End of the Conservative Ascendency

Rough stuff from this week's edition:

FOR American and European savers it has been a lost decade. After two booms and two busts, stockmarkets have earned them nothing, or less, in the past ten years. Low interest rates have made bonds and bank deposits unrewarding too. Were it not for the tax relief they receive, contributors to personal pension plans would have been better off keeping their money under their mattresses. It will be little consolation to Westerners that savers in Japan have known this empty feeling for far longer.

This year's figures are enough to put anybody off saving. American mutual-fund assets have declined by $2.4 trillion-a fifth of their value-since the start of 2008; in Britain, the drop is more than a quarter, or almost £130 billion ($195 billion). The value of global stockmarkets has shrunk by maybe $30 trillion, or roughly half. These figures put the losses on credit-related securities-where the financial crisis began-into the shade.

Nor has the bad news been confined to equities. This year the value of all manner of risky investments, from corporate bonds to commodities to hedge funds, has been clobbered. The belief that diversification into "alternative assets" could prevent investors losing money in bear markets has proved false. And of course housing, which many people counted on for their retirement nest-eggs, has lost value too (see article).

As a result, saving seems like pouring money into a black hole (see article). Any American who has diligently put $100 a month into a domestic equity mutual fund for the past ten years will find his pot worth less than he put into it; a European who did the same has lost a quarter of his money.

Find the rest of this compelling editorial here.

Today's Post has an excellent analysis of Virginia's changing electoral landscape, detailing Democratic gains with Hispanics, African-Americans, young people and upper income and more educated voters.  The story of what happened in Virginia in 2008 mirrors what happened across the nation, and makes very clear the national GOP's problems are structural as well as temporal - they simply are not building a Party and a Coalition suited to the demographic realities of 21st century America.  

An excerpt:

The party's gains rest heavily upon the state's changing demographics and were amplified this year by deep enthusiasm for the Democratic presidential and senatorial candidates, coupled with a broadly successful turnout operation.

In Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, a growing number of nonwhite residents, particularly Hispanics, are diminishing what had long been a big source of votes for Republican candidates. Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties and Manassas and Manassas Park have all experienced double-digit increases in the percentage of nonwhite residents since 2000. And in each of those locations, Democrats' share of the vote increased proportionally.

The nonwhite population of Prince William, for example, has grown by 13 percentage points since 2000. President-elect Barack Obama carried the county with almost 58 percent of the vote -- 13 points better than former vice president Al Gore did in the 2000 presidential race.

Loudoun experienced a 12-point gain in the minority population since 2000, and Obama did 13 percentage points better than Gore did in 2000. Obama did 10 points better than Gore in Stafford, which saw a 10 percent increase in the minority population since 2000.

This shift, matched with historical Democratic strength in the inner suburbs, makes Northern Virginia a huge source of votes for Democrats. The region's size, compared with the rest of the state, threatens Republicans' ability to win statewide if Democrats can continue to get their voters to the poll, demographers and political scientists suggest.

"The transformation in Northern Virginia has been rapid and dramatic, and Obama came out of Northern Virginia with a margin of [213,000] votes, and that is very hard to overcome," said Ken Billingsley, director of demographics and information for the Northern Virginia Regional Commission. "In Prince William, the change has already occurred, and I am not the least bit surprised that Stafford, Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg are moving in that direction."

.....

According to exit polls, Hispanics made up 5 percent of the statewide electorate this year, almost matching their overall share of the population. Hispanics in Virginia favored Obama over Arizona Sen. John McCain, the GOP nominee, by an almost 2 to 1 margin. If Republicans hope to recover from their losses in time for the 2009 races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the House of Delegates, their candidates will have to find a way to overwhelmingly win the white vote and make inroads with blacks and Hispanics.

"I, as a Southerner, understand that for the Republican Party to win presidential elections in the future we can no longer be the party of the deep South and Prairie Midwest," said Trey Walker, a South Carolina native who oversaw McCain's Virginia campaign. "If we don't start appealing to [minorities], we are going to continue to lose." (bold added for emphasis). 

