Barack Obama gets his chance

Welcome to the Obama-verse.

It’s been a drawn-out, hard-fought battle, but it seems Barack Obama will be heading the good ol’ US of A for the next few years. You cast your ballots, you “rocked the vote” and you voted for change. Now, change is what you’re going to get. Well, sort of.

After completing an exhausting, multi-year campaign, our new “numero uno” has his real work cut out for him. It’s time for him – and all of us, for that matter – to accept the reality that he will not be able to follow through on a good deal of his campaign promises. That’s just the way it works, especially in budget crunches like this. No matter how favorably disposed Congress might be toward him, it’s going to be an uphill battle to pass each new spending bill and to establish each new program. 

The economy, education, energy, the environment, ethics, foreign policy, health care, homeland security, Iraq, Social Security, taxes and veterans’ affairs are all in shaky upkeep and are vying for his attention like excessively needy 2-year-olds. Obama inherited his dominion, rather than building it from the ground up, and as such, he has more than a few messes to clean up before he can move on.

Despite the multitude of constraints he faces, we hope that our new commander in chief will try his hardest to remain true to his commitment of stronger leadership and a better perspective for this country – that’s why we endorsed him.

With any luck, Obama will continue to show himself as a smart learner and a good listener. We look forward to seeing a Cabinet staffed by some of the incredibly smart people he surrounded himself with during the campaign. We hope he takes charge in Washington instead of Congress, and we also hope he moves away from some of the sillier promises that were mostly just for the hard-core partisans.

In addition to following through on the issues we just addressed, we ask that Obama remembers all of the people who got him to where his is today. Hopefully, he can find something for the hordes of canvassers and activists that pestered us for months on his behalf to do with their lives now that the election is over.

Otherwise, the financial crisis could be overshadowed by some pretty ugly emotional slides into depression and withdrawal during the next few months.

Please stick to your guns, Mr. President-Elect, and try to remain true to your values. In turn, we at home will continue to hope “Saturday Night Live” eventually finds someone decent to impersonate you.