Ok, I'm done being a sore loser.

One of the upsides about living in a battle ground state is that the friends, family, and co-workers who voted for the other guy are quick to console you and reassure you that everything is going to be alright. I have to admit, I'm feeling better (not good, just better) about Obama presidency than I was, say, Wensday morning. So, with that in mind, here's some things that Obama could do to win me over:

1) Don't throw away victory in Afghanistan and Iraq. I have a feeling if Obama says "Well, I'm gonna listen to our military leaders, and if they say do X, I'm going to do X", then the previously anti-war folks will, in their minds, have a paradigm shift and refile the Iraq war from "The New Vietnam" to "The New Yugoslavia".

2) Just as some out there will consider the Obama presidency to be the end of a dark stain on American History (a position I disagree with whole heartedly, that stain ended decades ago), I believe Obama is in a position to end another dark stain on American History. That is of course, drug prohibition. Having lived a good portion of his life in Chicago, Obama should be intimately familiar with the role Prohibition played in that city. By creating a black market, the Prohibition paved the way for criminals to build power, with blood results. The same holds true for many of the notorious gangs of today. Obama should legalize, at the very least, Marijuana, but should consider legalizing other recreational drugs as well.

3) If he's going to invest a substantial amount of public money into alternative energy, do it the smart way. Rather than use goverment funded, goverment run research, that money would, in my opinion, bet wiser spent creating "X-Prize" like incentives. This worked for the actual X-Prize, and the DARPA Grand Challenge.

4) Seriously reconsider the whole "Redistribution of Wealth" thing. I'm not sure if Obama was just saying this so certain segments would vote for him, or not, but if not, he should take a good look at the last 75 years, and see what embracing the Free Market has done of certain countries (like Singapore, or Hong Kong), and what "spreading the wealth" has done for other countries (like Zimbabwe). Even the Communist leaderships of China and Viet Nam have recognized the value of the Free Market. Quite simply, there's no need for Obama to spread the wealth around, it spreads around on it's own.

I'd like hear from other McCain voters what Obama could do to win you over.

People voted for Obama because they agreed with is policy; they don't agree with his policy because they voted for him. Obama changing his stance on the war isn't going to magically change everyone else's.

I agree with you, but I think you're gravely misreading the current political climate when it comes to drugs.

The Grand Challenge is a terrible analogy to alternative energy. Computer science research is much cheaper than alternative energy research. As far as the X-Prize, that's only resulted in one successful product. Prize-type incentives have yet to demonstrate their effectiveness in promoting serious long-term research into emerging technology.

Singapore may be rich, but they also fine you for just about everything and have a shocking number of executions. And China's hardly the shining symbol of how the free market will make everything better.

It sounds to me like the way Obama could win you over is to suddenly become a Republican.

I am so fucking sick of people taking that "spreading the wealth" comment and jumping immediately to "omg socialism!" Please.

The free market has done just wonders and wonders for America in the last eight years. I can't imagine why we might want to rein it in a tad.

I voted in a progressive and I WANT a progressive.

Obama is a lot more hawk-ish than people give him credit for. Fact is, he's been talking pretty tough with Pakistan and I can't think of an instance where he said he wanted to get out of Afghanistan. The point is, and Bill O'Reilly even agrees with this, that Iraq is the wrong battlefield. We need to get out of there to devote our resources elsewhere. When 2009 rolls around we won't even have the authority to be there anymore, and the Iraqi government has told us that it's time to leave. It's really, really time. No matter what the neocon hawks want to call it. There is no victory remaining to throw away there.

I'm all for drug legalization, stopping pretty much right before heroin, but you're in a dream world if you think that's going to happen in the next 4 or even 8 years. Especially on a federal level.

The best way to invest in alternative energy is to do it just like a private investor would. Find groups, hear our their ideas, fund their research, collect on profits. Trying to assemble your own team won't work.

Take a look at the Great Depression. What fixed it was the New Deal. I think there's an argument to be made that going too long in either direction leads to trouble, and when that happens you need to head the other way. But I'm no economist.

I'm glad you're making an effort, but you really need to look at it from another perspective to see what we see in him.

