Senator Obama's victory...

It is not strictly accurate to describe Senator Obama as President-elect until after the Electoral College meets in December. Nevertheless, all else being equal, he will be our next President so, in spite of my usual insistence that words be used with a certain level of precision, I intend to grant him the courtesy of the title.

In his acceptance speech, President-elect Obama was gracious and said many of the the right things. Particularly:

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers – in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

President-elect Obama is young and his political experience is limited. He will be sorely tested in the early days of his term in office and we must hope that he, his cabinet, and his staff will be up to the task. If he is serious, however, about changing the nature of American politics, he will have to pass a major test before he even takes office.

That test is whether he can bring to heel the Democratic Party's icons of the old, vicious, partisan politics.

These icons are Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). It is all too likely that they will try to ignore the reality that the size of the party's victory in the Presidential, House, and Senate races owes much to the intense disapproval of President Bush' record and little to the performance of the Congress since their party won back control in 2006.

That they will have the votes to pass number of very liberal (this is an Orwellian euphemism for left wing) programs is clear. That they will voluntarily exercise restraint is less so. We must hope that President-elect Obama can lead the whole of his party rather than just the part of it that controls the Executive Branch

The world would be well served if politicians, and citizens, were to remember that restraint is often - admittedly not always - the best course of action even when the right, the power, or the votes exist to act unilaterally.