Here’s a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Gerald F. Seib and Sara Murray

In this Nov. 5, 2008 file photo, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin greets supporters after returning to Anchorage, Alaska. (AP)

Sarah Palin, fresh from the losing presidential campaign, seems surprisingly eager to do mainstream media interviews, considering how much bashing she did of the media (and vice versa) during the campaign. But Ross Douthat of The Atlantic thinks that’s a good thing. Douthat says that “a post-election goodwill tour might be Palin’s best chance for a while to change the ‘Palin Rules’ that have governed her media coverage since August - rules which state, so far as I can tell, that almost any negative claim made about the Alaska governor is to be published first and double-checked later.” He adds: “The McCain campaign, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the appropriate response to this and other apparent displays of bias was to go to war against the press - and we all saw how well that worked out. It may be that unfair coverage of various sorts is just baked in the cake for Sarah Palin from now on. But if she wants to run for national office in the future, trying to charm the ‘elite liberal media’ into changing how it covers her seems like a savvier bet than just complaining about its bias.”

Washingtonpost.com’s Chris Cillizza sums up the goal of Palin’s playing nice with the media as follows: “Her media tour this week and her speech at the RGA on Thursday are all aimed at a single thing: establishing herself as a power player in the party over the next four years. Expect Palin to make some appearances in key races — maybe as soon as this month for Sen. Saxby Chambliss in his Georgia runoff — to show her drawing power and popularity among grassroots Republicans. For Palin’s future prospects, the next few months are crucial. Will she be remembered as a blip in the Republican history books or a force to be reckoned with in 2012?”

Politico’s John Bresnahan flatly declares that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now “has become the most powerful woman in U.S. political history and is now preparing to wield her gavel in a way that few, if any, recent speakers could match. Even former Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution, pales in comparison. Pelosi is being mentioned by observers in the same breath as the legendary Sam Rayburn and Tip O’Neill, although she has yet to assemble a legislative record to match theirs.” She is “a controlling presence in the House — Pelosi forbids her staff to use the word ‘I’ in speeches. Pelosi has called politics ‘a free hedge-clipping service,’ meaning that any pols who seek too much attention will get their head handed to them.” Pelosi “has no rivals within her own leadership ranks — Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland was once a bitter opponent but is now a loyal lieutenant — and committee chairmen don’t have the same power they once enjoyed. Further, Pelosi is the chief fundraiser for House Democrats, raking in at least $26 million for the DCCC alone this cycle.”

Moving forward to a Barack Obama administration, National Journal’s John Mercurio says “Perhaps the most important sign Barack Obama has given as to how he’ll navigate the choppy waters of Capitol Hill as president is his support for Joe Lieberman amid calls from some Senate Democrats and liberal bloggers to take away the turncoat’s committee gavel and, effectively, boot him from the party. Obama’s message: Unity, guys. As a party, we need to pick our battles wisely. Making a GOP martyr out of someone who votes with us 90 percent of the time shouldn’t be one of them.” That puts Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a tricky position as he decides how to handle Lieberman, who endorsed John McCain, spoke out against Obama and even popped up on the campaign trail.

“In deciding whether to punish Lieberman, Reid has to consider several questions: Does Lieberman’s disloyalty require such aggressive payback? What message does Reid want to send about party loyalty to his newly expanded caucus — and the country? And perhaps most importantly, what impact would Reid’s actions have on his party’s control of the Senate and its ability to muster the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster?” Mercurio writes. “In the end, Reid may spare Lieberman, if only because, as he has said repeatedly, he considers him a ‘friend.’ Ironically, it was friendship, that sense of senatorial collegiality, that Lieberman said left him no choice but to endorse McCain.”

Steven Waldman is president and editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.com, and author of Founding Faith. Previously the national editor of U.S. News & World Report, he is a recognized expert on religion, social issues and politics. Click here for Mr. Waldman’s full bio.

Evangelical Christians were an essential part of President George W. Bush’s winning coalition in 2004, with some 36% of his voters born again or evangelical. Some called it a perfect storm of evangelical activists and a faith-friendly, socially conservative candidate.

Well guess what: John McCain, long mistrusted by religious conservatives, actually got two million more votes from evangelicals than Mr. Bush did. Roughly 38.5% of Mr. McCain’s vote came from evangelicals.

On Election Day, religious conservatives delivered for the Republican Party. If they hadn’t turned out in record numbers, President-elect Barack Obama’s rout would have been a landslide. They will undoubtedly use this data as evidence that the party either owes them or would be wise to follow a religious conservative platform.

But in other ways, the influence of the religious right on the Republican Party hurt their prospects.

First, there’s the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as vice president. She was chosen in part to rev up the evangelical “base” and rev she did. But several polls before the election indicated that she had turned many Americans from the Republican ticket.

