Brian Gongol
Senator Obama wins; now he needs to lead
It's virtually impossible to tell what kind of President he'll end up being. Expectations among his supporters are almost stratospheric, which means many of them will probably end up being disappointed sooner or later. In that regard, he's just like any other human. He could turn out like George W. Bush, who was elected by a public that expected him to behave like a real fiscal conservative -- only to end up with a Federal debt twice the size of when he took office (a turn of events that has badly damaged the Republican Party). Or, if fortune is on our side, he could turn out like Bill Clinton, who campaigned on the economic left but then turned into a fiscal conservative under the guidance of Robert Rubin. That outcome seems oddly mixed in likelihood; Rubin is an Obama advisor, but Obama also got the nomination by defeating Hillary Clinton, who was the DLC's candidate in 2008 -- the DLC being one of the most free-market-oriented groups in the Democratic Party). Or he might take another path altogether. But he absolutely must address the Medicare funding crisis as well as the exploding Federal debt, both of which he avoided saying almost anything about during his campaign.
Public-works projects are popular, but where will the money come from?