Whether the Republican Party can start to speak effectively to the multi-racial America of the 21st century will be one of the most important questions in American politics in the coming years.  I think this job will be much harder than many understand for the foundation of the modern GOP - and the key to their success in recent decades - has been the exploitation of racial grievence.   Willie Horton, welfare queens, tax and spend, deporting undocumenteds - it has all been about exploiting white fears of the racial other in American life.  As I wrote earlier this year in an essay, On Obama, Race and the End of the Southern Strategy, demographic changes in America were making this type of politics a 20th anachronism whether Barack Obama became President or not.  With him as leader, there will also now be a moral challenge to this core play in the GOP playbook - for how will this society, this culture, allow the dog-whistle, wink and nod racial politics of the Southern Strategy era with a bi-racial man as President?  

While you will hear many Republicans echo Mr. Walker above, and call for their Party to get right with America's emerging demographic realities, I don't know if they understand how fundamental a rethink this is going to require.  Just three years ago the GOP House passed a bill calling for the arrest and deportation of 5 percent of the American work force - 10-12 million people, 10-12 million largely Hispanic people.  How they move from this politics of Nixon to a politics more fitting of Lincoln is going to be a transformation remarkable to behold - and almost unimaginable today. 

NDN is proud to host the Honorable Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank and former Ambassador of Colombia to the United States, to discuss "The Current Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Latin America." This briefing will take place on Thursday, December 11, at 3 p.m. at NDN, 729 15th St., NW, 1st Floor.

Please RSVP as soon as possible. The event is open, but space is limited. Refreshments will be served. Please visit our Web site to view past events with the Ambassadors of Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and the Vice President of Panama.

Talk about a paradox: just days after Americans made history by electing the first black president, the AP reports that threats against a president-elect spike right after an election, but from Maine to Idaho law enforcement officials are seeing more against Barack Obama than any president-elect ever before. And in New York, seven teenage thugs in Patchogue replicated a shameful page of what we'd like to call "history" by forming what one prosecutor called a "lynch mob." Why are people bent on hate? More importantly - how do we fight ignorance and intolerance? A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil." A wise friend once said, "the same people who hate immigrants and immigration reform hate Latinos, and hate other races, and the people who hate these groups are the same who speak out against women's rights, and against choice, and against gay rights...." Arguing that any one group is better or worse than another constitutes hate speech, and hate speech has consequences.

A New York Times editorial this week, The High Cost of Harsh Words opens with the name of our column - words have consequences. And Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, is learning that the hard way. Seven teenagers were arrested and charged in the fatal stabbing last Saturday of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, on a street in the Long Island village of Patchogue. Local lawmakers in Suffolk would speak out complaining about immigration, but Levy went farther - he founded a national organization to lobby for crackdowns. He went on "Lou Dobbs." He sought to drive day laborers from local streets, yet rigidly opposed efforts to create hiring sites. Even as tensions escalated in places like Farmingville, a hot spot for anti-immigrant resentment, Mr. Levy parroted extremist talking points, going so far as to raise the alarm, utterly false, that illegal immigrants' "anchor babies" were forcing Southampton Hospital to close its maternity ward. He now denounces racist hatred, yet his words have made him a hero to white supremacist hate groups, and certainly contributed to the atmosphere that allowed these men to feel angry enough to want to kill another human being, and protected enough to think that they could get away with it.

It's difficult to tell whether Levy even cares about the responsibility he bears in relation to this crime, immigrant advocates assailed him for having poisoned the atmosphere. Some called for his resignation, and with tactless self-pity, Mr. Levy complained to Newsday that the killing would have been a one-day story anywhere but his home turf. He insists that people have a distorted picture of him, but "Mr. Levy needs to realize that distortions cut both ways." Some white supremacists hide behind the alleged legal status argument - alleging Lucero was "illegal," so what if he was? If you think that his legal status excuses taking his life, then you are a racist. Then where do we draw the line? Is the life of a thief, an adulterer, or an unscrupulous wall street executive also expendable? And to further make the point - these thugs didn't stop to ask for papers before attacking, which would put you, or me, or anyone at risk. The murder is just the tip of the iceberg - it's not a "story" when Hispanics are assaulted and beaten, but don't die, or when rocks or other items are thrown at them in places like Suffolk around the country, or when a Latino family's house burns down because two teens thought it would be "cool" to throw firecrackers into the house and see the family scurry out.

