The Election is Over: What Will The Major Players Do Now?

The election is over.  We have celebrated a new day in American politics.  So, what now?  Here’s my prediction for what major players of this long political season will do in the immediate future.  

John McCain will return to the U.S. Senate.  He can now stop pretending to be a conservative and begin again to be a pain in the rear of Republican zealots.  If he returns to the old John McCain he may end his senatorial career as a more moderate successor to Ted Kennedy, as Lion of the Senate.  The courageous battle he waged for his election, against extremely long odds, proved his mettle.  He will finish his political career by helping to revive a declining Republican Party.

Sarah Palin, -- whose selection as V.P. candidate was McCain’s worst blunder -- will return to the governor’s office in Alaska.  She will hit the books, learn a little about foreign affairs and other national issues, perhaps make a run for the U.S. Senate, and position herself for a run at the presidency in 2012.  Palin is, I believe, a rising star in the Republican Party.  She was not quite ready for the big time during this election, a fact that became more and more clear as the campaign progressed.  Palin, however, is a natural politician.  She has ability, confidence, and charisma.  As McCain said in his concession speech, Palin has a great future in the Republican Party. 

The Republican Party, after two successive losing elections, has become an increasingly southern regional and rural party.  If the party wants to return to one with national influence, as it was under Ronald Reagan, it must attempt to expand its influence beyond the hard-line fiscal conservatives and evangelical Christians that now control the Republican agenda.  The party under Reagan appealed to slightly right-leaning independent voters.  In recent years, the main influence in the party has been exerted by the Southern rural evangelicals.  It has stopped being a party with national influence because it has lost touch with the political center, so necessary for holding power in this nation.   

Hillary Clinton will go back to the U.S. Senate, continue to work for the issues that have driven her for years.  She will continue to be a force in U.S. politics.  She may even try for the Senate Majority Leader, if Harry Reid retires.  Perhaps, she will make another try for the presidency in 2016. 

Barack Obama, will begin presidency by moving slightly to the right.  We are, as I have often said, a center, slightly liberal-leaning nation.  If Obama wants to succeed he will have to follow the model of most successful presidents and move from campaign-articulated positions slightly toward the center.  This is the model Ronald Reagan used, as he governed more center than he talked.  The same idea was followed by Bill Clinton during his presidency.  Obama will end the war, perhaps not as quickly as he said he would.  He will promote middle class tax cuts and work for universal health care, but perhaps a bit more slowly that some liberasl will desire. 

We will know that he is successfully governing if conservatives are crying about his liberal policies and liberals are at the same time screaming that he is moving too slowly.  Obama, as is true of any new president, will be inundated with special interests that feel he owes them a debt for his election.  Some of them will have good and necessary ideas, but President Obama will have to take it slow.  His first priority will have to be national security and a close second must be our economy.  Once those priorities have been established, he can take on some other campaign issues: health care, ending the Iran war, immigration, and education.