It was also a big factor for high-profile Republican endorsements such as those of Colin Powell and Charles Fried.

Ruling Out Vice-Presidential Candidates

What’s more, it apparently was fear of religious conservatives that led GOP candidate John McCain to rule out several vice-presidential candidates who may have had more appeal to centrists and independents, or in battleground states. Newsweek and the New Yorker reported that Mr. McCain was told by staff that if he chose a pro-choice running mate, religious conservatives would revolt, possibly even leading a convention floor fight against him or her. This effectively eliminated Tom Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania (a pivotal state) and independents Sen. Joe Lieberman and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who might have helped convince voters the Republicans could fix the economy).

Many key religious conservatives also weighed in against Mitt Romney as a running mate and, earlier in the season, against Charlie Crist, the governor of the crucial state of Florida. Religious conservatives have long been suspicious of Mr. Romney, for his Mormonism and recent conversion to the antiabortion side, and Crist who, until recently, was single.

Given the economy’s problems, Mr. McCain’s only chance of winning might have been taking a gamble of a different sort – choosing a maverick who would have appealed to the middle or the economically anxious, rather than the Republican base. He ruled out that path in large part because of religious conservatives.

Finally, religious conservatives had a significant impact on the way Mr. McCain positioned himself during the primaries. Religious conservatives make up a huge percentage of the Republican primary electorate, especially in early states: Iowa, 60%; New Hampshire, 23%; South Carolina, 60%; Michigan, 39%; Nevada, 24%, and Florida, 39%.

Weighing Immigration Reform

Consider the case of immigration reform. Part of Mr. Obama’s victory stemmed from a dramatic shift of Latino voters toward the Democratic Party, which helped him to carry New Mexico, Colorado, Florida and Nevada. Many voted for Democrats because of the economy, but they also had come to believe the Republican Party was anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic. Ironically, one of the few Republicans who had tried to lead the party in a more moderate direction on immigration was Mr. McCain.

But his immigration plan was deeply unpopular with the Republican base – especially among white evangelicals, 63% of whom believed that “newcomers threaten traditional American customs and values.” As a result, Mr. McCain barely discussed it during the primaries or even in his convention acceptance speech – though his immigration plan was probably the best example he had of being a maverick.

As Republicans assess the damage, some will argue that they lost because they alienated centrists and independents. Others will argue that they lost because they nominated someone who wasn’t conservative enough.

To me, those in the former camp have the slightly better argument. Mr. Obama’s win resulted less from some surge of new voters than from voters in the center who switched sides. On balance, Mr. McCain made a number of choices in large part to please religious conservatives that probably cost him more than it gained him.

Write to Steven Waldman at Sdwaldman@beliefnetstaff.com.

Here’s a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Sara Murray and Gerald F. Seib

Here’s a vote for Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary from the left—the wing of the Democratic party that has been most suspicious of him in the past. “On the issues I know best and over which the Treasury Secretary has sway, Summers is good,” writes Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic. “Very, very good. In the last few years, he has become a persistent critic of inequality and advocate for government action to redress it. He’s a true believer in health care reform, both as a way to alleviate economic insecurity and to address the country’s long-term fiscal crisis. He wants major action on climate change. And he has argued for aggressive action to stimulate the economy, despite high deficits.” Once President-elect Barack Obama’s administration gets going, Cohn writes, “some of his advisors will be making the case against activist interventions–sometimes on policy grounds, sometimes on political grounds. That’ll be their job and, sometimes, they’ll be right. But Summers can be counted upon to push back and to push back hard.”

It could get ugly in the Republican party now. Deroy Murdock, writing on National Review Online, advocates “a Night of the Long Knives” to put away, once and for all, a whole list of Republican party leaders. Karl Rove, for example: “As ‘the architect’ of the oxymoronic Big Government Conservatism, he counseled Bush to solidify power by spending like a Democrat, slapping tariffs on steel, and locking away his veto pen for six years.” And Newt Gingrich: “Newt Gingrich captured the House from the Democrats, passed the Contract with America, and then bungled his speakership while conducting an extramarital affair with a subordinate during the Clinton impeachment drama. Why do pro-family conservatives, or anyone else, still heed this man?”

Murdock prefers to turn to “Republicans who courageously advance pro-market principles today. Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn would make outstanding GOP honchos. House Republicans should elevate Jeff Flake, Mike Pence, Jeb Hensarling, and John Shadegg to key positions. Governors Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal are attractive young reformers with lots to offer through at least 2012. Ditto former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele, author of 2008’s best slogan: ‘Drill, baby, drill!’”