Where is the outrage against the cruel murder of an Ecuadorian man? I applaud Peter Applebome, Angela Macropoulos, and Kirk Semple of the New York Times for reporting on it, but what about national news, national networks? Why isn't Lou Dobbs talking about this war by the middle class, against the Hispanic middle and poor class? Oh yes, he's against illegal and legal immigrants, I almost forgot. Where is the Hispanic Bill O'Reilly, angrily mobilizing mobs to speak out against this horrible crime? That's a rhetorical question, it would be awful for Latinos to fuel the fire by drawing additional racial divides - the idea is for no group to predicate division, but rather hold Dobbs, Beck and O'Reilly and people like them accountable for all acts like this murder, because words do have consequences.

On the day these men killed Mr. Lucero, they were identified by witnesses as having battered two other Hispanics earlier in the afternoon. What if the story had been the other way around, and a group of Latinos went out hunting for a U.S. born high school boy, or a "frat boy?" What kind of coverage would that story receive? Dobbs would have dedicated a month's worth of programming to it. And what kind of justice would those murderers get? I sincerely doubt a gang of Hispanics would get off on a first or second degree "manslaughter" indictment (only one of the seven attackers is charged with murder). A very unfair double-standard still exists, and it's appalling. Make no mistake, these weren't young kids who didn't know any better, they were a gang as defined in the U.S.: "a street-oriented youth group whose own identity includes the involvement in illegal activity." And to be clear, assault - which doesn't even involve putting a hand on someone, battery, murder, are all illegal activities.

Murder is murder - manslaughter means you didn't intend to kill. A requirement of murder is that a person acts with intent to kill and knowledge that their actions will result in someone's death. And the police reports that this gang was out to - self-describedly - "kill a Mexican," and they stabbed the guy - they beat him, and then they stabbed him - let's not confuse things, they were out to kill. And if they can do this to another man for no reason, what's not to say that these same men would be just as willing to assault a woman just because they can, or a child? They are a menace to society, as is anyone who thinks like them. One of the killers, Chris Overton, 16 years old, is awaiting sentencing in another case. He pleaded guilty to burglary in another fatal attack in May 2007 in which a 38-year-old East Patchogue man was shot dead when a group of teenagers robbed his home. A neighbor found the victim, Carlton Shaw, dead in his backyard, his 3-year-old son sleeping on his chest.

But the Lucero murder was fueled by hate, and it's up to each community to not allow these crimes to go unreported, underreported, or unpunished. Let us not forget; now Levy plans to have a scholarship for children in honor of Marcelo Lucero, and that's all well and good, but I care more about what he personally is going to do to admit his rhetoric was hateful and unacceptable, and to change the atmosphere in Suffolk. Remember Luis Ramirez? The Mexican man who was also killed by another high-school age gang in Shenandoah, PA? The picture above is of Ramirez just before he died...let's not forget, and let's not allow hate crimes to become a "fact of life," let's stay vigilant in our communities to avoid adding another name to the list of victims.

UPDATE: Be sure to attend (or watch) our March 10, 2009 event with Joe Rospars, the new media director of the Obama Presidential Campaign and founder of Blue State Digital, one of the nation's leading new media consulting firms. There will also be a live Web cast of the event, for those of you that can't make it in person. 

***

NDN is pleased to announce that Scott Goodstein has been added as a panelist -- his first appearance since returning home from the campaign -- at our Thursday, November 20, forum on the New Politics of the Obama Age. Goodstein was External Online Director for Obama for America, and developed the campaign’s social networking platforms. His pioneering work  included running the first political campaign to launch niche based social networks like BlackPlanet, Eons, MiGente, AsianAve, Disaboom, etc. He built the campaign's lifestyle marketing strategy and developed the "street team" materials used in battleground states.

