Barack Obama: New 44th President Will Face Real Challenges, Responsibilities

Barack Obama:
44th President of the United States

New President Will Find Responsibilities Replace Rhetoric




Electoral Win Solid, if Not Spectacular

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Barack Obama was elected in Election 2008 as the USA's 44th president and almost immediately will face hard choices in governing, both on the domestic and foreign fronts.

The media has called Obama's election "historic", and on that--unlike most other matters of fact--they are correct.

Obama becomes the country's first bi-racial candidate, and even those that opposed Obama on policy issues can find much good in the hope that his election will put issues of race into their proper perspective.

The raw statistics surrounding the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the nation's 44th president indicate that the country gave a Democrat presidential candidate a majority of the popular vote for the first time in 32 years.

Obama's 52.4% of the popular vote surpasses Jimmy Carter's 50.1% total in 1976 election. That total could finish up or down, but not by much. Obama's total was far short of predictions that he would approach Lyndon Johnson's 1964 total of 61.1%.

The electoral college total had Obama winning 364-174 over challenger John McCain.

Bill Clinton exceeded both totals in the electoral college--in spite of never winning a majority of the popular vote--in both 1992(370) and 1996 (379). Obama did surpass Carter's 297.

Obama will be tested immediately, it seems on foreign policy.

Russia reacted to the news of Obama's election within hours. From Russian missiles to counter U.S. defence plan: Medvedev.

Russia will deploy short-range missiles in the Baltic Sea region near the border with Poland in response to plans by the United States to build an anti-missile system in Europe, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday.

The proposed U.S. anti-missile system, which would include 10 missile silos in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic to help detect and shoot down any ballistic missiles, threatens Russia's national security, Medvedev said in his state-of-the-nation address on Wednesday.

"To neutralize — if necessary — the [U.S.] anti-missile system, an Iskander missile system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region," Medvedev said. "Naturally, we are also considering using for the same purpose the resources of Russia's navy."

There will be the traditional 'honeymoon' between the new Obama administration and the press. DBKP is no different: we wish the new president well for the sake of the United States.

We'll reserve comment on the press' relationship with the Obama campaign before the election for another post.

Obama's campaign mantra of "hope" affects even us: we hope that what we don't know about the Senator from Illinois won't affect his good judgment for the good of the country. We also hope that the Obama we see in White House really the go-slow, tax-cutting Obama we saw in the last weeks of the campaign.

Obama's campaign mantra of "hope" affects even us: we hope that what we don't know about the Senator from Illinois won't affect his good judgment for the good of the country.

Republicans in Congress continued to pay a price for their free-spending, pork-barreling ways when they had control. We hope they learned a lesson, though we are a bit skeptical.

Barack Obama is a smart man. We hope he uses his intelligence to study the effects of what happens--to Democrats and Republicans alike--when they try to buy votes using the hard-earned money of their fellow citizens.

We Barack Obama a hearty "Good luck".

by Mondo Frazier