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Is it really such a big surprise that 'CHANGE' was a convenient slogan? Obama just pulled off on of the greatest hat tricks in the history of politics. He will want an eight year Presidency, so, of course he will try to govern from the middle where most Americans are comfortable.
I think he is a smart man and he recognizes that he has already made history as our first elected Black President. This is immense. This already is mind boggling change for all of us, especially African Americans.
He and Michelle can sieze this incredible moment, or they can screw it up with more partisan warfare,
The bailout fortune will soon be his to pad all the right pockets, if that's how he decides to operate. This could turn into a massive Chicago-style graft machine, or, if he is as careful as he says he wants to be, it could make everyone proud of our great nation. Better schools and better trains and purer water could make us all very proud.
The most important change he could do would be to liberate public education from the bureaucrats who have already turned out far too many generations of illiterates and drop outs in our cities. Michelle went to one of Chicago's very few great high schools, and she knows how horrible most of the rest of them are. Yesterday's WSJ had some suggestions for how to do this. If anybody has the nation's idealists on his side, it is Barack Obama. He could sieze this great opportunity, stand up to the teachers' unions, and inspire a new generation of our best and brightest to choose teaching as a career.