After election: A fuzzy look at what to expect

The people have spoken, the votes are counted, President-elect Barack Obama is meeting with his brain trust, and campaign signs will disappear from the landscape this year or next.

And my magic fortune-telling 8-ball is on the fritz.

One of the fun things about political punditry is in reading all the signs of the times and trying to make predictions -- and naybe some sense -- out of all of it. Nothing unusual there; to some extent most voters try to look four years into the future before deciding who gets their consideration.

But, Obama's campaign pitch was about change. That's about the only information available right now, that change is coming. Whether this change is good or bad, that's a big question. Obama is a totally unknown quantity. We only have his words, his associations, and his senatorial track record to go with here. Everything else is a throw of the dice.

It's an easier call in both houses of Congress, which is, in reality, where the action is. The Republicans received a major butt-thumping all over the country -- in fact, presidential nominee John McCain fared much better than his party did Nov. 4. Congress had been decidedly to the left, but headed deeper into that territory after winning just about every race of consequence there. And with folks like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid leading the way, you just know Congress will be playing in deep left field during the next two years, at least.

So, fueled in part by my own news-watching habits, plus that large pepperoni pizza I ate just before going to bed last night, here's what I see happening:

= Obama will be pulled several different directions at once. The House and Senate will try to pull him into their turf. The people who voted for him will holler for their entitlements, financial crisis or not. Obama will try to strike a balance between the centrist coalition builder a la Bill Clinton and FDR-style liberalism, and my guess is that he'll take the latter course.

= As I mentioned in an election-night mini-posting (via Twitter), the populace will scream for the head of Barack Obama very soon. Give this about 18 months to materialize.

= The financial crisis will remain a crisis, and it will probably get worse. Obama won't make a lick of difference here. But we have the same players in Congress -- Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank -- so the inmates are still running that asylum. And the atmosphere that created the financial crisis will continue. About the only real action you'll see is more bailout money being thrown at the problem.

= Vice President-elect Joe Biden called this one, and I wrote about it at length, but it bears repeating. We'l be hearing from old enemies, new enemies, and fair-weather friends. Iran will try to borrow a nuclear bomb from somebody ("I'll pay you tomorrow for a warhead today") and maybe try to lob something at Israel. North Korea will continue fresh rounds of trash talk. Russia will try to see what Obama's made of. Obama will find out what it's like trying to negotiate with world leaders who are nuttier than squirrel scat. Things might get real interesting in Mexico -- that nation is probably a bigger supplier of oil than the Middle East, and one of our biggest suppliers of drugs and illegal aliens. Call me crazy, but I really expect some sort of fireworks along the Rio Grande.

= While you're calling me crazy, here's another: Expect a facelift among the Republican party. While this is a no-brainer -- the GOP just got its butt handed to it and is trying to become relevant again -- I'm gonna take this even further than most pundits. I really see the Party splitting in the next few years. Hey, it's happened before, even if for a short time (George Wallace in 1968, the Dixiecrats in 1948, the Bull Moose Party in 1912, the madness of the 1860 election) -- and I really see this happening. I expect the conservatives to part company with the more liberal Republicans in the next few years. The Democrats won't be unscathed here; its more conservative element may hook up with the liberal Republican branch, especially the element that does not identify with the Obama-Pelosi-Reid troika.

= For the next two years, the Republican party will be pretty impotent. Maybe not as bad as it could have been -- they did manage to avoid being on the wrong end of a 60-40 supermajority -- but in effect we'll have a one-party system right here in America. Maybe a one-and-a-half party system, but that's just splitting hairs at this point. And that kind of system is always scary, always chilling.

That's it. I really need to get that magic 8-ball fixed. It's scaring me.