Now what?

I've been giving some thought to what ought to happen now, politically. I've been giving more thought to the immediately pressing issues of the day, such as getting a new light socket for the pole lamp in the living room, wondering where my socks are, contemplating whether I should make french toast in the morning, thinking about how I can I get through the boring team meeting (and remembering to pronounce the names of the Brazilian attendees correctly; boa tarde, y'all), but in the intervening moments, I've thought about politics.

To that end, I jotted down a quick list of the Things I Ought To Be Thinking About, or at least Have An Opinion On -- things like What should we do in Iraq et al, What should we do about the economy, How to make health care affordable, Is Pizza Hut still having that two for one deal (oh, wait, that goes in the first list), Is immigration a big problem or a red herring, What to do about lobbyists and their power -- that sort of thing. Its not that I think I'm going to have Great Thoughts, and even if I did, its not like I think its going to make a difference. Its just that I think that as an adult, I ought to have some kind of opinion on these things, and therefore that I ought to occasionally think about them. At least, for five minutes or so, until something more pressing comes up.

I've been pleased to see a couple of articles saying that in their opinion (all of two days old now, for example, here), the Democrats are not likely to propose sweeping changes, for two reasons: first, they may be running the place, but that doesn't mean they can do whatever they want -- unlike the Republicans in the mid nineties, they don't have an overwhelming majority, plus, they don't have a president of the same party. Both are going to put brakes on any (or at least most) wild eyed idea. And second, there's a major election in two years, at which time the big question will be, How much better are things now that the Democrats have been in power? It won't matter that they've had the constraints I mention, or that they've been in power (by then) for two years, whereas the Republicans had ten years -- the assumption will be that two years was plenty of time, so: how are things? That kind of time pressure should help to keep them focused on delivery and less on ideological dreaming.

I saw in more than one place that organizing the Democrats is like herding cats; they're all independent, to varying degrees, unlike Republicans, who prefer order and conformity. Independence doesn't mean better, and some R's have that, too; order and conformity doesn't mean dull, and some D's have that characteristic as well. But generally, Democrats like to go their own way, and it will take a forceful presence and a clear message to keep them on track. To that end, I was tickled to notice that several -- not all -- of the winning Democrats said that they were focused on providing a New Direction for the country. Made me wonder if that phrase was used at a meeting of the Democratic high command, oh, six months ago. But catch phrase or not, it's worthwhile -- even if it gets superceded, it provides focus. This is what we're going to do, generally. This is the yardstick we'll use as a quick evaluation of whether what we're doing is worth doing. Not the only yardstick, and things that go against it aren't necessarily bad or out, but still -- that's the Big Picture High Concept, that's the mantra. So, that's for the Now- what?

That still leaves the Now Who? question, but even though one guy has already leapt up to say Me, Me!, I don't think we need to worry about that quite yet. Certainly, I don't.