Well, anyone, really, not just Americans. My question arises from the somewhat breathless attitude taken towards Obama. While I think he is an admirable guy, and I have done so for a time now, I wonder what people expect him to be able to achieve? What is the minimum a good leader ought to be able to do? What is the maximum a good leader can do?
An often repeated refrain in Australian or European politics is that someone has run a "presidential campaign", meaning they have focused on personalities rather than policies, borrowing from American politics. This election campaign has been more about policies than any I can recall for a long time. But can Obama, or Jesus Christ if he were eligible for election, deliver?
The answer is, probably not. Not because he'll lack the will, or because he'll face a hostile Senate (what, you think the GOP will learn from its impending defeat?), but because when all is said and done, the best a democratic leader in a market economy can do is not screw it up. Note: I said the best that leader can do. Obama will have a long period of unscrewing what Bushes 1 & 2, Reagan, and the Gingrich Republicans have screwed up, but while he can change the shape of civil rights, and influence (not control) the Supreme Court, all he is able to do is not go to war, not sign bad law into effect, and not impose unduly harsh economic policies. And this is true for all executive governments in democratic market economies, including mine.
The present "solutions" to the credit crisis will at best slow down the inevitable, not prevent it. And they will have unintended consequences that will also need to be attended to as they arise. And all solutions will be ad hoc, based on incomplete information and incomplete control, and ultimately be a mix of whatever political philosophies the players may have - socialist, laissez faire, or some libertarian nutbar crackpottery.
Politics is itself a market of competing forces, and it is no more controllable than the economic system is. Leaders are not a magic solution; they are most of the time just not an impediment to the way things are working out anyway. If Obama manages to reduce the deficit and remove impediments to a healthy economy, that is more than can be hoped for. A bad economy can be blamed on a government; a good economy cannot be credited to one.
So once the hype has settled, it will be good to have an inspirational executive in the White House, but do not expect that a magic wand will be waved, or if it is, that it will have much effect. Be happy if civil liberties are returned, and bad law removed. That is the best a leader can offer you.
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This is why, for instance, I'm surprised that John Howard here in Australia wasn't just laughed off the stage when he promised a few years back to keep interest rates low if he was elected. Surely a great many, if not most, of the factors that affect interest rates are simply not really under the government's control?
I think that most do not think that. Remember when Keating said he had the economic levers in his hands? The media also reinforce the idea that governments or their instruments (like central banks) can control economic factors like inflation, interest rates and so on. In fact they merely moderate them somewhat, depending on the efficacy of the policy and the instruments used.
At the moment, most governments are pissing into the wind to ward off the hurricane that is coming.
I came across an interesting poll which shows what people think Sarah Palin's best leadership skills are and it's quite humorous.
Check it out at polldaily.com http://www.polldaily.com/polls/2008-10-p21-sarah-palin-qualifications.a…
Matt Silberstein and I have been talking about the hero worship of Obama for many months and how we expect many people to be greatly disappointed when they find out he will be just a president and not the cure for what ails 'em. A lot of people are desperately needy for something wonderful to take the place of the man with the dead soul, his sidekick Darth Cheney and the corrupt/indifferent/incoherent policies.
The U.S. has never had a [presumptive] president before whose ancestors were not all western European (at least that we know about). That has generated an enormous amount of hope and excitement about positive change and made many people feel like anything [good] can happen. Hillary Clinton's candidacy also promoted that for huge numbers, particularly women.
We will both vote for Obama, so will our families and almost everyone we know, but unlike some others, we know we vote for a person, not a symbol.
To me, anyway, it doesn't even matter who wins. No one person can cure what ails us, especially when Washington itself is at the root of most of our problems. Replace 'em all, I say.
With what? Domestic cats? Whoever you get, you get a politician. The trick is to get politicians with values and spine and ideals, who are grounded in enough reality to not behave like greedy children in a sweet candy shop.
Obama is an extremely skillful politician, but if an Obama presidency means anything, it won't be because of the magic power of a single charismatic individual. The left--more accurately the Center--has been getting organized and energized in this country for the last decade. Even though it will be some time before a Democrat wins the white vote, demographic changes have lessened the impact of the automatic racial advantage enjoyed by the Republicans. At the same time, the Internet, which was originally a paradise for libertarian nerds and cynical operators like Drudge, has turned into a tremendous fund-raising tool for the Democrats and a hive of bloggers whose collective efforts have finally created an effective challenge to media orthodoxy.
Obama gets featured as the first non-white candidate with a good chance to get elected. The ironic thing, though, is that his victory would really be--could be--a victory of Western European political ideas and values over a rather tribal nationalism. The Red and the Blue may be roughly equal in power in the present day U.S., but the world is largely blue. In retrospect, I expect the cultural-conservative coalition in this country will look other diehard groups like the white South Africans and the Algerian pied noirs.
So does allowing financial firms to play "let's pretend" with their balance books and have as many assets as they want even though they can't liquidate some of them fall under "not screwing it up"?
Because that's what happened, to the tune of the entire global GDP.
I don't know, I'm probably foolishly naive, but I see some good things in Obama's character - things that I haven't seen in any candidate for a long time. That said, he's only human and faces enormous and daunting challenges. There's a perfect storm brewing on many levels - the 2012 doomsayers notwithstanding. But even if he could wave a magic wand and cure all economic, social, and political ills, that would just make everyone feel better, expand the economy, increase the population, and place an even greater demand on the planet's limited resources. Ultimately nature will correct. She always does, and she can be a real bitch.