Goodstein also created and implemented Obama Mobile, an advanced communication strategy that included text messaging, downloads, interactive voice response communication, a mobile web site (WAP), and even an iPhone application. To read more about the amazing work Scott did for the Obama campaign, check out this article by the Washington Post's Jose Antonio Vargas. The article also quotes Tim Chambers, who is a panelist at the event on Thursday as well. To read about Obama's entire new media team in a larger profile by Vargas, click here.

Prior to his work at Obama for America, Goodstein was founder of Catalyst Campaigns, a public relations firm that specialized in lifestyle marketing and online organizing. In 2004, Goodstein co-founded Punkvoter.com & Rock Against Bush and evolved these organizations into becoming a $4 million young voter mobilization effort.

Goodstein will join Simon Rosenberg, President of NDN, Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and Chambers, co-founder of Media 50 Group and Principal at Dewey Digital, to discuss how we expect the lessons of this historic campaign and its use of new media to shape domestic and global politics in the years to come.

Thursday's event is from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at NDN, 729 15th St., NW, 1st FL. Space is extremely limited, so please click here to RSVP and arrive early to ensure a seat. See you Thursday for what promises to be a truly compelling discussion.

Absent huge Democratic mistakes in the next few years, the Republican Party's road back could very well be a long one. They just suffered their worst Presidential defeat in 44 years, and have now suffered crushing defeats two elections in a row, a rarity in American history.   The Democrats have more ideological control of Washington than any time since the mid- 1960s. The Democrats themselves have thoroughly modernized in the past few years, building a very 21st century and potentially durable coalition, discovering the first new electoral map of this new century, employing the very latest and very potent tools to speak to and engage the American people, and have become fully focused on the big issues the American people now face. The center-left movement is also regenerating, and has created an investment and entrepreneurial capacity that has a very good chance of building a truly powerful and modern ideological movement to complement the modernizing Democrats. And of course, the Democrats are led by a thoroughly modern man, America's first true leader of this new century, Barack Obama, who so far has shown uncommon leadership potential for a man so young and so new to the national stage.  

The Republicans, on the other hand, seem unnaturally comfortable sticking to their once successful but increasingly anachronistic ways of the 20th century. Their politics has become more reactionary than conservative, as if their party's great task has become to nostalgically but angrily fight against the emerging realities of the 21st century rather than embrace them. Their coalition no longer works in the changing demography of the day, and is dangerously old; their Southern Strategy, so critical to their ascension, has become a relic of the past; their tech and media tools have not kept up with the times; their ideas have become spent and discredited; their leaders, particularly in Washington, seem content to ankle bite rather than lead. They are an aging and frayed bunch, living off the fumes of a day and politics gone by.

At this point, I really believe there is a strong argument to be made that the GOP is further from power, more discredited and more out of touch with the American people than any time since the days of FDR and Truman. The GOP's challenge isn't a moderate-conservative one, a North-South one, a black-white-brown one - it is a forward/backward one. They succeeded in dislodging the Democrats in the late 20th century. They blew their shot in this decade to build a durable majority. Their government failed at a level that has done grave and lasting damage to their brand, and their leaders seem firmly grounded in an old politics that is simply no longer credible in this new day. They are going to have to go through a total overhaul. They will have to develop a new argument that meets the emerging challenges of the new century head on; a new electoral map; a new coalition that at some point begins to accept our fast-growing, non-white population; and competency in a whole new set of media and tech tools. They will have to shed the exploitation of race that has been at the core of their domestic politics; shed their raging intolerance of people not like them; of their comfort with politics and theater over governing; of the binary simplicity of the Cold War and the limitations of free market fundamentalism; and of a whole generation of leaders from Karl Rove to Mitch McConnell to Grover Norquist, who were schooled and evangelized in this breed of politics. This task is a big and complex one, harder perhaps than anything the right has had to do since the founding of the National Review in 1955. 

