Life Under ObamaBeer will taste better and contain fewer calories, our cars will all get 1000 miles to the gallon, and the
bitter partisanship will end.
There are some who now believe that although power politics is here to stay, the era of intense polarization and frenzied demonization might begin to recede as a President Barack Obama goes back to that old standby of American politics used by so many Presidents: the task of trying to forge consensus. Consensus does NOT mean not taking strong stands or upsetting some who oppose specific policies. It means trying to get as many Americans from as many walks of life on board as possible by trying to woo, sway and win over, versus to simply politically dominate.
Of course, that's stuff and nonsense, as is much of the rest of the article. Get this:
Given the number of votes Obama got — the most a presidential candidate has gotten since LBJ in 1964 — and his big electoral college margin, his backers will argue persuasively that he has a mandate. But even there that doesn’t mean (a)riding roughshod, targeting, and demonizing those who disagree with him, OR, (b)not taking a stand, advocating policies and enacting them.
I don't know what the heck Gandelman means by that. Obama got more votes than anybody since LBJ in 1964? LBJ got 43 million in 1964, a number that was surpassed by Nixon's 46 million in 1972, Reagan's 44 million in 1980, Reagan's 54 million in 1984, Bush, Sr.'s 48 million in 1988, etc. Electoral college votes? Nope, Obama's 349 is fewer than any president got from 1980-1996. Percentage of the vote? Negative as well.
The idea that Obama is not going to be every bit as partisan as Bush is wishful thinking. I've commented before (as has Obama) that he's a
tabla rasa, a blank slate on which people have projected their own hopes and desires.
