1. Will President Barack Obama govern as a moderate centrist or a liberal extremist? As the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, with a background seeped in far-left activism, he does not seem naturally inclined to head to the center without a looming election to force him to accommodate moderate voters. Certainly he now has every opportunity to push through the redistributive agenda he spoke about so fondly in his now-infamous 2001 radio address. He has healthy majorities in both houses of Congress and a wish list built up over eight years ”” with everything from universal health care to abolishing secret ballot union elections to the Freedom of Choice Act.

It would seem to require Herculean strength for a president, especially one relatively new to Washington and with a record of subservience to party orthodoxy, to resist the strong leftward pull. Certainly, Obama presumably wants not just one, but two terms and wants to retain that Congressional majority. And the lesson of 1994 when President Bill Clinton lost his Democratic Congressional majority remains fixed in Democrats’ memories. But it is hard to imagine, even with the financial crisis ”” and the resulting mound of debt and revenue shortfall ”” that Obama will now transform into a protector of free markets and balanced budgets and a bulwark against the phalanx of Democratic special interest groups….

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There are a lot of reasons, but in my view the main ones are these:

The question is: was it more of the former or the latter? My answer is more of the latter. Mr. Obama is for hope and change. But hope for what exactly? Change of what kind exactly? He almost became a Rorschach test on which people projected their various dreams and aspirations. But he mainly won because he is not George Bush. There is really a huge range of possibilities of what kind of a President he will be–he could be very good, or very poor, or many places in between. We shall see. But he–and we–will discover very quickly that governing is MUCH harder than campaigning–KSH.

Sen. Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

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This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let’s remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

Those are values that we all share.

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Some valuable stuff here, such as this:

Brendan Payne in Edmonds, US, says: I voted for McCain and disagree with much of Obama’s policies, but this is an historic day for the United States. Ideology aside, we must come together as Americans to celebrate this great hammer blow against the walls of racism in America.

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…[His] plans are for his campaign to quickly start filling top jobs in the White House and cabinet. Leading the list for White House chief of staff is Chicago Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s biggest House cheerleader and a former top aide in the Clinton White House. His appointment, say Democratic insiders, could come as early as Wednesday. Also, Obama is considering Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 presidential runner-up, as secretary of state, according to sources.

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CNN projects that Barack Obama will be the nation’s 44th president.

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Whatever thoughts you chose to share. Please if at all possible real names and locations highly preferred.

Some of the nation’s most divisive social issues – gay marriage, abortion and affirmative action – went before voters Tuesday as 36 states passed judgment on ballot measures as well as candidates.

Of the 153 measures at stake, the most momentous was a proposed constitutional amendment in California that would limit marriage to heterosexual couples.

Similar measures have prevailed previously in 27 states, but none were in California’s situation – with thousands of gay couples already married in the aftermath of a state Supreme Court ruling in May.

The opposing sides together raised about $70 million, much of it from out of state, to wage their campaigns. The outcome, either way, will have a huge impact on prospects for spreading same-sex marriage to the 47 states that do not allow it.

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Check it out. I see over on Intrade that Obama is over 94 and John McCain is down to 6.

For your amusement, I report that the State of New York has ELEVEN Parties on the ballot: Republican, Democrat, Independence, Conservative, Working Families, Socialist Labor, another party with socialist in the title, Green (Cynthia McKinney), Libertarian (Bob Barr), and Populist (Ralph Nader.) McCain/Palin appear on 3 of the first four; and the Democrats and Working Families have Obama/Biden. I’d never heard of the two candidates who’ve been nominated by the two socialist parties.

–From one in the stream of emails today

What we are unlikely to see over the next four years is progress on serious defects in the press and the electoral process that this election revealed.

It is ironic that in 2008 we probably have two of the most honest and decent men running for president that we have had in a long time, and yet this has easily been the most corrupt election in my lifetime.

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Bishop Ronald Gainer said Monday that he wrote a letter stressing the church’s stance on abortion to the Lexington Diocese because he felt that too many Catholic politicians had misstated key Catholic teachings.

On Sunday, 64 parishes in the Lexington Diocese were read a letter written by Gainer that stressed that issues about the sanctity of life ”” including abortion ”” are morally more important than other political issues.