The New York Times’ David Brooks says the Republicans will experience a fight between the Traditionalists and the Reformers and for now at least, the Traditionalists will win. “To regain power, the Traditionalists argue, the G.O.P. should return to its core ideas: Cut government, cut taxes, restrict immigration. Rally behind Sarah Palin…The other camp, the Reformers, argue that the old G.O.P. priorities were fine for the 1970s but need to be modernized for new conditions. The reformers tend to believe that American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government. The Reformers propose new policies to address inequality and middle-class economic anxiety. They tend to take global warming seriously.”

But here’s why the Traditionalists win: “Congressional Republicans are predominantly Traditionalists. Republicans from the coasts and the upper Midwest are largely gone. Among the remaining members, the popular view is that Republicans have been losing because they haven’t been conservative enough. Second, Traditionalists have the institutions. Over the past 40 years, the Conservative Old Guard has built up a movement of activist groups, donor networks, think tanks and publicity arms. The reformists, on the other hand, have no institutions.” That won’t always be the case though. “In short, the Republican Party will probably veer right in the years ahead, and suffer more defeats. Then, finally, some new Reformist donors and organizers will emerge. They will build new institutions, new structures and new ideas, and the cycle of conservative ascendance will begin again.”

And finally, in a bit of unsurprising news, Howard Dean is stepping down as DNC Chair. Washingtonpost.com’s Chris Cillizza takes a look at his tenure and writes “Dean was not as well received among members of the permanent political class in Washington, many of whom dismissed him as a lightweight — particularly on the fundraising front. Dean, at times, clashed publicly with Democratic elected officials over his stewardship of the DNC — particularly newly installed White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.” As for some possible replacements, Cillizza lists Obama favorites like Claire McCaskill, Kathleen Sebelius and Tim Kaine. As for Dean, his “future remains cloudy although he has been mentioned as a possible choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services in an Obama Administration. Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) is also being mentioned for that job.”

Gerald F. Seib, executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, has been involved in covering every presidential election since 1980 and writes the weekly Capital Journal column for the Journal. Click here for Mr. Seib’s full bio.

Many months ago — before investment firms failed, before credit markets froze, before the government had to lay out $700 billion in financial rescue money — Rahm Emanuel called Josh Bolten.

Rep. Emanuel, head of the Democratic caucus in the House, had previously spent a few years and earned a small fortune as an investment banker. He had been talking with friends in the investment community and came away feeling that the meltdown in the housing market would have far more severe consequences than most in Washington realized.

So he placed a call to Mr. Bolten, the White House chief of staff for Republican President George W. Bush, and delivered a quiet, nonpartisan warning: The administration ought to be prepared for some financial problems requiring action.

The fates of the two men — similar in age and experience, dissimilar in temperament and ideology — have been intertwined ever since. Mr. Bolten remains chief of staff for the outgoing president; Mr. Emanuel has been named chief of staff for President-elect Barack Obama.

They are two of the three key staff figures handling what is now recognized as one of the most sensitive presidential transitions in modern times. The third is John Podesta, head of Mr. Obama’s transition team — and himself a former White House chief of staff.

In fact, in one of the great twists in recent political history, Mr. Podesta was White House chief of staff at the end of the Clinton administration, when he oversaw the turnover of power to Mr. Bolten (then Mr. Bush’s deputy chief of staff) and other incoming Bush aides. Now, Mr. Bolten will return the favor.

The public face of the transition was on display Monday, when Mr. Obama visited the White House, shook hands with Mr. Bush and sat down in the Oval Office he soon will occupy. That the transition is, by all accounts, going smoothly and intelligently so far owes much to these two leaders, of course. Mr. Bush has chosen to rise above months of campaign-trail bashing of him and ensure that his administration provides a smooth and thorough handoff to Team Obama. His performance will serve as a model for future outgoing presidents.

Mr. Obama, in turn, has shown the kind of presidential demeanor that helped him to a comfortable victory, and has been careful to say the one essential thing: The U.S. has only one president at a time, and that remains Mr. Bush.

But much of the task of transferring power during the 70 days until Mr. Obama’s inauguration will fall on the shoulders of this staff troika — Messrs. Emanuel, Podesta and Bolten — that will be on the front lines every day. They form an intriguing group, Washington veterans all, with careers that have quietly crossed paths in ways that leave them well-suited to the assignment history has dealt them.

The one who has attracted the most attention so far is Rep. Emanuel, who has the most public face of the three. He was a White House aide to former President Bill Clinton who subsequently went into the banking sector, won a seat in Congress, and led the Democrats’ House campaign committee when the party took control of Congress in 2006. He since has been the hard-charging, sharp-tongued head of the Democratic caucus in the House.

