Now that he is president-elect, Barack Obama must start grappling with congressional and left-centrist politics in his own party, say faculty experts.

“One of the questions is whether House Democrats want to pursue an aggressive agenda,” said Erik Engstrom, an associate professor of political science who studies American politics and the electoral process. “Just because Democrats have a large majority of seats, it does not mean they can do anything.”

Engstrom, who spoke at a Nov. 12 panel discussion, “2008 Presidential Election: How We Got Here and What We Do Now,” pointed out that the Democrats do not hold a filibuster-proof Senate. They have 58 seats as Dateline went to press Nov. 19, with two races still undecided. It takes 60 votes for the Senate to override any attempts by a bill’s opponents to obstruct a vote.

“Republicans still have some influence in the Senate,” said Engstrom, noting that 95 percent of all bills “die of neglect” at the committee level in Congress even when a president has members of his own party in power. And, sometimes new presidents are unduly bold and brash. Examples of the latter include former president Bill Clinton’s early defeats on health care and homosexuals openly serving in the military.

‘Promised the moon’

Expectations for the Obama administration are high.

“Both candidates promised the moon,” Engstrom told the 75 faculty, staff and students that packed a Shields Library room for the Institute of Government Affairs-sponsored event.

Ultimately, the fate of the Obama presidency rests on how well Obama understands and leverages the parochial interests of individual congressmen with his own administration’s ambitions, Engstrom said.

Steven M. Sheffrin agreed that the main fight ahead for Obama will be within his own party.

“Obama may have more problems with the left in Congress than with Republicans,” said Sheffrin, an economics professor and expert on tax policy. “The internal battle within the Democratic Party is key. Who will prevail?”

Financial fallout

He noted that the president-elect — perhaps in an effort to reassure the roiling markets — has positioned himself in front of the cameras with centrists like Robert Rubin, former U.S. Treasury secretary for Clinton, and Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chairman, both of whom are inflation and deficit hawks.

“These are not radical people,” said Sheffrin.

In the wake of the financial crisis, Obama will probably seek a strong stimulus package, provide more money to state governments and increase unemployment insurance aid, Sheffrin said. However, his plan to raise the tax rates on the top two income levels is “less immediately likely.”

He said, “Everyone knows that it’s not the best time to raise taxes during a recession.”

Obama comes into power at a time of enormous pressure and high stakes. America has suddenly become “more vulnerable than it was a few months ago,” said Sheffrin, who believes a recession is fast approaching and that no quick fixes exist.

On the latter, calls to dramatically cut military spending may not be realistic. “The world is not going away,” he noted, and the U.S. military is engaged in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, making it problematic to reduce military funding.

Sheffrin expects the Obama administration will increase capital gains taxes, reform estate taxes, and perhaps expand health insurance.

What role did race play in the election? Exit polls, said Brad Jones, an associate professor in political science, showed no evidence for the so-called Bradley Effect, which proposes that some voters tend to tell pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, and yet, on election day, vote for his white opponent.

In fact, wide gaps existed between black and white voting in some states, said Jones, who examined the race and ethnic characteristics of the November 2008 vote.

In Alabama, while 98 percent of black voters pulled the lever for Obama, only 10 percent of white voters did so.

This “considerable bifurcation,” as Jones called it, took place throughout the south in states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and Texas where whites and blacks voted differently. At the other end of the spectrum, black and white voters in California, Washington, Connecticut and New Jersey showed more similar candidate preferences.

“There was also a movement in Latinos toward Obama,” he said. “And, Hispanic support for Obama was far from obvious at the outset,” as his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, had mostly won this vote during the hard-fought Democratic primary campaign.

The election itself, Jones said, was extremely predictable. Research shows that one can almost always determine the winner based on the popularity of the incumbent president and the condition of the economy, he said. In this case, President Bush is at historic lows in popularity and the economy continues to get worse.

“It was game over for John McCain,” Jones said. “Under what conditions could any Republican have won this election?”