Three more great articles from The Economist on this past Tuesday’s election excerpted below. The first article deals with the expectations that President-elect Barack Obama will face once he takes the Oath of Office on January 20th.

Great expectations of Barack Obama | The Economist
Nov 6th 2008, From The Economist print edition

Barack Obama has won a famous victory. Now he must use it wisely

NO ONE should doubt the magnitude of what Barack Obama achieved this week. When the president-elect was born, in 1961, many states, and not just in the South, had laws on their books that enforced segregation, banned mixed-race unions like that of his parents and restricted voting rights. This week America can claim more credibly than any other western country to have at last become politically colour-blind. Other milestones along the road to civil rights have been passed amid bitterness and bloodshed. This one was marked by joy, white as well as black.

The second article examines how Mr. Obama won the election, where he won his support and how he held off Senator McCain.

How Barack Obama won the presidency | Signed, sealed, delivered | The Economist
Nov 6th 2008 | WASHINGTON, DC, From The Economist print edition

Barack Obama owes his victory to blacks, Hispanics, the young, women of all races, the poor and the very rich

IT WAS a suitably exhilarating end to the most thrilling presidential race in a generation. This was the longest election in American history, and the most expensive by far. It was also, on the Democratic side, the hardest-fought, with Hillary Clinton amassing almost as many primary votes as Barack Obama. But on November 4th the result was clear: Mr Obama beat John McCain by six points in the popular vote (52% to 46%) and 190 votes in the electoral college (364 votes to 174).

A sense of history in the making hung over the election: a country that has been torn apart by race peacefully elected a black man to the highest office in the land. Mr Obama’s volunteers wore T-shirts inscribed with the slogan “Making history”. People across the country cheered and wept when the result was announced. Both Mr Obama and Mr McCain gave speeches worthy of a turning point.

The final article discusses the many challenges, especially in foreign policy matters, facing the future President.

The challenges facing Barack Obama | Obama’s world | The Economist

How will a 21st-century president fare in a 19th-century world?

BLISS it is in this dawn to be alive. That will be the reaction of many people around the world to America’s election of a thrilling new president—young, black, with political and intellectual gifts well above the ordinary. But the world that will face Barack Obama when he moves into the White House in January is not very heaven. It is, in fact, a mess.

Just because the election is over does not mean that everything is going to be all wine and roses over the next four years. Stay educated, read the three articles linked above, and keep reading over the next four years.

The challenges facing this nation are not going away anytime soon, if ever. As each challenge is surpassed, another will surely present itself, and we the people need to make sure that we continue to make the correct choices as face each new obstacle.

That is what made the United States a great nation, once upon a time, and that’s what will bring us back to the fore.

Campaign: Obama’s VP choice to be announced Saturday - CNN.com

(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama’s choice for running mate will be announced to supporters in a text message Saturday morning, senior Obama campaign officials told CNN on Friday night, and a senior party official said it won’t be Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Obama called some people on his short list for the vice presidential slot Thursday night to tell them he had not selected them as a running mate, a highly placed Democratic Party source said.

A senior Democratic official who had spoken with Clinton told CNN late Friday that the Obama campaign has communicated to her through private channels that she will not be Obama’s vice presidential pick.

Also, sources close to Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said he has been informed he was not selected. One source told CNN that Obama personally made the call to Kaine. Another source said Kaine has flown to Denver, Colorado, for the Democratic National Convention. See who’s in the running

It is not known who else may have gotten calls.

However, late Friday two Democratic sources confirmed that Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh is also out of the running.

Most of this week’s buzz had been around Bayh of Indiana, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and Kaine. The contenders kept a low profile and Biden has avoided any lengthy interviews.

So with Bayh and Kaine both out of the running, and we all knew that Hillary would never be offered the slot, it’s looking mighty likely that Joe Biden will get the VP nod. Biden has good strong foreign policy credentials on the one hand, but some of the worst hair plugs known to mankind.

I think Bayh may be a better choice, but Biden is certainly up to the task.

Terrific article on Economist.com this week analysing how Hillary Clinton’s campaign fell apart …

The Economist is a British newsmag, with a moderate lean to the right … but their articles are incredibly insightful and researched, and presented more objectively than any American media outlet.