And certainly one cannot expect this new modern leadership to come from the remnants of the old failed order that still controls the all too comfortable offices of the modern GOP and conservative movement. Rather, look hard at those governors on display last week in Miami for clues to the future of America's center-right. But as able as those governors are - Pawlenty, Jindal, Crist, Palin - one did not see an obvious President there, someone ready to take on Obama in 2012, and lead their Party from a deep and dark wilderness. Interesting folks, but no FDR, no Reagan, no Clinton, no Obama. Despite their claims, the GOP farm team seems awfully thin now, at least for the short term.   

For the GOP it sure looks like a long road back. 

Since my last roundup on Tuesday, we've been in several stories that have really picked up and advanced NDN's narrative. Simon was in a great Associated Press video about how Obama will use the internet to govern, in which he predicted that the weekly radio address would also be broadcast on YouTube. His analysis of the subject was also featured in RCR Wireless, and in a whole host of other pieces over the past several weeks.  From the RCR article:

New Democratic Network President Simon Rosenberg offered a different view in foreseeing that Obama’s tech innovations have paved the way for “a completely different relationship between the President and the public.” Presidential “Fireside Chats” by radio initiated during the 1930s Depression will be out in this scenario. They would be supplanted by an entire array of interactive and citizen-empowering communications tools already tested during the campaign that convinced 55+ million voters to be Obama supporters. Pipedream or prediction? We’ll all soon see.

And indeed, with Obama instituting a weekly YouTube address this weekend, we are seeing sooner than most expected.

Simon was also in a great story in Salon, entitled "A Permanent Democratic Majority?", about the role of Hispanics in creating a lasting progressive majority coalition. From the article:

...None of this means that Democrats can take the Hispanic vote for granted. In fact, the party's success this year comes in large part because it began a concerted effort focusing on Hispanics. Simon Rosenberg, the president of the New Democrat Network, which has been studying the changing electorate and especially the impact of the Hispanic vote, says, "Increased turnout happened because Democrats finally woke up to this Hispanic opportunity ... It's really only in the last few years that Democrats woke up to this new reality. If you're a Hispanic voter, particularly in the Southwest or the West, the Democratic Party sort of woke up and started to speak to you."

NDN's work on Hispanic issues was also featured in the Boston Globe, the Examiner, the Latino Journal, Talk Radio News Service, Capitol Hill Blue, ScrippsNews, and VotoLatino.

Simon was also quoted in Mathaba on how Millennials and Hispanics have permanently changed American politics. NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais were quoted in great article in Forbes, entitled "Young Voters Turn America Left." And Rob was quoted in the Kansas City Star, and had a featured guest blog in the Houston Chronicle.

NDN's work has been featured in many narrative-shaping stories over the past week and a half. If you haven't gotten a chance to check them out yet, you can do so here, here, here, and here.

It has been a remarkable week for NDN in the media; this is my fourth news round up in eight days (see the others here, here, and here).

First off, Simon's election analysis appeared in a major article in BBC News today, which began like this:

Democratic strategist, Simon Rosenberg, director of the New Democrat Network, is one of those who argues that the pattern of the last four decades has been broken.

Since the the 1960s, when the Democrats passed civil rights legislation, the southern states have mostly voted Republican in presidential elections.

This has given them an in-built advantage, and only two Democrats, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (both southerners), have won the White House in the last 40 years.

Now Mr Rosenberg argues the Democrats have created a new paradigm that means they could dominate politics for a generation.

He gives three reasons:

• Demographics: The Democrats are appealing to the fastest-growing groups in the electorate

• Technology: The Democrats have mastered the new digital technologies, enabling them to fundraise and mobilise their supporters more effectively than their opponents

• Issues: The Democrats are better equipped to deal with the new issues, like global warming, immigration, and the global financial crisis, which go beyond traditional left and right divisions

He also argues that the Republican brand has been irrevocably damaged.

At the same time, he recognises that the main issue for many voters in this election was an old-fashioned one - falling living standards - and this will represent a major challenge for President Obama.

Simon is also quoted extensively throughout the body of this excellent article, which lays out many of NDN's main arguments, so be sure to check it out.

