Setting the stage for the Obama administration

Ultimately the administration reflects the temperament, the personality, the preferences, and the character of the man at the top. [...] The Congress The spirit of the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution was bred by their memory of the tyranny of kings and kings’ ministers. [...] In the wake of continuing polarization, ‘liberal’ Republicans are nearly extinct and the party is increasingly southern, conservative and views ‘government as the problem.’ Inaugural civility aside, there is a divide in American politics that is more than just the distance between the two political parties and this will be part of the Obama challenge. [...] As a young officer in the New York Consulate charged with coverage of the 1980 election, I diligently sifted through the daily papers to enumerate the promises and attended the Democratic National Convention to watch the policy sessions. [...] The interests that make up the Democratic coalition – the unions, the feminists and gay community, the farmers, the minorities – are passionate and committed and the sessions were accentuated 4 by the fact that the nomination was being contested by Senator Teddy Kennedy.