This time "the whole world was watching" was literally true...and they were waving flags not fingers. Our A+ panel discusses why -- W's uniting influence, O's bottom-up campaign, McCain's dishonort.

Two Democrats succeed two conservative Republicans during economic crises. How parallel actually are Roosevelt's and now Obama's transitions?

7 Days Interview with Jonathan Alter, author of The Defining Moment, Nov. 16, 2008

President Bill Clinton once confided to an aide, "I'm a progressive president in a conservative era." Will Barack Obama be a progressive president in a progressive era, the first since 1965 and 1933?

Several Republicans leaders and media commentaries -- including a recent Newsweek cover story on "America the Conservative" -- say no. Obama ran a cautious, centrist campaign, they conclude, so should not "lurch left" as president.

This is stale, presumptuous and wrong.

First, elections have consequences. Because conservative values and programs - - like preventive war, trickle-down economics, financial deregulation - crashed into a reef of reality, the country is getting bluer. Hence net shifts of at least 11 Senate seats and some 53 House seats to Democrats in the '06 and '08 elections. Polling shows increasing majorities who are pro-environment, pro-choice, pro-expanded healthcare and anti-Iraq war, anti-big business. Indeed, it's hard to think of any issue where Americans are becoming more conservative.

While Democrats and Republicans were tied in registration in 2006, Dems now have opened a seven point registration advantage, which will likely grow as minorities and professionals grow as a percentage of the electorate.

So if Bush could claim a mandate when he lost the popular vote in 2000 and won it by under 3 million votes in 2004, why can't Obama claim one when he won by 8 million votes?

What went wrong with McCain? Nearly everything. But mostly, he ran an
ok GOP campaign for 1952, 1968, 1980...but not 2008. A Cold-War
candidacy in the age of Google?

Let's put aside for a moment the phenomenon of Obama, his eloquence,
equanimity, organizing skills. McCain was old-time religion in the era
of super-churches, a cold warrior when non-state actors are the biggest
variables, a deregulator when even Randian Alan Greenspan questioned
market fundamentalism. He always seemed to be Mel Gibson in Forever Young, a 1940s flyboy transported to and stumbling around in the 1990s.

He simply ran plays from the Grand OLD Party's playbook when, as Obama
was doing on the other side, it was essential to call audibles given
the context of Bush, Katrina, the credit crisis.

First, he had nothing to say about the economic meltdown other than he'd a) cut earmarks (under .005% of the federal budget), b) balance
the budget by the end of his first term (which no one believed and, in
any event, was not very Keynsian when stimuli were needed), and c)
continue Bush's Gilded Age tax policies. Amazing. Bushonomics produced
one-third the job creation of Clinton -- and has helped to create the
current recession -- yet McCain tethered himself to that mast.
Going-down-with-the-ship may seem noble for the scion of admirals but
it's bad economics and worse politics.

Second, instead of talking about real problems, he resorted to a
standard fear-and-smear campaign, more McCarthy than Maverick. Dean
discusses how he'd have been better off running as the McCain of 2000
than the one who daily resorted to guilt-by-ancient-association --
palling around with terrorists, PLO spokesmen, socialists. But none of
that had real traction when the closest thing definitionally to a
socialist was Hank Paulson and voters were more afraid of their bills