The post-mortem | The fall of the House of Clinton | Economist.com

THIS time last year it looked as if Hillary Clinton’s path to the Democratic nomination would be a cakewalk. She had the best brand-name in American politics. She controlled the Democratic establishment. She had money to burn and a double-digit lead in the opinion polls. And as the first American woman to have a chance of breaking the presidential glass ceiling, she had a great story to tell.

And Barack Obama? He was a first-term senator with few legislative achievements and a worrying penchant for honesty (in his autobiography he admitted to using marijuana and even cocaine, “when you could afford it”). He knew how to give a good speech. But how could that compare with Mrs Clinton’s assets—a well-oiled political machine and a winning political formula that combined a carefully-calibrated appeal to the centre with hard-edged political tactics?

Today, Mrs Clinton has not only lost the Democratic nomination. She has humiliated herself in the process. She has been forced to lend her campaign more than $11m of her own money. She has cosied up to some of her former persecutors in the “vast right wing conspiracy”, notably Richard Mellon Scaife, a newspaper magnate. She has engaged in phoney populism, calling for a temporary break on petrol taxes, praising “hardworking Americans, white Americans”, vowing to “totally obliterate” Iran and waving the bloody shirt of September 11th. The conservative Weekly Standard praised her as “a feminist form of George Bush”. So how did one of America’s most accomplished politicians turn a cakewalk into a quagmire?

Read the rest of the article.

Obama: I will be the Democratic nominee

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In what he called a “defining moment for our nation,” Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday became the first African-American to head the ticket of a major political party.

Obama’s steady stream of superdelegate endorsements, combined with the delegates he received from Tuesday’s primaries, put him past the 2,118 threshold, CNN projects.

“Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another — a journey that will bring a new and better day to America,” he said.

“Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.”

Obama’s rally was at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota — the same arena which will house the 2008 Republican National Convention in September.

Speaking in New York, Sen. Hillary Clinton, congratulated Obama for his campaign, but she did not concede the race nor discuss the possibility of running as vice president.

There were reports earlier in the day that she would concede, but her campaign said she was “absolutely not” prepared to do so.

“This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight,” she said.

Congratulations, Senator Obama!

Senator Clinton, I do not see a VP slot in the near future for you, and I obviously do not think that you should continue to fight.

In the interest of Party unity, I am going to try to stop bashing you … but you’re not making it easy.

Senator Clinton, I think you made a serious mistake tonight. On the night that your opponent clinches the nomination, you only offered a cursory congratulations, and kept the focus of your speech on yourself, not on the issues, and not on the Party, and not how we defeat McCain in November … it smacked of sour grapes.

You came across as a poor loser, and this is not going to sit well with many Democrats, and especially not Senator Obama. As such, I would be stunned if you were offered the VP slot.

One of your supporters, like Evan Bayh or Ed Rendell, yes. But you, Senator Clinton? No.

I think that you will be of much better value to the Party and to the nation as a major power-broker in the Senate. I think that you still have an extremely important role to play in the political scene, and I, for one, will never consider this year to be your “political obituary”. Keep your focus on universal healthcare and getting it passed through the Congress; and if/when a Supreme Court seat opens up … the do everything you can to ensure that we get another progressive justice, rather than another conservative justice who will continue to erode our rights.

You’re not through … you’re just not Presidential material.

Now let’s bring the Party back together, solidly behind Senator Obama. Let’s march forward, and donkey-kick some Republican elephant butt!

Florida, Michigan get all delegates, but each gets half vote - CNN.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) — After a day of wrangling in front of a sometimes unruly crowd, the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee reinstated all of Florida and Michigan’s delegates to its party convention, with each getting a half-vote to penalize the states for moving their primaries earlier than the party had approved.

The move will leave front-runner Sen. Barack Obama’s lead over rival Sen. Hillary Clinton intact.

“This results in Sen. Clinton obtaining a substantial number of additional pledged delegates, but I also understand that many members of the Florida and Michigan delegations feel satisfied that the decision was fair,” Obama said after a campaign event in Aberdeen, South Dakota. “Our main goal is to get this resolved so we can immediately turn the focus of the entire party on winning Florida and Michigan and delivering on the needs of the people in Florida and Michigan — states that are enormously important, states where a lot of people are struggling.”

