Nov. 15 issue - Red State, Blue State, old state, new state. I vote in the indigo city, a place so politically monolithic that people in line at its polling places are quick to note that they don't have a clue about the outcome. "We don't really live in America," one man said. Yet even here there are nonpartisan markers for the future. Over the exit of PS 199 is a large sign that says, in glittery letters, WORK HARD. BE KIND.
Reach out, listen closely. If we've heard it once we've heard it a hundred times: this is a historic election. Not since J.R. was shot have I met so many Americans concerned about a denouement. Friends took time off from work and went to Ohio, boarded buses and canvassed in Pennsylvania. We pundits, who had "apathetic," "unengaged" and "low turn-out" programmed into our computers, have had to reach for some new turns of phrase. "Energized young voters." There's a good one.
But this race won't have been historic if it turns out to have been a blip of civic engagement in the continuing saga of same-old. It not only revealed an electorate willing to follow the issues, to watch the debates. It revealed an electorate deeply, almost mortally divided, a civil war without a Mason-Dixon line. And a president who ignores that does so, not only at his own peril, but that of the country's future.
How are we riven? Let me count the ways. Stem-cell research, Social Security, prescription drugs, gay marriage, the war in Iraq, church and state, abortion, tax policy, the Supreme Court, the court of world opinion. The most constructive response to the toxic divisions exposed by this race is to remember the old saw about each of us having two ears and only one mouth. The president needs to listen twice as much as he speaks. But he also needs to be brave and bold in whom he listens to.
Being president is like the clear plastic ball we once bought so our hamster could run free. The poor thing could motor around the room in this hermetically sealed space that gave the illusion of being part of the world when it was anything but. That's how the president lives in Washington, a sphere of received opinions as removed from the rest of America as any polling place on the West Side of Manhattan. A president who is going to be great needs to think outside the cage.
George Bush suggested he was going to do this during his first term. But whether because of the machinations of the political wing of the White House, the concern that he would be seen as weak or his own inclinations, Bush rarely strayed from the reservation of in-house affirmation or cheering crowds. He made up his mind and it stayed made. There was thus no premium and no point in listening to those who had other points of view. It caught up to him in the first presidential debate, when it became clear that he was unaccustomed to being crossed or questioned. He didn't seem like a man who likes the free exchange of competing ideas much, and in the face of victory he may conclude that that's one cross he needn't bear.
ANNA QUINDLEN
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Or he can do better. A second term is terrifying to his opponents, who believe he will use the freedom of incumbency to do everything from loading the court to reinstating the draft. But what he could be free to do is to break the chains that bind a man always mindful of the next race, now that there isn't one. He could consider how bitter the divisions in this country are and vow to try to mend them. Lest this sound too altruistic, he might also remember that being a two-term president who leaves behind a nation in which half its citizens can barely tolerate the other half is a surefire way to leave a legacy of colossal failure.
There was a time, long ago, when the public wandered through the White House or spoke to the president on the street.
That's no longer possible, but the toxic atmosphere in our country requires that some substitute be found. The newly re-elected president owes that to all those voters who stood in line, the ones who supported him and the ones who did not. There is always talk about reaching across the aisle, but it is to citizens that he must extend a hand, not just fellow politicos. He must have the guts to engage them, to sometimes abandon the podium and the prepackaged events and the yeasayers who will surround him, to make his administration a vehicle for civic conversation.
And that should begin in the Oval Office, where he ought to order his staff to arrange weekly meetings with random constituents. An hour with a university economist, the manager of a regional bank office, a caseworker at a social-welfare agency and a small business owner, all talking about the economy. An hour with a priest, a rabbi, a minister, a clinic nurse and a mother of five, all talking about abortion. And the president, all ears.
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• Faith and Fear NEWSWEEK Managing Editor Jon Meacham on the issues that decided the election (courtesy of 'The Charlie Rose Show'
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Sure, the press would bill it as a PR gimmick, more symbolic than real. But symbolism is an important part of leadership, and FDR's fireside chats were a gimmick that united a nation. The leader who could begin to mend the rifts in this country would leave a significant legacy behind for history to applaud and admire. All it would require is courage and confidence. This will truly have been a historic election if the president of the United States finds a way to dare to listen again, and so make Americans feel that they've been heard.
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