The Obama victory: What does it mean?

Much of the thanks for this leftward shift is owed to Mr. Bush, who has managed in just eight years to shred the national Republican Party, destroy America's global reputation, bankrupt the treasury, stagnate wages, permit a major American city to drown, start but not finish two wars, and undermine public confidence in our national government via the incessant use of backdoor power grabs and public misinformation.

The wreckage left by Mr. Bush also suggests the painful realities of a putative Obama administration.

Despite Mr. Obama's oft-repeated argument that Mr. McCain would constitute Mr. Bush's third term, the fact is that this year's winner was always doomed to inherit so many paralyzing and intractable problems that the next four years will be defined largely by the previous eight. All the talk of hope and change aside, Mr. Obama will need a second term if he hopes to change America by way of an affirmative agenda.

Team McCain staffers were fond of mocking Mr. Obama as "The One." Thanks to the myopia of the current president and skulduggery of his vice presidential sidekick, who have damaged the presidency and trampled on the Constitution, the mundane truth is Mr. Obama's presidential task list will be less that of a messiah than a Mr. Fix-it.

Still, these are times worthy of change, demanding of hope. The United States always shows its truest grit when the days are darkest, which is to say right before the dawning of a new morning in America - a morning that arrived today.

Thomas F. Schaller teaches political science at UMBC. His column appears regularly in The Sun. His e-mail is [e-mail].