The Florida decision, which follows the pro-Clinton results of that state’s primary, was greeted by virtually all sides as an acceptable compromise on a thorny issue. But Clinton backers vowed to fight the Michigan decision, which gave the New York senator a 10-delegate edge over Obama in a state where his name didn’t appear on the primary ballot.

So let me get this straight …

Florida and Michigan didn’t play by the rules, and held their primaries early in defiance of the Democratic National Committee.

Barack Obama did not campaign in either state, and along with all the candidates EXCEPT Hillary Clinton, removed his name from the ballot in Michagan.

All of the candidates, including both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, agreed that the two states should be stripped of their delegates as punishment.

When Senator Clinton starts falling behind in the delegate count, she starts lobbying to have the delegates seated.

When the Democratic Party’s Rules Committee comes up with a compromise, the New York Senator is still unhappy because in the process, they decided that Barack Obama shouldn’t be punished for having played by the rules from the very beginning, and removing his name from the ballot in Michigan.

So now her team is talking about taking the fight all the way to the convention in Denver in late August.

Listen, Senator Clinton, politics is about compromise … you can’t always get your way, and you have to play by the rules … not just the ones that work in your favor.

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but your actions are tearing the Party apart … and what’s important is defeating McCain in November … and all the hope that was building in the early days of the campaign season is starting to fade. Many Democrats are losing their excitement for the process, and many of the new voters which Barack Obama has brought into the process are already getting jaded and saying “what does it matter?”

It’s time to end this. It’s time to select the candidate with the most delegates, and start to focus on reuniting the Party for November.

Bill Clinton: ‘Cover up’ hiding Hillary Clinton’s chances

(CNN) — Former President Bill Clinton said that Democrats were more likely to lose in November if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee, and suggested some were trying to “push and pressure and bully” superdelegates to make up their minds prematurely.

“I can’t believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out,” Clinton said at a South Dakota campaign stop Sunday, in remarks first reported by ABC News.

Clinton also suggested some were trying to “cover up” Sen. Clinton’s chances of winning in key states that Democrats will have to win in the general election.

“‘Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not. Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up.’”

Clinton did not expound on who he was accusing.

A cover-up? A COVER-UP????

I’ve said for years that I “love Bill, hate Hill” … but with this latest tirade from the former President, you can pretty much count on the fact that Bill Clinton has dropped several rungs on my ladder of respect.

The Democratic Party, which wants to win the election, is “covering-up” polls that might show that Hillary Clinton stands a better chance of winning the general election in November than Barack Obama.

This is an absolutely ridiculous accusation to make; it ranks up there with some of the more paranoid and delusional comments coming out of Dick Cheney’s and George Bush’s mouths over the past 7 1/2 years.

If Hillary Clinton truly had a better chance to win the election come November, then why doesn’t she have a lead in the number of delegates? Why doesn’t she have a lead in the popular vote? Why doesn’t she have a lead in the number of super delegates? Why doesn’t she have a lead in the number of states won?

Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a lead over Barack Obama in any of the categories that matter … although the only category that does really matter is VOTES cast, and pretty much nothing else.

The Clintons are so desperate to get back into the White House, rather than letting a new generation take over, that they will do and say almost anything to make the other side look bad; and unfortunately, they’re only succeeding in making themselves look bad in the process … ultimately, they will chase many independents and Republicans who are fed up with the status quo back across the aisle to the Republican camp, because people can’t handle the sleaze.

Carter: After June 3, it will be time for Clinton to ‘give it up’

(CNN) — Former President Jimmy Carter said Sunday that in a little more than a week, when the last Democratic primary voters weigh in, it will be time for Hillary Clinton to “give it up.”

Carter told Britain’s Sky News that Clinton “had a perfect right” to keep running – but that “a lot of the superdelegates will make a decision quite, announced quite rapidly, after the final primary on June 3,” he told Sky News Sunday.

“I have not yet announced publicly, but I think at that point it will be time for her to give it up,” he added.

Carter, a superdelegate, has not made endorsement but has spoken out frequently in favor of Barack Obama.

Obama leads Clinton among superdelegates and has captured the majority of pledged delegates up for grabs this primary season.