Because of Rep. Emanuel’s elbows-out style, much of the instant analysis of his selection has suggested that the Obama White House will have a partisan tone. But that misses the more subtle signal his choice emits. He comes from the ideological center of the Democratic Party, not its left wing, and some of the issues on which he worked most diligently in the Clinton White House — crime legislation, welfare reform, trade agreements — were most important to moderate and conservative Democrats and required cooperation with Republicans.

Mr. Podesta worked with Mr. Emanuel in the same Clinton White House, of course. He now runs the Center for American Progress, which is rapidly emerging as the Democrats’ leading policy think tank, and he was an early backer of Sen. Joe Biden as the vice-presidential nominee.

He is more closely attuned to the party’s progressive wing on the left, and Mr. Obama’s decision to pair the two suggests a nice feel for balance, ideologically and stylistically. Mr. Podesta’s style is cooler, while Mr. Emanuel’s is hotter. The former has strong ties to Democrats in the Senate, the latter to those in the House.

And both of these Democrats have career tracks that in many ways parallel those of Mr. Bolten, their low-key Republican counterpart. Like Mr. Podesta, Mr. Bolten earned some of his policy experience working as a Senate staffer in the 1980s. Like Mr. Emanuel, he later took a sabbatical from politics to work in the private investment world, as an executive for Goldman Sachs International in London in the late 1990s.

Together, this transition troika has spent a combined 23 years in the White House. At least one of them has had a desk there for the past 16 years. If you wondered whether the government is capable of continuity amid change, these three provide the answer.

Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com.

Here’s a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Gerald F. Seib and Sara Murray

One of President-elect Barack Obama’s problems will be the large number of constituencies who think they were responsible for his winning—and who expect something in return. Politico’s Avi Zenilman looks at that phenomenon, noting that “reporters’ inboxes have overflowed with e-mails from advocacy groups boasting of their role in Tuesday’s sweeping Democratic win. Unions, Hispanic groups, the Netroots, progressive organizing coalitions, single women, working women, youth, the religious left — to name just a few — all claim to have played a vital role in electing Barack Obama. And each says he owes them for that role.”

Some of this is normal after any election, Zenilman writes. But “Obama’s wider margin of victory this year makes it seem as though America — and the Democratic Party — may just be big enough for virtually every group to claim credit and jostle elbows as they push for their respective agendas.” Moreover, he notes, “As the groups stake their claims, they’ve also taken passing shots at others doing the same, as in the Womens Voices, Womens vote statement entitled ‘WE MADE THE DIFFERENCE,’ which deemed unmarried women, who exit polls showed voted 74-25 for Obama, a ‘decisive political force,’ pointing to the “margin of 12 million votes” they provided for Obama — which, they pointed out, meant ‘Obama’s margin among unmarried women exceeded his margin among both young voters and Latino voters.’”

Here’s one chance for the new president to relax just a bit. John Barry of Newsweek online says there’s not much he can, or should, do right now to shake up American foreign policy. “The economic crisis may indeed demand speed, but in foreign policy the reality is that, on the afternoon of Jan. 20, President Obama will face the same challenges that President Bush did that morning. And none presents much opportunity for bold new initiatives…The foreign-policy and national-security inbox shows that, even on pressing issues, Obama has the luxury of time.” The withdrawal of troops from Iraq that the new president promised already is underway, Barry notes, and the White House and the military’s Central Command both are working on reviews of policy on Afghanistan that aren’t ready yet. “Months of careful diplomacy” probably are needed on Iran, and some “patient work stitching together” a deal to curb North Korea’s nuclear program, which seems within reach.

Obama is scheduled to meet with President Bush today so Time.com’s Nancy Gibbs looks at why this transition might go a little more smoothly than others in history. “President-elect Obama at least has some advantages in his first meeting with President Bush at the White House on Monday. In the history of handovers, things usually go a little more smoothly if the outgoing president is leaving by choice or constitutional mandate, rather than if he’s just been crushed on the field of electoral battle. While Obama ran against Bush’s record, he never played to the personal loathing that animates many on the left; and Bush, by remaining in an undisclosed location throughout campaign 2008, seldom had a bad word to say about Obama. That alone distinguishes them from past presidents sharing the secret handshake, but Bush has also been uncommonly gracious for a departing POTUS.”

Even if it is a bit of an awkward transition, Gibbs points out that “Former presidents tend to rise to the occasion, when the call comes from the Oval Office, even if the caller is a former adversary. It is an act of patriotism and perhaps pity, from men who, knowing what the job entails, are uniquely positioned to help. Barack Obama has an interesting array of predecessors to choose from: Jimmy Carter, the acclaimed humanitarian who has seemed at times to delight in tormenting his successors; Bill Clinton, whose own chapter in history has some extra footnotes now with Obama’s win; and two Presidents named Bush, one with the more recent feel for just how crushing the job will be, the other with, perhaps, more useful advice in how to manage it.”