Since Friday, Simon has also been quoted in a plethora of sources about how Obama is likely to use technology to govern, including Wired, Agence France Press, the Houston Chronicle, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TCMNet, Business Intelligence Middle East, and Real Clear Politics; NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Michael Hais are also quoted in the RCP story talking about Millennials. 

From the Wired article:

Obama is widely expected by the inside-the-Beltway community to use the web to redefine the relationship between the President and his constituents, just as he did so with voters during the 2008 campaign when he often used tech tools like YouTube and text messaging to communicate directly with voters, bypassing the media.

"I think you're going to see this new model used throughout his presidency that Obama's pioneered that allows him to reach many more people in a much more meaningful way," says Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the non-profit think-tank NDN in a recent interview. "Just like the advent of radio changed the relationship between those that govern and their voters, President (elect) Obama will start to re-invent the relationship of American citizens to their president using the new and modern internet-based tools."

This could take shape in the form of Saturday YouTube addresses instead of or in addition to the President's weekly Saturday radio address, Rosenberg speculated. The point is that Obama is expected to use the tools to go "over the heads" of the media to communicate and to mobilize voters.

Simon was also quoted in several more stories about the Hispanic vote, appearing in the Los Angeles Times, the Las Vegas Sun, the Latino Journal, and Burnt Orange Report. Tom Brokaw also quoted Simon in an interview with U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez on "Meet the Press," and Markos (Kos) from DailyKos linked to Simon's blog post about the interview.

Finally, Andres appeared in the Las Vegas Sun discussing Latino turnout, and Rob discussed Obama's possible economic policies in the Chicago Tribune and Ireland's Independent. 

On Wednesday, I posted some of the influential election stories that featured NDN - if you haven't seen these, be sure to check them out, there are some really exellent pieces by some of the best journalists in the country. Since Wednesday, in addition to Simon's winning The Hill's election prediction contest, NDN has appeared in another big round of press:

First, Simon was quoted in a must-read piece by Ron Brownstein in the National Journal:

Barack Obama on Tuesday won the most decisive Democratic presidential victory in a generation largely by tapping into growing elements of American society: young people, Hispanics and other minorities, and white upper-middle-class professionals. That coalition of the ascendant—combined with unprecedented margins among African-Americans—powered Obama to a commanding victory over Republican John McCain, even though Obama achieved only modest and intermittent gains with the working-class white voters who provided the foundation of the Democratic coalition from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election in 1932 to Humphrey’s defeat 36 years later.

“Obama is reimagining a Democratic coalition for the 21st century,” says Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a Democratic group that studies electoral trend and tactics. “Democrats [are] … surging with all the ascending and growing parts of the electorate. He is building a coalition that Democrats could ride for 30 or 40 years, the way they rode the FDR coalition of the 1930s.”

Simon was also quoted in USA Today about about the changing demography of America and its significance for the future of politics:

Dramatic rises in Hispanic participation, support or both put Obama over the top in Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. The trends were similar in Arizona and Texas, though the two states went for Republican John McCain. The group also made its presence felt in Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina.

"If the Republicans don't make their peace with Hispanic voters, they're not going to win presidential elections anymore. The math just isn't there," says Simon Rosenberg, head of the NDN, a Democratic group that studies Hispanic voters.

In addition, Simon discussed the importance of the Hispanic vote in Newsroom America, and Andres' analysis of Hispanics in this election was covered on NPR, in a DNC release, in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Latino Journal (and again here), Hispanic Trending, and the Latino Politics Blog.  

Simon also weighed in on "Obama, Race and the End of the Southern Strategy" in a featured post on Huffington Post which was also picked up by OpenLeft.

In addition to the new demographics, Simon also talked about the use of new technology and media. He spoke to both how Obama used technology to win, and how he will use it to govern. From a piece in the Washington Times:

The campaign won't say whether the BarackTV and live-streamed events will continue after the inauguration, but all signs point to a revolutionized way of White House communication with America and the world.

"The most interesting thing to watch will be what do they and how do they reinvent the way a president speaks to the American people," said Simon Rosenberg of the liberal think tank NDN and a veteran of the Clinton White House.