The letter, Gainer said Monday, was in response to several letters to the editor and statements made by Catholic politicians on a key Catholic document related to voting and citizenship.

“I mention no party and mention no candidates,” Gainer said of his letter. “Our policy is that we are non-partisan but principled.”

Read it all and the letter itself is there.

Florida has only voted for one Democratic presidential candidate since backing Jimmy Carter in 1976 – Bill Clinton in 1996. Even then, Clinton only received 48 percent of the vote. President Bush carried Florida by only 537 votes in the 2000 election that took five weeks to sort out.

While Bush won by a more comfortable 381,000 votes in 2004, this year’s race is expected to be much closer. Since 2004, Democrats have added 461,000 voters to their rolls, compared to 172,000 more Republicans. And the number of black voters, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, has increased by about 250,000 since 2004.

The campaigns are also competing for Florida’s nearly 1.4 million Hispanic voters, as well as large blocks of Jewish and elderly voters.

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Nov. 4, 2008, is a historic day because it marks the end of an economic era, a political era and a generational era all at once.

Economically, it marks the end of the Long Boom, which began in 1983. Politically, it probably marks the end of conservative dominance, which began in 1980. Generationally, it marks the end of baby boomer supremacy, which began in 1968. For the past 16 years, baby boomers, who were formed by the tumult of the 1960s, occupied the White House. By Tuesday night, if the polls are to be believed, a member of a new generation will become president-elect.

So today is not only a pivot, but a confluence of pivots.

When historians look back at the era that is now closing, they will see a time of private achievement and public disappointment. In the past two decades, the United States has become a much more interesting place. Companies like Starbucks, Apple, Crate & Barrel, Microsoft and many others enlivened daily life. Private citizens, especially young people, repaired the social fabric, dedicated themselves to community service and lowered drug addiction and teenage pregnancy.

Yet, at the same time, the public sphere has not flourished.

Overly dire, in my view, forgetting too much the capacity (or at least the possibility for the capacity) present for renewal culturally and innovation educationally and politicially. In any event, read it all.

At least one broadcast network and one Web site said Monday that they could foresee signaling to viewers early Tuesday evening which candidate appeared to have won the presidency, despite the unreliability of some early exit polls in the last presidential election.

A senior vice president of CBS News, Paul Friedman, said the prospects for Barack Obama or John McCain meeting the minimum threshold of electoral votes could be clear as soon as 8 p.m. ”” before polls in even New York and Rhode Island close, let alone those in Texas and California. At such a moment, determined from a combination of polling data and samples of actual votes, the network could share its preliminary projection with viewers, Mr. Friedman said.

“We could know Virginia at 7,” he said. “We could know Indiana before 8. We could know Florida at 8. We could know Pennsylvania at 8. We could know the whole story of the election with those results. We can’t be in this position of hiding our heads in the sand when the story is obvious.”

Ugh. It will be a real shame if they do. Read it all.

Obama 92.5, McCain 8

Scientists in Japan say they have successfully cloned a mouse from a body that had been frozen for 16 years, theoretically opening the door to a range of possibilities from preserving endangered animals, to resurrecting extinct animals to cloning Ted Williams.

The authors of the study made no bones about what they believe the implications of their work could be.

“It has been suggested that the ‘resurrection’ of frozen extinct species, such as the woolly mammoth, is impracticable, as no live cells are available, and the genomic material that remains is inevitably degraded,” wrote the authors in the Monday edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Voters across our community, state and nation will have their say today. The decisions that are made in the polling places, for all levels of government, will have lasting consequences. So choose wisely.

Over the past week, we’ve identified the candidates and referendums we support and the reasons for our choices. We’ve made those decisions on a race-by-race basis, picking a mix of Republicans, Democrats and Independents in the process. We suggest that you also consider each candidate on his or her own merits, regardless of party.

But if you do vote a straight-party ticket, remember that you must still make individual decisions to have your voice heard in the nonpartisan school-board elections and those referendum questions.

And regardless of whether you agree with our arguments or follow our advice, exercise your self-governing right ”” and obligation ”” by casting informed votes.

A review of our endorsements….

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Few places in Europe have prospered in recent years like this bustling crossroads city of 700,000, halfway between Barcelona and Madrid.