Meantime Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne Jr. says the best thing for Obama to do is follow in Ronald Reagan’s footsteps. “The public’s desire for more government action to heal the economy and guarantee health insurance coverage, along with its new skepticism about the deregulation of business, suggests that we are a moderate country that now leans slightly and warily left. But that wariness means that progressives should avoid offering advice based on the assumption that an ideological revolution has already been consummated. They should not imitate the triumphalism of Karl Rove and his acolytes, who interpreted President Bush’s 50.8 percent victory in 2004 as the prelude to an enduring Republican majority…

“Here again, Obama’s situation closely resembles Reagan’s. Like our 40th president, Obama has been authorized to move in a new direction. If Reagan had the voters’ permission to move away from strategies associated with liberalism, Obama has sanction to move away from conservative policies. Reagan was judged by the results of his choices, and Obama will be, too. Yet Reagan offers another lesson: His first moves were bold, and Obama should not fear following his example. The president-elect is hearing that his greatest mistake would be something called ‘overreach.’ Democrats in Congress, it’s implied, are hungry to impose wacky left-wing schemes that Obama must resist. In fact, timidity is a far greater danger than overreaching, simply because it’s quite easy to be cautious.”

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, specializes in polling of electoral battleground states, including Ohio and Florida. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.

Now that Americans have made Barack Obama president-elect, the debate that inevitably follows a blow-out will begin: Will 2008 join 1932 and 1980 as elections that signaled the realignment of the American electorate.

Do President-elect Obama’s big win and the accompanying beefed-up Democratic congressional majorities portend a fundamental shift in how Americans think about government that should benefit his party for years to come? Or, was the sweep a judgment about Republican incompetence, not ideology, and a product of factors - President George W. Bush’s record unpopularity, a financial meltdown, and unpopular war - that conspired to the Democrats’ benefit?

The answer, of course, will only be known years hence when we can look back at this election and see whether it ultimately changed the nation’s political environment.

It is hard to realize in the excitement, or the depression, of the moment, that not all landslides signal a lasting change in how Americans think about politics. Sometimes, the results are just a verdict on the two men or the times. In the case of Mr. Obama, his victory was clearly as much a product of his persona as the fresh face of 21st Century America as it was any campaign specifics other than his vague promise to bring change to a country that huge majorities think is on the wrong track.

Obviously, the new administration and the tens of millions of ideological liberals see the results as a confirmation of their message that government should take a more active role in the lives of Americans than it has for nearly three decades, and that the U.S. needs to re-evaluate how it deals with the rest of the world.

Arguing the Contrary

Republicans can be expected to argue the contrary: that voters had come to the conclusion that President Bush couldn’t organize a one-car parade. Since they could not punish him, they took out their anger on Sen. John McCain and their vote was a rejection of incompetence rather than of conservatism.

Both the victorious liberals and vanquished Republicans may be right because they are focusing on the wrong question.

The mass of Americans - the group that decides elections — are not very ideological. They like policies that work, and not ones that don’t. Their grandparents and great-grandparents became liberals in the 1930s because the pre-eminent leader of the day, Franklin D. Roosevelt, saved them, initially from hunger and then later from Adolph Hitler, by using government to improve their lives.

The prosperity and world leadership that followed led the Greatest Generation to adopt FDR’s governing philosophy. They came to rely on government as the ultimate guarantor of their quality of life.

That coalition lasted, pretty much, for 30 years, until the 1960s when FDR’s coalition started to fall apart because it no longer produced the kind of society that Americans wanted.

Embracing Conservatism

It took a decade or so after that for Americans to decide they were conservatives — not until after they elected Ronald Reagan in 1980. He turned around an economy perhaps fundamentally sicker than the one Mr. Obama faces today. He won the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Reagan’s success made much of the post World War II baby boom think that conservative policies that minimized the role of government and its power over individuals made more sense than did big-government prescriptions.

Mr. Obama has much the same opportunity that FDR and Mr. Reagan faced when they came into office promising change. But he also faces the same chance of failure.

Democrat Jimmy Carter promised change when he won the White House as an outsider in 1976, after eight years of Republican rule. But he turned out to be just a blip in an ascendant GOP era because Americans judged his four years in office a failure.

It was that failure that gave President Reagan his opportunity.

Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992 and re-election four years later, but did not fundamentally change the country much ideologically. In fact, he stayed in office the second four years because of his ability to work with a conservative, Republican Congress.

Adapting Their Message

Faced with their greatest defeat in more than four decades, Republicans understand they must adapt their message to the 21st century. Whether that means changing their ideological stripes is the question to be settled in the coming intra-party debate.

But Republicans no longer control their own fate.

