Great expectations for Obama

If President-elect Obama wins on the big issues, Americans win. The reverse is also true. What defines winning in part depends on what you consider to be the big issues. And in part, some just, de facto, are.

There’s no dearth of commentary out there itemizing the list of what’s most important for the new administration.

Peggy Noonan has been taking ‘the long view’ and now looks at the larger picture. 

His biggest challenge? Not demoralized and reorganizing Republicans on the Hill but his own party, with a hunger for innovation and a head of steam built up and about to burst. And the incredible sense of expectation his supporters hold. When you think someone’s Moses, you expect him to part the seas.

Americans want change, and they just voted for it, but in times of high-stakes history they appreciate stability. And while we love drama in our movie stars and on our television sets, we don’t love unneeded drama in our government and among our govern-ors. This is already a dramatic time—two wars, economic collapse—and people are rattled. “Moderation in all things.” It should be noted here that the split in the popular vote was 53% to 46%. That is a solid seven-point win for the new president-elect, but it also means more than 56 million voters went for John McCain in a year when all the stars were aligned against the Republicans.

Obama can either keep that split in mind, and those 56 million voters who favored another worldview, or claim his victory as a mandate to impose his own worldview. Give him time to sort it out. He ran a stunningly well organized and strategized campaign. But the presidency is entirely different.

Mr. Obama has a significant portion of the nation to win over…He does have yet to earn it. Hint: They want peace, progress in the economy and nothing socially extreme. And they want to respect their president. Forget “they want to have a beer with you.” That was yesterday, when beer was cheaper. They want to respect you and look up to you; they want you to be a positive, not negative, role model for their children; they want to know you can lead as you ran, capable…And they want you to handle whatever history sends over the transom, and that will be plenty dramatic enough, as everyone knows.

“With such a great victory come unreasonably great expectations,” says The Economist.

Many of Mr Obama’s more ardent supporters will be let down—and in some cases they deserve to be. For those who voted for him with their eyes wide open to his limitations, everything now depends on how he governs. Abroad, this 21st-century president will have to grapple with the sort of great-power rivalries last seen in the 19th century…At home, he must try to unite his country, tackling its economic ills while avoiding the pitfalls of one-party rule. Rhetoric and symbolism will still be useful in this; but now is the turn of detail and dedication…

And by winning support from a big majority of independents, and even from a fair few Republicans, he makes it possible to imagine a return to a more reflective time when political opponents were not regarded as traitors and collaboration was something to be admired.

But The Economist puts that victory in perspective, once again raising the point that while this is a significant victory, it is not a mandate.

Oddly, he may be helped by the fact that, in the end, his victory was slightly disappointing. He won around 52% of the popular vote, more than Mr Bush in 2000 and 2004, but not a remarkable number; this was no Roosevelt or Reagan landslide…

Given how much more money Mr Obama raised, the destruction of the Republican brand under Mr Bush and the effects of the worst financial crisis for 70 years, the fact that 46% of people voted against the Democrat is a reminder of just what a conservative place America still is. Mr Obama is the first northern liberal to be elected president since John Kennedy; he must not forget how far from the political centre of the country that puts him.