Barack Obama campaigned on some pretty progressive issues: health care as a right of citizenship, a measured withdrawal from Iraq, a tax increase for Americans making over $250,000/yr., fighting global warming, increased spending on education, and more. But he also campaigned on changing the tone and ushering in a new era of post-partisan cooperation.

It seems unlikely that he will be able to keep both promises. Republicans will resist the Obama agenda fiercely, but Obama will have the clout and the Congressional support to fight back if he chooses to. This week’s question asks whether or not he should, and I’m curious to know what you think.

Do you think Obama should strive for bipartisan compromise and national unity, or should he use all of the powers and support at his disposal to advance a progressive agenda regardless of the opposition?

Via Electoral-Vote.com, we find a website with pictures of some of the disputed ballots in the Minnesota Senate recount. You can also vote on whether each ballot should count, though it’s just for fun. If Franken wins the recount, the eyes of the nation will be on the December 2 runoff election in Georgia, to see if the Democrats will wind up with the 60 seats they need to block a Republican filibuster.

In the presidential election, Missouri has finally reached a decision. The state has been won by John McCain, bringing the final electoral college count (barring any faithless electors) to 365-173. And in Iowa County, Iowa, we find an exact tie between Obama and McCain, with 4,173 votes each.

You see? You should have voted.

We know who our next president is going to be, but political junkies are still keeping a close eye on the race for the Senate. If the Democrats can take 60 of the 100 seats, they will have a filibuster-proof majority. Right now, they have 57.

All signs point to Democrat Mark Begich defeating Republican Ted Stevens in Alaska, bringing the total to 58-40, with two seats still in play. Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin are competing in a runoff election for the Georgia seat, so we’re unlikely to have an answer there before December. In Minnesota, Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman are anxiously awaiting the results of a recount, which could also stretch out into December.

Stay tuned…

Is Obama president yet?

From Richard III:

Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pill’d from me!
Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,
Yet that, by you depos’d, you quake like rebels?

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Following an ugly primary, we see kooky freewheeling hubbub, mostly myth, about whether Obama may have just offered State to Hillary Clinton in Chicago on Thursday. To keep up the question, she is quoted:

“I’ll think about it.”

Via Electoral-Vote.com (which I’m still reading for some reason), we find another really cool map. This is an animated GIF showing the electoral results by county for every presidential election from 1960 - 2004. It’s called Purple America, and it was created by from Robert Vanderbei from Princeton University.

You can watch counties change from blue to red and back again. You can see where Ross Perot and George Wallace had the most support. Or you can squint your eyes and watch the entire country change its shade like a mood ring. Enjoy!

Michelle Obama’s Secret Service code name is Renaissance. Very cool.

Her husband’s codename is Renegade, and the kids are Radiance and Rosebud. More codenames can be found here and even more here.

At first, I thought it was odd that they would give all of the family members names that start with the same letter. Wouldn’t that be confusing? Not to keep dwelling on The West Wing, but Eagle and Bookbag didn’t start with the same letter. But looking over these lists, it looks like they do it with every administration. Both Bush families have code names that start with T, probably because W’s name was a holdover from his father’s administration.

It makes you think of what you’d want your Secret Service code name to be. I know what I’d want mine to be, if Michelle Obama didn’t already have it.

I was looking over the current electoral map, and I realized something extraordinary. If Obama took the states where he won by 7 percentage points or more, and McCain took all of the states where Obama won by 6 points or less, Obama would still have won the election 291 - 247. This would put Ohio, Florida, Indiana, and North Carolina in the red, but it would not have changed the outcome. Ohio may have locked in the Obama victory, but it turns out that he didn’t need it.

Looking at a traditional electoral map can be deceiving, because the states are shown in proportion to their land area. If instead, you look at a cartogram, you can see how the states compare to each other by, say, population (shown below) and you can really get a sense of how much of the country went red or blue. Professor Mark Newman from the University of Michigan has some good examples on his site:

So, is all of this just post-election gloating, or am I making a larger point? Well, it’s mostly post-election gloating; it has been a long eight years. But there is a larger point as well. President Obama will enter office with an overwhelming mandate, not to mention a friendly Congress and an enthusiastic public. I know some of my good friends are determined to cling to their cynical views, and I understand where they are coming from, but let me ask them this: If the potential for the change you want were to come along, would you recognize it? Would you believe in it? Would you do everything you could to support it? Because if this isn’t it, I don’t think we’re ever going to see it.

From Richard III:

Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac’d peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Oh, a mosaic of midnight paeans to this worthy president-elect cried mirthful pomp.

“Yes, we can!”

I’ve always been a fan of both Rahm Emanuel and The West Wing, but only just learned, via The Media Dude, that Rahm was the model for the fictional Josh Lyman.