan support" and leave the more controversial measures for later. That means some of his more ambitious goals, such as health care and energy, would likely be either delayed or broken up into pieces.

The NYT's Thomas Friedman says the American Civil War officially ended last night. "The struggle for equal rights is far from over, but we start afresh now from a whole new baseline," writes Friedman. "Let every child and every citizen and every new immigrant know that from this day forward everything really is possible in America." In the end, though, there is so much work to be done that breaking the racial barrier may "turn out to be the least" of the changes an Obama presidency will bring. "The Civil War is over. Let reconstruction begin."

Disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co. Don't understand Today's Papers jargon? Check out the Today's Papers glossary. Get Today's Papers free in your mailbox. Having trouble receiving Today's Papers? (
By Daniel Politik/slate.com)

Yes, He DidHow Obama bent the arc of history.

CHICAGO—Barack Obama faced a lot of big crowds during his campaign. Now President-elect Obama faces his largest one: a country of 305 million.

Barack Obama at his election-night victory rally. Click image to expand.Barack Obama at his election-night victory rally"We have a righteous wind at our back," Obama proclaimed in the closing days of the campaign. It turned out to be a gale-force wind. He won decisively with more than 350 electoral votes and 51 percent of the popular vote, the first time a Democrat has achieved a majority of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter and by the largest margin for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.* He won in working-class areas where there had once been concern about his ability to connect with voters. Obama won among women, who are 53 percent of the electorate, by 14 points. He inspired a host of new voters and young voters, who helped make him the first post-baby boomer president. They all call him Barack, and he responded by texting them on victory night: "All of this happened because of you. Thanks, Barack."

More than 200,000 people waited in Grant Park to welcome the first African-American president-elect to his new job. As Obama took his place between bulletproof glass that looked like a giant parenthesis, six beams of light shot toward the clear sky behind him. The weather was so perfect that, had it occurred earlier in the campaign, it would have spurred one of those e-mail rumors about him being "The One."

When Obama spoke, he was somber and serious. There were no jokes, and his optimism was tempered by realism. He talked of "the enormity of the task that lies ahead" and the challenges that "are the greatest of our lifetime." As he stood before 15 American flags, it didn't look like a campaign event. It was presidential. Gone were the blue placards from countless rallies. Instead, American flags waved. While the crowd waited for Obama to arrive, campaign music played. When he left the stage, the music was a more stirring anthem with a patriotic tone.

Obama wrapped his arms around the country he now leads, singing the song of its progress over the last 100 years. At the same time, he promised a renovation, a "new spirit of patriotism, of service and responsibility" as well as "a new dawn of American leadership" overseas.

He promised to be the president of all Americans. "To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn—I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too." John McCain praised Obama at length in his concession speech, testifying to the historic nature of the victory and Obama's ability to inspire the nation. Obama returned the compliment, saying of McCain, "He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader."

Obama was also careful not to gloat: "While the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress."

It was not only Barack Obama who made history—so did his strategists. They designed a plan and executed it relentlessly through a brutal primary and general election. Twice they upended the idea that no plan survives engagement with the enemy. Obama won by driving up his vote in traditional Democratic areas, and he shrunk the margins in conservative areas. They also out-hustled the competition. According to exit polls, 27 percent of voters said they were contacted by the Obama camp. Only 19 percent say they were contacted by the McCain camp.

Exit polls also indicated that race was not a factor. Where voters said race was important, they voted for Obama. Those who said race wasn't important also voted for him—in relatively the same percentages. In Ohio, Obama won among whites making less than $50,000, a group that was once supposed to be a big problem for him. In Pennsylvania cities like Scranton, Reading, and Allentown, where he was supposed to have the same problem, he won by healthy margins. "I always thought that there was a prejudice factor in the state," said Sen. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat. "I hope we've now washed that away."

