Earlier I made some suggestions for President Elect Barack Obama's transition team. One was John Wesley Hall, President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), who before getting his own blog, blogged at TalkLeft as Last Night in Little Rock.

John has just released this NACDL Message From the President on Obama's election. Here are some quotes:

[T]here is much work to be done by the new president and the next Congress. The prison camps at Guantanamo Navy Base have become a symbol of shame around the world. President-Elect Obama should close them within hours of taking the oath of office. Those believed responsible for crimes against Americans should be charged and prosecuted in the federal criminal justice system or in traditional military courts under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

[More...]

Three lawsuits were filed today in California courts seeking to have Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, declared invalid.

The principal argument is that Proposition 8 is a constitutional revision that cannot be accomplished by constitutional amendment.

[One] suit filed with the high court in San Francisco this afternoon argues that the California Constitution´s equal protection provisions do not allow a bare majority of voters to use the amendment process to divest politically disfavored groups of constitutional rights. Such a sweeping redefinition of equal protection would require a constitutional revision rather than a mere amendment, the petition argues. Article XVIII of the California Constitution provides that a constitutional revision may only be accomplished by a constitutional convention and popular ratification, or by legislative submission to the electorate.

That lawuit was filed by San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and Santa Clara County Counsel Anne C, on behalf of San Francisco, Santa Clara County and the City of Los Angeles [More..]

Pushing the new talking point that "America remains a center-right country" (despite electing a candidate branded by Republicans as a socialist), John Boehner, in a desperate attempt to seem relevant, wrote to his House GOP colleagues urging them to reject Barack Obama's invitation to bipartisan cooperation.

Democrats should not make the mistake of viewing Tuesday's results as a repudiation of conservatism or a validation of big government. Neither should we. Instead of throwing in the towel, as our opponents demand, we must redouble our efforts to develop forward-looking solutions to the challenges Americans face - solutions rooted in the enduring principles of reform that define us as a party.

Those would be the "enduring principles of reform" that were on display when the GOP controlled the House, Senate, and presidency under Bush? Principles like corruption, cronyism, profligate spending, preemptive war against oil-rich nations, torture, illegal wiretapping, and outing CIA agents as an instrument of vengeance? Yep, we wouldn't want to make the mistake of thinking that voters repudiated any of that by telling so many Republican politicians to find new work.

I am going to try and coin a new phrase - "High WORM" - a mixture of "High Broderism" and WORM (What Obama Reallly Meant.) Jon Meacham, Mr. Center Right hisself, shows us how it is done:

[I]f Obama governs as he ran—from the center—then there will be disappointed liberals and conservatives. The left may feel somehow cheated, and the right, eager to launch perpetual assaults on the new administration, could well find Obama as elusive and frustrating as the opposition found Reagan.

Hmmm. Reagan was a Centrist was he? Good to know. But seriously, what Meacham is saying is that Obama agrees with him. Never mind Obama's actual proposals - I defy you to find even one mention of Obama's statements on his plans for the country (and I could have sworn I saw a whole 30 minute infomercial broadcast nationwide a few days before the election, not to mention the standard Obamabot line - "check his website') - Mr. Center Right knows what Obama really meant. Just remember the rule - no matter what, progressives always lose.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Wolf Blitzer, CNN anchor: "My sense is that [the winner of the Presidential election] will see this as a mandate on his policies, because [his Party] also did very well in the House of Representatives, did very well in the U.S. Senate, picking up seats in both. He gets over 50 percent . . . And he's going to see this as a mandate in the next four years to try and move the country in the direction he wants it to move. He will try to bring the country together in the short term, but he's going to say, he's got a mandate from the American people, and by all accounts he does."

No, Wolf did NOT say that last night -- he said that after George Bush won the 2004 election by 2 points (Obama will win by 6.5 when all the counting is done), when the GOP won 5 House seats (Dems will win at least 20 this year) and 6 Senate seats (Dems will win at least 6.) You see, mandates are not something Dems win. Look at the gyrations done at Volokh Conspiracy to deny Obama a mandate:

Newsweek reports, using McCain campaign sources, that Sarah Palin was, contrary to her denials, not only fully involved in her clothing expenditures, she spent far more than previously announced.

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill.

More...

Via digby, nothing is ever good for Democrats according to the Media:

They lost the presidency, at least five seats in the Senate, and around 20 seats in the House. They are officially out of power. But for those of us who considered obama a shoo-in and a democratic wave inevitable, the republican showing seems almost impressive.