The ideological future of American politics now lies with Mr. Obama, who fairly can be characterized as the most liberal politician - based on the current definition of one who favors having government take a larger role in American life — ever elected president of the U.S. FDR did not run as a champion of big government, but became one when faced with the challenges of his times.

Whether liberalism now becomes the political rage, will depend on whether Mr. Obama succeeds.

We’ll get our first reading on whether 2008 really marks a longstanding left turn for America in two years, when voters give the new administration a preliminary report card in the 2010 congressional elections.

But it will be 2012 before voters will really be heard. Between now and then, the ideologues on both sides will be making their case.

Write to Peter Brown at peter.brown@quinnipiac.edu.

Here’s a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Sara Murray

The Democrats undoubtedly had a good night Tuesday but why weren’t Barack Obama’s coattails as long as some expected them to be? National Journal’s Charlie Cook says it’s because of several reasons, probably including unrealistic expectations. “Although there are still several undecided congressional races, Democrats will pick up at least 17, probably a bit over 20, seats in the House and at least five in the Senate. This is impressive by any measure, though in recent weeks Democrats had hoped for even higher numbers…It could be that a lot of first-time and younger voters cast their ballots for Obama but didn’t bother to venture down the ballot. Once the final vote tallies are tabulated, we will have a better idea of whether that happened. Or maybe there was a determined effort to apply checks and balances. By deciding to elect Obama president, more than a few voters may have opted to keep the Republican incumbent in place, just to prevent Democrats from getting carried away.”

Another theory: “in the states where the Obama campaign was the strongest, it was able to deliver big numbers of voters who boosted Democratic hopes, but in other states, notably Southern ones such as Tennessee and Oklahoma, Obama may have been something of a liability,” Cook writes. And sure, Democrats gained a lot of seats in 2006 so there were legitimately fewer pickup opportunities but “even having made these caveats, what happened down-ballot was not proportional to what happened at the top.”

At any rate, it wasn’t a good night for Republicans. But Washingtonpost.com’s Chris Cillizza finds the silver linings for the party: governors’ races. Four Republican governors won reelection prompting Cillizza to look at the emerging guernatorial stars in the GOP. Topping the list, no surprise, was Bobby Jindal. “The youthful (he’s 37) Louisiana governor is widely being seen as the future face of the Republican Party. He is Indian-American, conservative and was elected last year on a reform platform. Jindal also proved his governing chops over the summer as Hurricane Gustav bore down on his state; he was a constant television presence with scads of data seemingly at his command. Jindal — and his political advisers — downplay the idea of him running for president in 2012 but, as we have said in this space before, no politician goes to Iowa accidentally.”

Sarah Palin popped in at third place, as Cillizza writes that “Yes, we know the report that Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent is sure to give her many detractors even more fodder. But, for a party seemingly out of energy, Palin’s ability to fire up the conservative base will not be so quickly dismissed by those seeking to construct a path out of the wilderness for the party. And for those who say Palin can’t (or won’t) run in 2012, we say: Just wait.”

Time’s Joe Klein evaluates Obama’s first press conference and concludes that he did a pretty good job. He notes a few elements, writing that Obama “did not stray from or change a single position that he took during the course of the campaign. He emphasized his previous stated desire for the passage of a second stimulus package. He was very matter of fact and not very emotional when discussing the economic crisis. There was no ‘Don’t you worry, now…’ component to his initial statement, which was a bit disconcerting–to me, at least.” Plus, “he was not lured into any speculative answers. He was properly cautious in response to the Ahmadinejad letter congratulating him on his victory and, by emphasizing his opposition to Iran’s nuclear program–and its support for terrorist groups–Obama conveyed a continuity appropriate for a President-elect.”

That’s all for now (hey, it’s been a long week!), but for all you political junkies who seriously are addicted to this campaign, check out Newsweek’s “Secrets of the 2008 Campaign” series. It’s seven fun-filled chapters of (sort of) new tidbits to keep your interest until the surge of Obama political appointments come out. Chapter one starts here.

Here’s a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Gerald F. Seib and Sara Murray

President-elect Barack Obama begins to address the nation’s economic problems at a press conference today, but isn’t expected to announce his new Treasury Secretary. Behind the scenes, “Democrats are split over two of the leading candidates for Treasury Secretary: New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers,” write Lisa Lerer and Victoria McGrane of Politico. “Summers, who is widely acknowledged to be seeking the top Treasury post, has a strong connection to the Obama team and a long history of government service. Obama economic aides said that Summers was one of ten advisers on a weekly conference call with the campaign over the past few months. His experience, however, has a downside for a campaign that sold Americans on a message of change. In the Clinton administration, Summers was a major proponent of free trade, deregulation and free market-oriented policies, which have come under fire in recent months as the economy has spiraled downward.”

