Four years out, so far it's a three-way race for the Republicans in 2012, between former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Alaska's Sarah Palin and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (né Piyush Jindal), a clever young policy-wonk of Indian ancestry who claimed he and Louisiana were like curry and gumbo: a perfect match. A post-election Rasmussen poll makes Palin the frontrunner: 91 per cent of Republicans view her favourably. Presented with a list of all the candidates who ran in this cycle, nearly two thirds picked Palin. (Only one in ten plumped for either Mike Huckabee of Arkansas or Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.) Rupert Murdoch's favourite conservative scribe Bill Kristol has even appointed himself Palin's personal policy tutor. But it looks as if Newt will try to take over the party machine with a bid to become the new chairman of the Republican national committee. Jindal is biding his time. The likeable Cajun newcomer, the nearest thing the Republicans have to an Obama figure, is worth a flutter.
Obama's small change
So what happens to the roughly $160m left in Obama's war chest? Even after he pays off his debts—including those to the campaign workers who demonstrated angrily for their pay outside his Chicago HQ two days after the historic win—he'll still have over $100m left.
He could give it all to the Democratic party. More likely, he could start a new political action committee. The model would be Newt Gingrich's GOPAC, which raised funds, recruited supporters and set up grassroots groups on local school boards and town councils during the 1990s. GOPAC was crucial to Gingrich's 1994 congressional election victory. Now Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are urging Obama to copy it, with a focus on black, Hispanic and Asian Democrats. With Obama's network of more than 3m donors and
a 40m-strong campaign database, OBAMAPAC could pack quite a punch.
Hillary still owes Penn
One place the money isn't going is towards Hillary Clinton's debts. But Obama has urged his richer donors to help her settle the $22m she piled up during the primaries. Clinton's latest filing with the Federal Election Commission showed she still has around $8m to go. Of that, over $5m is owed to the firm of campaign strategist Mark Penn, exactly the same amount as in July. It seems Obama imposed the condition that none of the money went to Penn, who he blames for the divisive rhetoric of race and class during the primaries.
Penn aside, Obama will surely be asking Clinton's advice on political appointments. With Teddy Kennedy unwell and the ancient Robert Byrd stepping down, she is now a powerful figure, with a seat on all the senate committees that oversee Obama's priority projects. He won't be able to make a move without her.
Harvard and Yale rule
America's two top universities have dominated the White House for a generation. The pattern continues with Obama, who went to Harvard Law School. George W Bush graduated from Yale in 1968, and from Harvard Business School in 1975. Cheney went to Yale but dropped out. Bill Clinton went to Yale Law, while VP Al Gore went to Harvard. Bush the elder was a Yale man, whose White House presence takes us back to 1980. By contrast, Jim Callaghan, John Major and Edinburgh University's Gordon Brown have kept Oxbridge was out of Downing Street for 11 of the past 32 years,
The left shows its hand
From a memo on transition strategy by Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation and Robert Borosage, head of the liberal Campaign for America's Future.
"We should push to place allies in strategic positions, particularly in the areas of economic policy and national security… These inside efforts should be complemented by watchdog monitoring and reporting on potential nominees. No free pass should be given to those who drove the financial and trade policies that led to the current economic debacles or supported the invasion of Iraq, the worst foreign policy fiasco in recent history." Let the ideological jockeying begin.
Myths of turnout?
It may already be time to retire claims of soaring turnout. Press reports suggested turnout as high as 65 per cent. But respected analyst Curtis Gans, of American University, insists that only 61.2 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots this year, barely more than 2004's 60.6 per cent. Gans says the total vote did rise by over 5m, but largely because there were roughly 7m more people registered.
A rival expert, Michael McDonald of George Mason University, uses a different method to suggest a turnout of 64.1 per cent. The data is a bit fuzzy because it relies on exit polls, and the Federal Election Commission say definitive figures will not be available anytime soon. Until then, the controversy will continue, casting a gentle question mark over Obama's massive get-out-the-vote operation investment.