To be fair, Time at least has some political advice for the GOP:

While I whole-heartedly supported Barack Obama for President from the time he became the Democratic nominee, I disagreed with his position on crime issues several times during the campaign. Last night, in his victory speech, he said:

There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. ...
I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.

As President, Obama will be appointing an Attorney General, 93 U.S. Attorneys, a few Supreme Court justices and many federal judges. He will champion or oppose legislation on crime issues and penalties. [More..]

MSNBC is reporting that Rep. Rahm Emanuel has agreed to act as Barack Obama's Chief of Staff. Some see Emanuel as one of "the greedy corporate types who have ruined our economy, if not the country" while others complain that Emanuel is an "abrasive, vindictive and partisan Democratic congressman ... whose willingness to crush the opposition is legendary."

Did you know that Norm Coleman is too important for a recount? Where's Justice Scalia when you need him? Via TPM:

For the record the "magnitude" of Coleman's lead is 305 votes out of 2,859,891 cast. Or 0.001%. Coleman says that if he was in Al Franken's shoes, he would concede. I submit that he is in Al Franken's shoes - it was a virtual tie. So he can concede if he feels so strongly about it.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

To follow up on this post, I want to point you to John Judis' terrific piece on the same subject. A flavor:

This realignment is predicated on a change in political demography and geography. Groups that had been disproportionately Republican have become disproportionately Democratic; and red states like Virginia have become blue. But underlying these changes has been a shift in the nation's "fundamentals"--in the structure of society and industry, and in the way Americans think of family, job, and government. The country is definitely no longer "America the conservative." And with the Republican Party and big business identified with a potentially disastrous downturn, it could become over the next four years "America the liberal." That's what makes this election fundamentally different from 1976 or 1992. Unlike Carter and Clinton, Obama will be taking office with the wind at his back rather than in his face.

I just fear Obama does not realize it. More . .

People for the American Way writes that President-Elect Barack Obama's win yesterday brings a mandate on our federal judiciary:

Looking at yesterday’s results, it’s incontrovertible that the election delivered a sweeping mandate for President-elect Obama to appoint federal judges who are committed to core constitutional values: justice, equality, and opportunity for all. In the election the public rejected the efforts of the right wing to stack the federal courts with ideological jurists like Justices Scalia and Alito often called “strict constructionists.”

Obama's view of the courts: [More...]

In addition to the disappointing outcome of California's Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, the state's voters made mistakes in rejecting Proposition 5, which would have shifted the state's response to drug crimes from incarceration to treatment, and approving Proposition 9, which purports to give new "rights" to crime victims.

It is particularly troubling that MADD aggressively lobbied voters to reject proposition 5 even though it had nothing to do with drunk driving, and even though an organization that wants to prevent impaired driving should be supportive of increased funding for treatment programs. This is the latest example of how MADD, having accomplished its objective of raising awareness of drunk driving and toughening drunk driving penalties around the country, has outlived its usefulness and now seeks to perpetuate itself by intruding into criminal justice issues that are none of its concern.

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At the height of recent Republican dominance, 2002, Ruy Texeira and John Judis wrote a book titled The Emerging Democratic Majority. In the book, Texeira and Judis posited that, as Judis and Texeira wrote about the 2006 elections:

Just as important as these victories is who voted for Democrats in 2006. With few exceptions, the groups were exactly those that had begun trending Democratic in the 1990s and had contributed to Al Gore's popular-vote victory over George W. Bush in 2000. These groups, which we described in our 2002 book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, included women, professionals, and minorities. But in 2006 they also included two groups our book slighted or ignored altogether: younger voters (those born after 1977) and independents. These voters can generally be expected to continue backing Democrats.

The thesis forwarded by Judis and Texeira has been confirmed in this election. Women (56%), African Americans (95%), Latinos (66%), young voters (66% (among whites (54%)) and college graduates (53%) form the new Democratic majority. Older white voters remain Republican voters. And, as Texeira and Judis noted this has policy ramifications:

Via Yglesias, Fox News declares America a "Center Left" country:

Via Sirota, Ruth Marcus proves Broder still rules the Beltway World. Here's the thing, if the Beltway takes Obama's platform and declares it Center Right, hell even Far Right, I will not complain. But they won't. That is Far Left to these bozos. Their contempt for the American People is disgusting.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only