President Barack Obama

Since hope springs eternal, let us certainly hope that Barack Obama governs more as the moderate his transition implied than as the leftist his political career and primary campaign indicated.  I take comfort that the one constancy of his career is that he is acutely focused on winning and maintain political popularity - which as President will pull him toward the center.

Here are some general predictions about his Presidency:

• His economic policies will be moderate, focused on Keynesian-style stimulus and less likely to raise taxes than he campaigned on.  He will have to fight Comrade Nancy Pelosi on this, who recently reiterated her desire to increase taxes.  He will disappoint his union supporters and not seek to revoke free-trade agreements - he may even shock us by seeking their expansion, if his rhetoric about engaging the world is a real.

• His defense and foreign policy will look more like George Bush's than his supporters would ever have guessed.  I even think he will take military action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons - because it would be a political disaster for him and the Democrats otherwise.  He will claim he is withdrawing American forces from Iraq, but in reality it will be very similar to what would have occurred under Bush or McCain.

• He will satisfy his leftist base with judicial appointments, since the base will appreciate their importance but the public at large will be less concerned about this relative to economic or foreign policy matters.

•  A big wild card will be whether he really will pursue a radical revamp of energy usage.  He campaigned heavily on this, but his advisers will surely tell him of the profound economic costs of doing so which, given the recession, will likely moderate their extent.  I suspect he will spend lots of money to support R&D and provide incentives for green energy, but not legislate draconian mandates.

And let us hope, perhaps most of all, that race relations in America can profoundly improve. The campaign demonstrated the deep unhappiness on the part of many black Americans with our country, as manifested in the career of Jeremiah Wright and Michele Obama's comments about not being proud of America.  Barack Obama's ascension as President is the most dramatic refutation of such beliefs.