Senator Obama will be the next President of the United States.  It is a historic occasion, and it is understandable that many who worked hard for this moment are feeling a sense of elation.  The real challenge will be for Senator Obama to be the President of all of America.  We can all hope that he will be successful in doing so beyond our most optimistic expectations.

President Obama will have a very difficult road ahead of him.  Perhaps it is especially important for his supporters to remember that the man he is replacing ran on a platform promising to be ‘a uniter, not a divider.’  Senator Obama is going to have to live up to President Bush’s slogan.  That is going to require him to renounce some of the projects and agenda items that some of his most dedicated supporters hold dear.  But, if he is going to succeed, he will have to disappoint some of the Democratic party base, and produce a genuinely bi-partisan and, to use his term, post-partisan administration.  President Obama might think about Franklin D. Roosevelt’s approach to the major challenges of his administration - and appoint some major cabinet members from the Republican camp.  World War II was managed by FDR, with a Republican Secretary of War (before we had a unified Department of Defense) - Henry Stimson.  President Obama needs to find his Henry Stimson and bring that person on board as a fully participating member of the core cabinet.   That may not be what the Democratic base wants to hear.  But I think it would strike a good, gracious note that could help him to unite the country behind him.