Thanks for the comment. Addressing your remarks one at a time, but in no particular order…

Sarah Palin- I’m just reporting the polling data. I think she is probably a very nice lady at home in Alaska but I would leave the country if she became President. Literally. We have seen what anti-intellectualism has done for the country and it ain’t pretty. The problem is that the Republican Party is at a crossroads and when people are desperate they can act illogically. I have a theory about this that I will write more about tomorrow, so check back. I have to add that when I first saw the data I was ecstatic that Palin might get the nod because she is a sure loser. Upon reflection, though, I always want the people’s decision to be between the best possible choices, so I hope her name is absent from the 2012 ballot.

As for a free pass for Obama, I hope he doesn’t need it. I am hopeful about this presidency. Really hopeful. And I am a very cynical person. I think you may be on to something though with the free pass theory. The reality is that things can’t get much worse and it is hard to overcome cognitive dissonance. People who voted for Obama will not be quick to admit they were wrong if it comes to this. Also, the Republicans may offer a sacrificial lamb in 2012 because they don’t want risk a Bobby Jindal or Tim Pawlenty against an incumbent advantage. So it may be 2016 before they pull the big guns out.

Predictions- Again, I have a lot more to say than I will write here but, overall, I think he will do a great job. Watching his first presser as President-Elect, and notwithstanding the strange Nancy Reagan comment, I was struck by how nice it will be to have a top of the line intellect talking to us as President. I also love his choices of Gibbs and Emmanuel. I think Obama’s white house will be streamlined and transparent. I think he is a hard worker, bright, well organized, and has done a phenomenal job so far surrounding himself with people who produce results without drama. Just insofar as being a “chief executive” I think he will do a very good job. He is nowhere near as liberal as the recent McCain campaign would have us believe. I think he will govern very effectively from the center. He will not surround himself with yes men, instead relying on his people to offer contradiction and alternate theory. I remember writing papers in school and I would always try to acknowledge the best criticism of my thesis and address it. It would have been easier to bring up the worst objections and defeat those, but I wanted a cogent argument. This is how I envision President Obama dealing with things. He deals in logical argument, not fallacy and equivocation. He has said he will listen to all sides, especially when they disagree. This is important. I believe, contrary to our media assertions, that we are a Center-left country. Notice the capital C. To govern from the center requires heeding the voices of the left and the right. I think Obama is ready to do this.

Racially, this country has so far to go it is scary. I am fearful when I read WSJ articles about how this proves racism is over in America or hear George Will say we marked “paid” to the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world. But electing Obama was an enormous step (or at least a symbol of many steps). I really feel proud of that. And I plan on savoring the flavoring. But I also think that Barack Obama had to be the “Perfect” black man in order to win election. He had to have the perfect family, raised by white folks, talk a certain way, act a certain way. Any number of small imperfections could have been the end of his campaign where a white guy could have gotten away with it. All that and he couldn’t even bring up race- no mention of poverty, Aids, welfare, things that people could have called “black issues.” Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if he lost a good 6-7 points to racism, even in light of increased black registration. But we are past the time when it is impossible to elect a black man and that is wonderful.

Last thing – International Relations. I hope that the first thing he says to these foreign diplomats is, I am not GWB. If the world can find a way to give us a clean, or even mildly dirty, slate to work from, we should do so much better. The idea that people hate us for our freedoms – I don’t understand this argument, it seems counterintuitive. People may hate us for our arrogance, unilateral use of power, penchant for exerting political will, unwillingness to listen, interventionism when convenient, or economic blackmail. Freedom has nothing to do with it and it is insulting when politicians try to sell me that load of crap.

Anyway, those are some thoughts. I guess I left out the potential pitfalls. Just allow me to bask in the sun for a minute. I’ll get to it.

I’d offer that his positive momentum is so strong that he gets almost a free pass to a second term if he can score a handful of notable achievements and avoid any major blunders, and the economy isn’t even worse at that time.

Sarah Palin is not a viable presidential candidate. There’s just no way. Without polling data, I imagine she may have positively influenced a small segment or two McCain wouldn’t have gotten without her but, more significantly, pushed a large portion of his undecided base into the other camp. Being folksy may be appealing, but it doesn’t qualify you to run the country, and you can’t get from here to there in another 4 years.

Obama should do fine as long as he governs from the middle in a true effort to be reasonable and collaborative. Now, we find out whether the Republicans’ assertions about how radical he is are true.

Your point about international relations as the winner is not to be underestimated. Setting aside the economy for a moment–which ebbs and flows beyond the reach or understanding of any president–I fear we remain at serious risk in our relationship with the rest of the world. It’s not just that I don’t like being the least popular nationality at the table when I’m having dinner tomorrow night in Switzerland. (Actually, the French rank as the worst tourists.) It’s not just about people saying mean things about us. We Americans usually don’t even pay attention to what anyone says beyond our borders. Rather, it’s as complex as the reality that the world will have major fundamental challenges that it won’t be able to solve without mutual respect and cooperation between countries. And, it’s as simple as someone wanting to bring a nuclear or biologic weapon into one of our cities. There isn’t a long-term military answer to that. The only way to defeat it is to decrease the underlying desire, decrease the hatred. To do that, you have to understand why large groups of people would hate us. I don’t buy that it’s because of our freedom, our religion or the way women don’t have to cover their faces. There are reasons, and some of them are probably valid.

Someone who never had a passport before this year’s election might not understand that. The question is how well Obama does.

A final note. I appreciate the racial significance of Barak Obama being America’s first black president. If you really stopped to think about it, while watching the celebration, you maybe were able to conceive of how it felt to so many black people in this country. For the first time, there was undeniable living proof that someone like them in appearance has no boundaries and can be truly equal in this society. After so long, it’s almost like a dream.

But even from a racial standpoint, there is much more significance to Obama’s election than that. We all know that U.S. history dictates that you’re black if any part of your geneology is black or you look black. But Obama is half black and half white. He’s bi-racial, and he also had an international upbringing, making him representative of much more of this nation’s future than discrimination against a single group. In other words, part of what we needed was not our first black leader, but a leader of varied perspective, deep understanding and true empathy. In addition, this election showed that a person in this country is not barred from success simply because of his or her race. Obama was elected largely by white Americans. Racism still exists among ALL races. But with Obama’s election, we see that what some might have suspected is a deeply, pervasively racist white America is not quite what they’d assumed.