Factory employees here pulled overtime shifts. Companies hired temporary workers to satisfy growing consumer demand. A half dozen new bridges were built across the Ebro river and office buildings were filled as fast as they could be thrown up.

The capital of Spain’s fastest-growing region, inland Zaragoza kept booming even as the overbuilt Mediterranean coast came to symbolize how real estate excess was not just an American ill.

But just as the cold autumn wind is blowing down from the Pyrenees, Zaragoza and the surrounding region of Aragón have suddenly been hit by a sharp economic downturn. And the troubles here make clear that what had been seen as a crisis confined largely to finance and real estate is quickly spreading to more fundamental sectors of the European economy, such as manufacturing.

For the generation of young Spaniards who have known only good economic times the chill is shocking.

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Forward in Faith regrets the recent decision of the Synod of the diocese of Sydney with regard to lay and diaconal presidency at the Eucharist, both of which are clearly contrary to the foundational documents of Anglicanism. It trusts that the Archbishop of Sydney will use those powers available to him to ensure that such innovations are not set forth, in order that further division is not thereby introduced into the life of the Communion.

It has two parts: Part one is here and part two is there.

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I remember the precise moment when I became convinced that this presidential campaign was going to be the best I’d ever covered. It was Saturday afternoon, Dec. 8, 2007. I stood in the lobby of Hy-Vee Hall, the big convention center in Des Moines, watching an endless stream of men, women and children come down the escalators from the network of skywalks that link the downtown business blocks of Iowa’s capital. They were bundled in winter coats against the chilly temperatures, and the mood was festive — like a tailgate party for a football game. But the lure here was not a sporting contest; it was a political rally.

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What state did you vote in, how was the weather, how long/short were the lines, how easy was the process, and any other personal details you would like to add that you believe would be of interest to those reading.

When Sri Murtiningsi asked her third graders what they wanted to be when they grew up, the answers ranged from doctors to a pilot. One boy in the class raised his hand: Barack Obama said his dream was to be president of the United States.

Forty years later Murtiningsi – like the rest of the world – is watching closely as Americans prepare to head to the polls Tuesday.

“Barry was the only one who said he wanted to be president,” Murtiningsi said of Obama, who spent four years living in Indonesia as a child. “I hope his dream comes true.”

Many believe Obama’s international experience would go a long way in helping repair damage caused by the unpopular U.S.-led war in Iraq, with recent opinion polls from more than 70 nations favoring him a resounding three-to-one over Republican John McCain.

Newspapers across the globe came out in support of the Democratic candidate Monday.

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The networks have taken CIA-style precautions to insure Election Day runs smoothly. At 11 am Tuesday, three representatives from each of the six news organizations in the business of calling presidential elections ”” CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox News, and the Associated Press ”” quarantine themselves at an undisclosed location to start poring over exit poll data supplied by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. “I can’t tell you any more than that it’s in the state of New York,” Gawiser says of the meeting place. (Other execs confirmed that the reps indeed meet in New York City). Blackberries and cell phones are confiscated, wireless technologies disabled, and minders accompany people to the bathroom. The protocols started after the 2004 presidential race, when early exit poll data indicating that John Kerry was ahead leaked across the Internet in the early afternoon. Now, the reps can’t talk to their newsrooms until 5 pm, when communication lines reopen so that the broadcast networks have enough time to prepare for their evening newscasts.

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A Canadian Anglican bishop signaled on Monday he would defy the wishes of the global Anglican church and start drafting a ceremony for blessing homosexual marriages.

Bishop Barry Clarke said he would be following through with the wishes of the diocese of Montreal, which he heads, and set up a commission to come up with liturgy for such blessings.

In August, the decennial Lambeth Conference of global Anglican leaders asked for a moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions, and Canada’s bishops said on Friday a large majority of them were committed to such a moratorium.

But Clarke told Reuters he was not part of that majority, and he would be proceeding with plans he had laid out before the Canadian bishops met last week.

“I don’t want to stop the journey, because I think that would be unhealthy,” he said.

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If I ever forget that I live in the South, the last line of an obituary in our local paper, the (Mobile, Alabama) Press-Register, would have set me straight: “In lieu of flowers, please send fried chicken.”

–Jacqul Philan of Theodore, Alabama in the November 2008 Reader’s Digest, page 206