"The good news is, we won. The bad news is, we won."

Election Day is over, and President-Elect Barack Obama has won decisively, as shown on the polls page. But the elections are not all over, and we have to look at where we go from here.

Elections

We know that Obama won in a moderate landslide, but not all of the Electoral College votes had been decided at the end of Election Day.

• Missouri, 11 votes, McCain
• Nebraska, 1st district, 1 vote, Obama
  
• North Carolina, 15 votes, Obama
  

The result of the first set of counts is Obama 365, McCain 173.

Even though results have been announced, they have not been certified, nor have they been accepted by the Congress as required under the Constitution. There are cases of vote suppression and other electoral crimes to be investigated. It remains possible that Obama's victory is even bigger than we have heard. Voting reform will be a significant issue for the new 111th Congress.

In the Senate, we still have some undecided seats.

• AK, Mark Begich (D), Ted Stevens (R), too close to call on Election Day, with 40,000 ballots still to count. Update: Begich has won in the complete count, and top Republicans have called on Stevens to resign from the Senate.
  
• GA, Jim Martin (D), Saxby Chambliss (R), mandatory runoff on Dec. 2. Volunteers needed nationwide. The sleaze from the Chambliss campaign is only getting worse. Bill Clinton and John McCain are campaigning forwon Martin.easily.
  
• MN, Al Franken, (D), Norm Coleman (R), Dean Barkley (I), too close to call, mandatory recount. The first count put Coleman up by 215. Franken has gained a few votes in the recount so far. Nate Silver's statistical analysis at FiveThirtyEight.com gives a most probable outcome215, ofbut Franken winning by 27. This would probably mean continuing lawsuits, and possibly a decision byhas thepulled Senateslightly itself.ahead.
  

Many House races, state and local races, and ballot propositions remain undecided, even if one side is claiming victory from an incomplete vote count. Some results are subject to legal challenge, such as the California Prop. 8 amendment to the state Constitution forbidding gay marriage. Check your local news sources for most of these. A few will make national news. Google News is your friend.

Transition

The transition team has to identify several thousand people to appoint to various positions in the Executive Branch.

Threats against Barack Obama's life and against his family started up during the campaign and have spiked since. There have been at least two cases resulting in arrests.

Transition

Obama Transition Web site

Cabinet

State Dept: Sen. Hillary Clinton
Defense: Up in the air
Treasury: Tim Geithner, currently head of New York Federal Reserve
Commerce: NM Gov. Bill Richardson
HHS: Former Sen. Tom Daschle
Attorney-General: Former Deputy AG Eric Holder
More

Economic Team

On Saturday 22 November 2008, Robert Reich blogged at Truthout.com, How Obama Is Already Taking Charge. His best information was that Obama would appoint

• Tim Geithner at Treasury
• Peter Orszag at the Office of Management and Budget
• Jack Lew and Jason Furman at the National Economic Council
• Austan Goolsbee at the Council of Economic Advisors

All are relatively young but experienced in government, and non-ideological.

White House Staff

• Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Chicago) will be the new White House Chief of Staff.
• Senior Obama campaign aide Robert Gibbs will be the White House press secretary.
• Campaign strategist David Axelrod will be Senior Advisor.

What next?

Obama gave his first news conference as President-Elect on Friday, Nov. 7. He is now giving weekly addresses to the nation over broadcast media and YouTube, laying out his economic plan and other urgent measures.

W is a lame duck President who cannot get new legislation through a hostile Congress, but he still has authority to do a number of things for good or ill. He is negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement for Iraq with a timetable for withdrawal, exactly as Obama proposed. Republicans ridiculed the idea right up to the moment they did it. Watch for last-minute environmental deregulations and Presidential pardons, among other things.

What are the other big issues?

• The economy, stupid. ^_^ Stimulus/infrastructure rebuilding package, rescuing homebuyers, re-regulating Wall Street, restoring competition and transparency to markets, undoing Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, letting workers and middle class have a share of economic growth,...
• Trade. "Free Trade" for corporations but not for people doesn't count.
  
• Environment. Renewable energy (to combat Global Warming, and for security), reregulate pollution,...
  
• Immigration. A path to citizenship. Help countries so that their citizens will not have to flee from war, oppression, or dire poverty.
  
• Afghanistan, Pakistan, Al Qaeda, Taleban
• "Rogue states", failed states, civil wars: Iran, North Korea, Burma, Cuba, Sudan, Congo, Somalia,...
• Foreign aid. Obama proposed doubling US foreign aid, including a $2 billion annual Global Education Fund.
• Supreme Court. Obama could have the opportunity to appoint three Justices.
• Lower courts. Obama will have to appoint about 50 Federal judges immediately.
• The First Dog, promised to the Obama children as a reward for their good behavior during the campaign. It must be hypo-allergenic. They would have preferred to get a shelter dog, but Obama says, "most of them are mutts, like me."
  

Washington Post transition coverage