I just saw a headline in the New York Times online, reading Obama Warns of Prospect for Trillion-Dollar Deficits. It’s brought home to me what I’ve been thinking for some time. That the US Federal Government is now going to be forced into helping out major corporations because the government itself has been so eviscerated during the eight years of Bush rule. Had the government been running health care, building roads and bridges, and not fighting massive foreign wars, a deficit of a trillion dollars would not be either overwhelming or unrealistic. Instead, it would be considered a true investment in the future of the country and its young inhabitants.
But with so much having been given away to the banks, the insurance firms, and, soon, the car companies, the U.S. Government is essentially asking these market-based structures to do their work for them – keep people employed, ensure fiscal continuity, and set the agenda for the next dozen or so years of financial life. I’m not at all suggesting that, had the States been a socialist democracy, a massive deficit would be easier; however, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the lack of responsibility on the part of the country has resulted in even more massive future-based spending.
A diet of gluttony, under Mr. Bush et. al. (including Democrats in Congress), has taken its revenge on the body.

On this, the first day of 2009, I had the opportunity to watch An Inconvenient Truth paired with an episode of David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things. Both were shown on different CBC channels, in a possible attempt to swaddle the Canadian public in environmental awareness all at once, one one evening, at the beautiful start of the year. It was like a Polar Bear swim, an event that also happens today in colder climes, for the televisual brain. Going back and forth between the two channels, I watched as Mr. Gore analyzed the policies and illogic of 30 years of denial while espousing the hope of change articulated by Mr. Suzuki as he toured Europe’s windmill farms, bicycle paths, and solar-powered boats. The two shows, bookended by alternating commercials, mashed together like a song of hope for the year, and years, ahead.
Full disclosure: Mr. Gore is a client of mine.

I can’t read or tolerate reading anything negative about President-Elect Obama. It’s not because I’m thin-skinned; rather, the man hasn’t stepped foot into the White House yet and already the media are holding him up to FDR-like standards.
But I do agree with many pundits that the first 100 days are going to be critical for his administration, not only to boost sagging economic morale but to keep American jobs on the table that will have been lost between now and mid-January. But I think folks need to be careful not to fall into a still-working campaign of fear and cynicism driven by the last election; afterall, questions are still being raised around Obama’s citizenship.
Steve Clemons, of The Washington Note, makes the case that expectations around Obama’s capacity are far too large and I believe he’s right. It’s driving both unrealistic expectations and setting him up for a fall based on the ineptitude of the current administration:

Clemons: I think that we’ve replaced the housing bubble in the United States with an Obama bubble. There are so many hopes not just in the United States but around the world that he’s going to produce in just sort of stunning ways on all kinds of policy challenges that are out there. As he begins to define and scope what his real priorities are and are going to be, and as he brings in his team, I think that that bubble is going to deflate. Bubbles, in the economic sense, can be very, very good. They can lay a lot of railroad tracks, they can create a lot of cheap I.T. infrastructure. Lots of folks will end up losing, but what’s going to be very important when Obama runs to the end of his honeymoon is whether he has created enough strategic shifts for the United States so that we can get back in the global game, and that there’s some resurgence of hope for the American and global economies.
And right now, I’m a real pessimist. The challenges he has are Herculean. I think when he comes into office, he has enormous support and he has got a kind of Reagan-like mandate in the sense that when Reagan came in after the Iran hostage crisis, high oil prices, high inflation and low morale in the country, Reagan had the ability to cite the crisis we were in as a way to break the bank on all the money he spent on defense. And Obama’s going to have that same ability to spend on infrastructure, keep the middle class working, but also to do other big shifts. I don’t know how long that is going to last, but he’s got to front-load it. If he goes cautious leading into it, I think the half-life of Obama’s strength and the bubble that he has are going to deteriorate very rapidly.

There’s no reason, politically or ideologically, for Obama to “go cautious.” He’ll be spending big and he has the political capital to do so. The question is where does he get the real capital to spend?

Obama, in all of his grace, did one thing very, very well: he personalized the campaign for millions of people. Whether by going to people’s hometown, shaking hands with the elderly, having icons for every ethnicity and state, or modifying his oratorial style to fit his venue, he figured out a way to be many (but not all) things to many (but not all) people. It’s impressive – an almost Zelig-like approach to ensuring continuity in the American experience of his candidacy.
For me, there were two more piquant moments of the campaign that touched me personally: On the right side of my brain, is his appearance at my hometown in Pennsylvania, captured by this highly emotional photo (at The Big Picture blog, the best photojournalism blog around). On the left side of my brain, it was his his ability to maintain total brand consistency throughout, whether on his website, his signage, his t-shirts, or his dress. No organization that I know of has pulled off this type of messaging as well as his design team has, and, as a practitioner, it’s superbly impressive.

Obama’s win last night is a win for many, many people: the disenfranchised, the displaced, and the voiceless. His message of possibility is confirmed by his very electability and the willingness of Americans to believe in the very best of themselves and their country. I believe our children are the beneficiaries of the result of this election: today, they can look into our eyes and know that anything is possible – a poor, fatherless, minority kid can become President. It’s what we were all taught in grade school and that we are witnessing now. I hope the knives are sheathed long enough to recognize the power of this moment, the magnitude of our endeavors, and the resilience and strength of democracy and its American implementation. Finally, I’m thinking of all of the incredible, thankless work tackled by nameless millions who got out the vote against all odds and asked Americans to ignore the fear and the dirty tricks and elect with their future in mind. I’m incredibly grateful and utterly, utterly thankful for all those who moved history this past year.