Ever since California voters recalled Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003 and replaced him with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sacramento has been passing gimmicky state budgets that did not raise taxes, but also kicked structural deficit spending into the next year.
While the ultimate occupants of three United States Senate seats are yet to be determined in Alaska, Georgia and Minnesota, chances seem small that Democrats will increase their new majority to 60 seats -- the supermajority that ensures against a successful filibuster. So the same Republicans who once complained about the use of that legislative weapon by the opposition now brandish it in warning to President-elect Barack Obama.
Every day since Nov. 4, the scope of Democrat Barack Obama's victory has grown more impressive. His electoral vote total of 364 is the highest for any presidential winner since Bill Clinton's reelection in 1996.
I'm delighted that Barack Obama has been elected president and that foreigners are delighted, too. But I never viewed eliciting delight from non-Americans a reason for choosing a president, including one of color.
For years I've been dining out on the story of the 1988 vice presidential debate, where Lloyd Bentsen literally cleaned Dan Quayle's clock -- "You're no Jack Kennedy" -- resulting in a huge increase in his own approval ratings and virtually no bump at all for the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket.
Vox populi -- the voice of the people -- was uttered Nov. 4. But what did they say, and what will President-elect Obama and the Congress do based on that voice?
Whatever the intention of the anonymous leaker (or leakers) from the McCain campaign who spread nasty rumors about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in the end they did not so much trash the image of Caribou Barbie, as they ended up tarnishing the public's perception of their G.I. Joe, Arizona Sen. John McCain.
The first campaign promise Barack Obama should break is to push through the Employee Free Choice Act. That harmless sounding piece of legislation would let union organizers do an end run around secret-ballot elections: Companies would have to recognize a union if most workers signed cards in support of it.
The Democrats' victory -- and Barack Obama's -- was overdetermined and underdelivered.
For many California voters, especially those who supported Barack Obama's presidential bid, election night had a bright beginning and a bitter end. The state overwhelmingly supported the next president.
Elections do not deliver neat verdicts. The 2008 race so handily won by President-elect Barack Obama shouted that the American public wanted to see reform in Washington. So it just doesn't seem right that John McCain, a true reformer in the GOP, lost, while Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, holds a thin lead in his re-election bid -- even though Stevens was just convicted on seven felony counts for violating federal ethics laws.
The young and minority voters who swept Democrats to triumph call this the start of a new day. The many not-young whites who also backed Barack Obama might frame it a bit differently. To them, it's a hopeful return to an older day. Do not dismiss these older Caucasians. Without their considerable support in swing states, Obama would not have won.
In the end, American voters serve as the great equalizer. When one party goes too far, voters snap the leash, as they did on Tuesday.
When George W. Bush looks back someday on the wreckage of the past eight years, even he may someday realize that he missed his most important political opportunity in the months after 9/11. Despite his lackluster performance on that day, Americans stood with him as the symbol of the nation, displaying a steadfast and sober unity we had not felt for decades.
Four years ago, he was a State senator from Illinois. Four years ago, the idea of electing a black man as president of the United States was a fantasy.
In regard to attitude, America's conservatives could do worse than to be moved by those lines of Robert Blake from another place and another time on behalf of a similar sacred cause then not yet realized.
Wouldn't it be the height of irony if Barack Obama wins this election as the Ronald Reagan tax-cutter? His tax plans are severely flawed, and his campaign narrative to support them is all wrong.
The blog headline read: "Obama Tells SF Chronicle He Will Bankrupt Coal Industry" and the author charged that the audio of the meeting with Obama "(had) been hidden from the public."
The Treasury Department is working on a $40 billion, $50 billion -- who's counting anymore? -- plan to guarantee perhaps 3 million "at-risk" mortgages. Now that the Wall Street players have been taken care of, the time has apparently come to bail out some little people.
The biggest loser in this 2008 election is obvious even before the first vote has been counted: conventional wisdom. Remember last year when Hillary Rodham Clinton was considered the shoo-in for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, after which she was supposed to waltz into the Oval Office?