That worries some on the party’s left. However, Summers has shown a more “progressive” tilt in his writings since leaving office, which will help reassure some of the party’s liberals. Geithner has been at the center of the response to the financial market meltdown, write Lerer and McGrane. “But if Obama settles on Geithner, he’ll lose some control over another key economic post. The New York Federal Reserve Board would appoint Geithner’s successor, leaving the administration with an unknown negotiator on the front line of the financial crisis.”

How much did Obama close the “God gap” with Republicans in this year’s election? Some, but not as much as is thought, writes Mark D. Tooley for The Weekly Standard. “Levels of religious practice remained a key indicator of voting preferences in 2008, with the religiously observant strongly still favoring the Republican, if slightly reduced from 2004,” he says. “Evangelicals remained the strongest voting bloc for Republicans, giving 74 percent to John McCain, according to exit polls, compared to 79 percent for George W. Bush in 2004.” But, Tooley notes, there were some regional differences that worked to Obama’s benefit. “Exit polls show that evangelical voters in key Midwest states favored McCain by 2 to 1 over Obama, compared to 3 to 1 for Bush in 2004. In Indiana, which Obama won, Bush’s support had been 77 percent, but fell to 66 percent for McCain. There was a similar shift in Ohio, which also flipped from Bush in 2004 to Obama in 2008. Meanwhile, evangelical support for McCain in the South remained 3 to 1 and in some cases even stronger for McCain than for Bush.”

The New York Times’ David Brooks lays out the path that his “dream administration” would ideally follow and how that administration would be run. “They will actually believe in that stuff Obama says about postpartisan politics. That means there won’t just be a few token liberal Republicans in marginal jobs…The Obama administration of my dreams will insist that Congressional Democrats reinstate bipartisan conference committees. They’ll invite G.O.P. leaders to the White House for real meetings and then re-invite them, even if they give hostile press conferences on the White House driveway. They’ll do things conservatives disagree with, but they’ll also show that they’re not toadies of the liberal interest groups.”

There are two phases, the long-term and the short-term. “The short-term strategy will have two goals: to mitigate the pain of the recession and the change the culture of Washington. The first step will be to complete the round of stimulus packages that are sure to come. Then they’ll take up two ideas that already have bipartisan support: middle-class tax relief and an energy package. The current economic and energy crisis is an opportunity to do what was not done in similar circumstances in 1974 — transform this country’s energy supply. A comprehensive bill — encompassing everything from off-shore drilling to green technologies — would stimulate the economy and nurture new political coalitions. When the recession shows signs of bottoming out, then my dream administration would begin phase two. The long-term strategy would be about restoring fiscal balances and reforming fundamental institutions.”

Meantime Senate Democrats have their own problem to deal with: Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. Lieberman, a Democrat turned independent turned huge McCain supporter, has voted with Democrats much of the time, writes Time.com’s Jay Newton-Small. But “During the campaign, Lieberman angered many in his longtime party by attacking Obama’s experience and leadership (and occasionally even calling into question his patriotism)…Until recently, the Dems’ precarious power in the Senate meant that Lieberman could pretty much say what he wanted. Al Gore’s 2000 running mate, he had been forced to run for re-election in 2006 as an independent after liberals groups angry over his support for the war in Iraq helped mount a successful primary challenge. Since then, Lieberman has caucused with the Democrats — his presence among their ranks giving them control of the Senate with a 51-49 majority — while siding with the Bush Administration on Iraq and the war on terror. But Lieberman may no longer be able to get away with it. Democrats have expanded their majority in the Senate by six seats — with three more seats still too close to call — and are no longer dependent on Lieberman’s vote.”

So what happens next? “At the very least, experts and Democratic Senate staffers say, Lieberman is likely to lose his current role in the Homeland Security and Oversight Committee. ‘(Harry) Reid will be under pressure to strip Lieberman’s chairmanship from him,’ says Stephen Wayne, a political-science professor at Georgetown University. ‘If he votes to organize with the Dems, they will allow him to choose a committee assignment, but not chair.’”

Rhodes Cook is a veteran Washington political analyst who tracks national elections and voting trends and publishes a bimonthly political newsletter. Click here for Mr. Cook’s full bio.

Late Tuesday night, John McCain and Barack Obama brought down the curtain on their 2008 presidential campaigns – Sen. McCain, in a magnanimous concession speech from his home state of Arizona, and Sen. Obama, in a moving victory address before tens of thousands of supporters in Chicago’s Grant Park.