Sorry, but this is exactly what he's demonstrated that he's not going to do.

We elected him because we trust his judgment. If he fails, then we'll all have to acknowledge that failure. But we did not elect David Patraeus, nor did we elect someone who would give Patraeus free reign like John McCain. We elected Barack Obama because we wanted a change from the Bush years when advisers had greater sway over the country than the President did.

I appreciate that you're willing to give the guy a chance. That's more than a lot of pettier people are willing to give and you should be congratulated for that. However, in doing so you're going to have to understand that he has been elected to do certain things that the American people clearly want. The measure of his success will depend on how well he does at those things, not at some other list of things that actually conflicts with promises he made in the campaign.

I don't see why he would legalize drugs. I don't think the topic has ever really come up.

*of course, realizing that a President really can't legalize or illegalize (is that a word?) anything. They can't even introduce their own bills to Congress.

Living in Chicago taught Obama to work with others and work pragmatically.

I understand your concerns almost -- but legalization and regulation of illicit drugs is not going to pass for goodness sake, and what is all this silliness about "redistributing the wealth"??

Shockingly enough, most people on both sides seem to have completely forgotten this during this election cycle.

I blame the last 12 years of expansion of the powers of the Executive Branch.

People expect a king.

[insert photo of Obama with crown] ^^

Any chance of Obama repealing any of that nonsense?

A lot of it isn't law so much as interpretation and precedent.

He can't legalize it all by himself, but he is the chief executor of law in the country. He can appoint judges at all levels of the federal system that are more progressive on drug issues, and he can set priorities for the entire justice department away from drugs.

Personally I was shocked when Bush won on a coin-toss in 2000 and then proceeded to govern as if he had won the entire lower 48 states in a 90/10 victory. I hope Obama goes in there in January and shows them what a real leader can do with an actual mandate.

Obama appears prepared to be aggressively reduce the risk to American from acts of terrorism, which does not translate into the imbalance of military expenditures in Iraq.

I'm honestly do not have a strong position regarding drug legalization, although I lean toward being opposed. I think Obama sees drugs legalization as an issue that differs from alcohol although as you say both facilitate certain types of crime. IMO, we must address two sides of the issue; distribution and the social issues of addiction. They are not the same.

We have investments in cleantech companies on multiple fronts (solar, battery storage, auto, alternative fuel) and I have strongly developed opinions about this issue.
1.) government must level the playing field for alternatives. That is to say, the same investor and corporate incentives given to fossil fuel companies all these many, many years must be extended to alternatives. And, the hurdle for qualification must be as low as has been for fossil fuels.

2.) we are not wanting for capital investment in alternative energy. VCs contributed about $6 billion this year, while private equity added another $6 billion, and government/private investors probably added another $3 billion. The number needs to be about twice that amount but more importantly, federal, state, and local incentives need to enable.

3.) we must make it more expensive to continue our current reliance on fossil fuel technology. Eliminate the tax incentives for investors (or phase them out) while increasing the tax burden on energy company profits derived from fossil fuels

There is no re-distribution of wealth "thing." At a time when the country requires that our infrastructure see increased investment, there are two things we must do.
1.) Since private industry will not take the risk and make the investments necessary, we must increase taxes on that segment of the population best able to afford the increase

2.) We must put the underemployed to work on those infrastructure projects

Not in one term.

WW2 ended the great depression, I believe.

Actually it was pretty much over by 1936, then there was a much smaller dip in 1937-38, and then the war.

Yup; World War 2 helped, of course, but the Depression itself had already ended. Didn't mean things were perfect, of course, but the Depression itself had ceased to be.

Yeah, right! Everyone knows that treating a medical condition like addiction by putting people in jail has proven so effective, and totally not racially biased. That's why the most addictive drugs, like alcohol and nicotine, are banned and not available on every corner, store, and gas station. Drugs r bad, 'mkay.

I would rather win Afganistan than Iraq if I had to choose, and then we could show Pakistan we are ready to clear out the tribal areas. None of this dicking around.

Most drug crimes are prosecuted at the state, not the federal level.