I have said for over a year that this election is a sucker prize. Now with the financial crisis hitting in full force that is more evident than ever. Whoever wins this thing will be expected to...
1) fix the economy...this is of course an impossible task as no matter what we do we are on a collision course with a long overdue deep and long recession. There is simply too much debt and too much "money" in the system and only a long painful period will work this out. The entire current basis for our economy is no longer viable (using debt to finance the purchase of foreign made consumer goods) and it will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
2) solve our energy problems...this also is a very difficult task. We simply do not have the domestic resources to become "energy independent" and development and scale up of alternatives is a multi decade task. With any luck Obama will put us on the right path, but the journey will be long and expensive. However, strong government leadership on energy may help with the economic problems by stimulating new domestic industry.
3) devise an exit strategy for Iraq...no matter who wins they will almost certainly have to organize a majority withdrawl from Iraq. This is a good thing by most measures, but it does introduce significant uncertainty and any negative consequences will be blamed on democrats for "cutting and running". Any future domestic terrorists attacks will also be "the fault of the spineless democrats" for not continuing to "fight them over there".
4) deal with the baby boomers starting to retire broke and with their pension funds ravaged from the stock market collapse and social security and medicare failing due to insufficient revenues.
These are only the most important challenges facing Obama. He has also promised to fix healthcare as well as juggle all of these hot potatoes. While i'm sure he will manage these issues better than McCain I'm not sure that will be enough to buy him a second term. The odds are very much stacked against him...
posted by alphasigmookie 