Each was reacting to this year’s historic election. Sen. Obama and the Democrats won a decisive victory, but not one of landslide proportions. Sen. Obama’s triumph, by a margin of six percentage points in the current popular vote tally, lies almost equidistant between a nail-bitter and a double-digit romp.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats gained six seats (and counting), but are still likely to finish short of the 60-seat supermajority that would enable them to run the Senate with an iron fist. And in the House, the net Democratic pick up of roughly 20 seats fell short of the number that many were projecting they would gain.

In its scope, this year’s results more closely resemble the Democrats’ 1992 win with Bill Clinton atop the ticket than the party’s 1964 landslide triumph with Lyndon Johnson at the helm. In short, it had the earmarks of another, “It’s the economy, stupid,” election, with Democrats greatly benefiting this year as they did 16 years ago from an economy that had turned sour during a Bush presidency.

Defeated But Not Annihilated

As for the Republicans, they were defeated but not annihilated, as some in the party had feared. They emerged from the election with their base in the American heartland penetrated but largely intact. And for the 11th straight presidential contest since 1964, the GOP nominee won at least 159 electoral votes, a total the Democrats have fallen below a half dozen times in the post-World War II years.

In its contours, the 2008 election was positively “Bubbaesque.” Mr. Clinton won the popular vote by six percentage points in 1992, the same margin that Mr. Obama currently enjoys. Mr. Clinton won 370 electoral votes; Mr. Obama has 364 (with the recent addition of North Carolina to his column). Mr. Clinton was joined by 57 Senate and 258 House Democrats when he was first elected. The Democratic totals in both chambers should be nearly identical this time once the remaining undecided races are settled.

Where Messrs. Clinton and Obama dramatically differ is in their share of the popular vote. In 1992, Mr. Clinton took 43% in a three-way race that included independent Ross Perot. This time, Mr. Obama won 53%, the highest share for any presidential winner since 1988 when George H.W. Bush took a similar proportion of the vote. And Mr. Obama’s percentage represents the largest for any Democrat since Mr. Johnson in 1964. As such, Mr. Obama could claim more of a mandate than George W. Bush famously did after his re-election in 2004, when he drew 50.7% of the popular vote and 286 electoral votes.

Counting Votes on Capitol Hill

Yet even if he were so inclined, there would not appear to be the votes on Capitol Hill for Mr. Obama to fashion an expansive liberal agenda along the lines of LBJ’s “Great Society.” Moreover, it is doubtful that Mr. Obama would want to reprise the aggressively partisan approach that Mr. Clinton practiced in the early stages of his presidency, which culminated with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994.

Rather, the Democratic presidential and congressional majorities – strong but not overwhelming – are likely to encourage Mr. Obama to follow what appear to be his natural instincts for pragmatism and bipartisan cooperation. That penchant for caution may be even more pronounced as Mr. Obama gets set to govern under the cloud of economic crisis and the burden of two wars to manage in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In any event, this election looks like a fitting outcome for both parties. With the Republicans saddled with an unpopular two-term president, a huge budget deficit, the greatest economic meltdown in decades, and lingering wars in the Middle East, any defeat short of a landslide is about the best they could hope for. As for the Democrats, they will now control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue for the first time since the early 1990s, with strengthened majorities on both sides of Capitol Hill. It gives them room to govern, but not unilaterally. And in these troubled times, that is probably all to the good.

Write to Rhodes Cook at Rhodescook@aol.com.

Gerald F. Seib, executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, has been involved in covering every presidential election since 1980 and writes the weekly Capital Journal column for the Journal. Click here for Mr. Seib’s full bio.

Elections sometimes change America, and sometimes they simply tell America how it already has changed. Tuesday’s election did a little bit of both.

The biggest change the election produced was also the most obvious. It opened the door to the Oval Office to an African-American for the first time, and did so with a national vote in which his race seems to have been a relatively minor factor.

Thus, the election shattered the most sensitive and enduring of barriers in America’s social history. The victory of Barack Obama ensured that race would be much discussed in the aftermath of this year’s vote — yet it also ensures that it never again will be discussed quite this much. How many people, after all, remember who was the second black man to play major-league baseball?

Moreover, Mr. Obama didn’t simply break the barrier, but did so handily. With 52.3% of the vote, he is the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to win more than 50% of the national vote, and he won a larger share of the popular vote than any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson won 61.1% in 1964. In short, he has the strongest personal mandate any Democrat has secured in a generation.

But even more than changing America, the election showed how much America has been changing. For years, the country’s economic power has been shifting to states such as Colorado, North Carolina, Virginia and Nevada. Now, as a result of Election 2008, its political power is shifting in that direction as well.

On Tuesday night, it was clear that Mr. Obama had won when he captured the traditional, Midwestern industrial powerhouses of Pennsylvania and Ohio. But in reality, he could have lost either of them and more than made up the difference with his wins in Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. It was nice to have the traditional battlegrounds, but not necessary.

(more…)