Transition to the White House

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency was a lesson of greatness in victory. Those who followed Election Day will also remember John McCain’s exemplary gesture to recognize his defeat or to ask loyalty from his followers to the winner. Neither will they forget the outgoing president, George W. Bush, who is paying a worthy service to his country as he oversees a transparent and honest transition. Obama’s first visit to the White House, just yesterday, as the next tenant of the presidential headquarters, has been the latest symbol of admirable greatness of a political system not always well-perceived in the world. The entire transitional process functions perfectly and is on par with the historical dimension of the election. However, after such an emblematic period passes, there comes the time to return to reality: Barack Obama’s role as the seller of promises in the electoral campaign has come to a close. He is now the keeper of hopes of all those who voted for him and in any case the guardian of the country’s strategic interests.

From the moment that he entered for the first time the mythical Oval Office of the White House, from which he’ll lead the destiny of the most important country in the world and, in part, the rest of the globe—at least during the next four years—he has began to accept responsibility for real decisions with a direct effect on the lives of millions of people.

Any leader who begins the job is given a 100-day window that, besides being a round number, represents a reasonable period for the new president to take his first measures indicating the political direction of his term of office. Obama’s case is no exception although the situation he will inherit forces him to begin to take action much earlier due to issues such as the search for a solution to the economic crisis. The G-20 summit has been called so urgently without waiting for Obama’s inauguration because the deterioration of the markets won’t allow the rest of the world to wait for these first steps to be taken. It’s very commendable that he has proposed a solution to the detrimental issue of public health in America but more importantly there must be a functioning economy to pay for it. The same applies to foreign policy: Obama has said that Afganistan will be one of his priorities, but soon he’ll prove that it’s easier to promise a decisive action in that war than to succeed in carrying it out. It all depends on the political stances of other ally countries whose political resolve is not always easy to obtain.

In the White House the president elect will also find issues like Guantanamo Bay, about which he correctly stated was “the saddest chapter” in recent history of the U.S. but also the most complex to resolve. All the secrets that lurk behind some of the most controversial decisions of the Bush Administration will be revealed to Obama after he promised to close this polemic prison without knowing the real circumstances that impeded Bush from doing the same. The first days will be a series of revelations that could have the effect of a wake-up call.

For now the first statements and few announcements about possible nominations demonstrate that Obama is sensibly conscious of the fact that he has entered the real world. People voted for him so that he realizes the change that he was promising and it is clear he has a lot of room to maneuver to accomplish it. Many will ask him to be brave, but inside the White House there are concrete facts, strategic priorities, special interests and compromises with allies that can’t be dismissed simply because of the euphoria which the historical dimension of Obama’s election has provoked.