How Obama Can Make This Election Matter

Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. chose wisely in electingPresident Barack Obama to a second term. How much difference hisre-election will make is another question: a lot, if one or bothparties draw the right lessons; not very much, if they don’t.

For at least a year, conservatively estimated, Congress andthe White House have been essentially shut down as campaigningtook priority over governing. You’d think an election that costbillions of dollars and an incalculable expense of politicaleffort would have changed something. Yet the U.S. remains aclosely divided country, with a president lacking any clearpolicy mandate, a deadlocked Senate and a House ofRepresentatives still run by the opposing party. As a matter ofpolitical arithmetic, the election was an obscenely distendednonevent.