In the end, the voters favored change over experience 37 percent to 20 percent. People also seemed to vote against their economic self-interest, something liberal critics said only witless Republican voters did. Fully 70 percent said Obama would raise their taxes, while 60 percent said McCain would. They voted for Obama, anyway.

The first blow for McCain came just after 8:30 p.m. New Hampshire, the state where he had twice staged comebacks, went for Obama. In Grant Park, a young man threw his arms up in the air and twirled in the dirt: "We're going to do it!" Then 15 minutes later on the jumbo screen, Wolf Blitzer, as large as a single-family home, announced that Obama had also won Pennsylvania. The crowd erupted. McCain had put his hopes on the traditionally blue state as a break against Obama's likely wins in other states.
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The next blow for McCain came in Ohio. With two days left in the campaign, Obama had visited Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. He out-organized McCain and outspent him. It paid off. There was no longer any way McCain could put together enough electoral votes. The pace picked up from there, with red states falling one by one for Obama: New Mexico, Iowa, Florida, and Virginia, where on the last night of his campaign Obama drew a crowd of 90,000, just outside Washington—miles away from the first battlefield of the Civil War.*

At the start of his campaign, Obama often concluded his speeches by telling the story of his Senate campaign and how he prevailed in the southern part of Illinois despite its history of antipathy towards blacks. He cited Martin Luther King Jr., who said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." On Tuesday, 221 years after the adoption of a Constitution that allowed slavery to continue, an African-American won the presidency. In Grant Park, as Barack Obama left the stage, you could see that arc bend.(By John Dickerson/slate.com)

Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign

Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign Photographs by: Scout Tufankjian

Get the Flash Player to see this player. Yes We Can is the story of Barack Obama’s historic journey from junior Senator from Illinois to President of the United States as documented by Scout Tufankjian, the only photographer to cover his entire nearly two-year campaign, and is the only photography book showcasing images of Obama’s unforgettable victory celebration in Grant Park, Chicago on election night, 2008. Obama’s grassroots journey touched something profound in America, inspiring millions of Americans, young and old, rich and poor, and from every racial and ethnic background, bringing together disparate people throughout the electorate in the service of change. In the course of his visits to almost every state in the union, Obama electrified record-breaking crowds at his rallies and motivated millions of people to engage in the political process. The results have been nothing short of a revolution in political strategy, communication, and activism. Be it a skeptical old farmer from Tama, Iowa, who was surprised to realize that he had something in common with this young black politician, or an eight-year-old boy from Los Angeles who couldn’t stop declaring, “He looks like me and he is going to be President!”, Senator Obama instilled a feeling of unity and hope in a nation scarred by divisive politics and pessimism. Obama’s campaign created a movement, a faith, and a feeling that has not been present in American politics for decades—if ever. Yes We Can is a comprehensive and intimate portrait of this transformative campaign, ushering a new era in American politics. With more than 200 color photographs by Tufankjian, the book transports readers to each emotional stop on this historical journey, punctuated with highlights from Obama’s most memorable speeches. Tufankjian artfully captures the impact this amazing candidate had with Americans of all stripes. From coffee shops and diners to auto manufacturing plants and bowling alleys, Tufankjian followed Obama as he wooed potential voters in middle class neighborhoods as well as in poverty-stricken Indian reservations. She covered the primaries, the debates, and the final weeks of the hard-fought campaign, shooting more than 12,000 images—compiling the widest variety, the most intense moments, and the greatest ecstatic receptions to greet the young politician on the campaign trail. Yes We Can is as much about Americans and their visions for America’s future as it is about the man that gave them voice—and hope. Photo: Linda Davidson/The Washington Post Scout Tufankjian has had photographs published in every major newspaper and news magazine, including Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, People, The Guardian, ELLE, Esquire, Essence, Rolling Stone, Fortune, The Times of London, Stern, Der Spiegel, and many others. Before covering the Obama campaign, Tufankjian worked photographing the conflict in the Middle East, primarily the Gaza Strip, for four years. She lives in Brooklyn, and has a B.A. in Political Science from Yale.