"There's no doubt this is going to be more of a YouTube presidency than a fireside chat presidency," he said. "President Obama will be reinventing the relationship between the president and the American people using these new tools."

Simon gave similar analysis in the National Journal's Daily Tech Dose, Wired, and Digital Graffiti.

In terms of general election analysis, Simon talked about the likely governing philosophy of an Obama administration in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Times. 

New NDN Fellows Michael Hais and Morley Winograd were featured in the Post-Bulletin about the Millennial vote. Michael had an essay in Grist about the opportunities for the new administration to invest in clean infrastructure and clean energy. Finally, Rob talks about the economic challenges facing the new administration in the AP, Accountancy Age, and the Irish Left Review.

As President-elect Barack Obama turns to the enormous challenges facing the nation, his first priority will be to set his priorities. Already, there are more urgent problems than any president could tackle successfully in a single term, and even more will almost certainly emerge. Moreover, he now will have to lead in ways he did not have to as candidate, by taking real and contentious actions. His historic, landslide election will give him greater, initial political capital than any president since Ronald Reagan. Even so, capital gets spent, and a president’s power and influence are finite, so he will have to choose precisely where he intends to focus all that capital, power and influence.

The lead items on his domestic agenda must be the nation’s financial and economic crisis. That will require, first, steps to slow housing foreclosures. He has pledged to initiate a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures, but that would be only a first, modest step. He also could also create a new fund to lend tide-over funds to homeowners facing foreclosure after the 90 days are up, and while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac work out a responsible plan for them to renegotiate the terms and interest rates on the mortgages of homeowners in distress. He also can help banks get credit flowing again with a temporary, reduced tax rate on an estimated $700 billion in profits now held abroad by the foreign subsidiaries of American companies.

That step also could provide a measure of stimulus for an economy currently entering what is likely to be a long, nasty recession, and addressing the recession also must be one of President Obama’s first priorities. Tax rebates won’t work, since most Americans would most likely save any new checks rather than spend them. So Washington will have to jumpstart the nation’s additional spending, with a new spending package of $200 billion to $250 billion. And President Obama should focus most of it on the long-term investments he called for during the campaign, including grants to digitize health care records and provide access to computer training for current workers, and new supports to modernize the electricity grid and accelerate the development and spread of alternative energy. On top of that – and grants to cash-strapped states so they can avoid large cuts in their Medicaid programs and their workforces – the new president should focus the infrastructure piece of his stimulus on creating a national infrastructure financing bank and initiating new commitments for low-polluting light rail systems in major metropolitan areas.

The president will also hear demands and pleas for a new regulatory framework for the financial sector. That task is clearly a necessary and urgent one, but getting it right will be a long, complex process. His best move would be to create a national, expert commission with a mandate to figure it out over the next six months and report back to the nation.

The president’s serious priority-setting can only really begin once he addresses those emergencies – and it won’t be easy. The stimulus measures can be the first steps toward meeting his pledge to help build a more energy-efficient and climate-friendly economy. And since he will have to choose, the rest of that agenda should probably take lower priority than health care reform. One reason is that while the recession will cut energy prices and energy use with no help from Washington, for at least a time, it will only worsen out health care problems. The recession will further increase the numbers of people without coverage, perhaps by millions, without making a dent in the steady, sharp increases in health care costs that will continue to cut into jobs and wages. And any further delay will only make it all worse. It’s time to carry out his plans to make coverage much more nearly universal, and tie those extensions to a hard-nosed program of cost controls that will require hospitals and clinics to adopt the best practices of the country’s most cost efficient medical centers.

This will leave President Obama with plenty to tackle in the second half of his term. That can be the time to take further steps to help make America more climate friendly and energy efficient. It also has to be the time to build on the cost-control lessons from health care reform and finally address the serious and treacherous business of reforming Medicare and other entitlement spending for tens of millions of Baby Boomers.

And if President Obama can make real progress in these priority areas over his first term, it will almost certainly earn him an even bigger national landslide for a second term.