What now?

John McCain's campaign went down in flames with the race-baiting of his activist's alleged attack. This preludes the blog's title: The New Democratic Majority.

I, for one, am a little worried about the Democrat's controlling the government. It can, if mismanaged, lead to 2002-2006 (and after-effects). The Dems need to stick to a few basic priorities and punish any fraud, mismanagement or ethics violations with force, not encourage them with impunity. Key issues and good governance should be the motto of the new government.

First, the focus should be on the economy. The stock market is the bi-polar predecessor to the old codger that is the economy. We are in a period of serious deleveraging by companies and households. The stock market exaggerates things, but in this case, we have the "PERFECT STORM" raging. One only has to look to Japan to see how painful the economy can get.

The stock markets may recover quickly, or at least stop falling, but don't start blaming that for continued economic malaise. Reducing credit exposure among $300 million is a long, difficult process, especially when accompanied by millions more across the world.

What is needed is strong leadership into the darkness and an understanding that other campaign promises can be filled to the benefit of the world financial system...through hard good companies. Health care, the number one issue, is on the top of this list. Health care adds $1,500 to the cost of every car in Detroit. Sure, we also need to make sure they make cars that people want, but providing healthcare to their workers (and retirees) is a giveaway worth at least a significant uptick in the CAFE standards).

An orderly withdrawal from Iraq with some redeployment to Afghanistan would help both countries, as well as ours. It would also help reduce the off-budget spending that we accumulate in fighting both wars. This reassessment of our military will also lead to the source for savings (apart from the miniscule savings we could realize from eliminating earmarks). Many military projects are earmarks in disguise; projects congressmen and congresswomen want but the military doesn't need. We need regular maintainance and competitive upgrades of our military capacity, but we get much more wasteful spending called that. What we need o do is find the useless programs and cut them and redirect some of the spending towards paying our soldiers a good wage, providing them with healthcare and supporting their families with more generous hazard pay when we send them abroad.

That is the recipe for a better Republic, through good times and bad.