Cheat Sheet

Less than 24 hours after Obama won the presidency, the glow is off for Wall Street: The Dow plunged 486.01 points today to close at 9,139.27, its largest-ever drop following a presidential election. Reports on jobs and service industries were to blame, according to Bloomberg; ADP Employer Services reported that companies shed 157,000 jobs in October, the most in six years. “We had an election yesterday; that doesn’t mean the problems go away,” Kevin Rendino of BlackRock Inc. told Bloomberg. “We still have an economic slowdown.” The S&P 500 tumbled 5.3 percent, while the Nasdaq shaved 5.5 percent.

The post-election bombshells continue: CNN reports that McCain aide Randy Scheunemann was fired from the campaign last week for “trashing” the campaign staff. Campaign manager Rick Davis jettisoned the senior foreign policy adviser, according to CNN, “after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading ‘disinformation’ about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials” in the final weeks of the campaign. “He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain’s campaign message,” said an aide. McCain was “very disappointed by Randy.”

Good news: What has to be the juiciest story of Election 2008—the Sarah Palin shopping spree—still has legs. According to Newsweek, the spree was even larger than previously reported. Campaign aide Nicolle Wallace reportedly told Palin to buy three suits and hire a hair stylist for the convention, and was surprised when Palin instead took the family to Neiman Marcus and Saks. Another aide estimates that Palin spent tens of thousands more than previously reported, and that $20,000 to $40,000 was spent on the First Dude. Best of all: "Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards." McCain didn't find this out until last week when those aides sought reimbursement.

No olive branch from Tehran today—Iran instead is advising US forces that any violation of its airspace will be met with force. “It has been observed that helicopters of the US army were flying a short distance from the Iran-Iraq border,” Iran’s military headquarters said in a statement. “Iran’s armed forces will forcefully respond to any attempts to violate the Islamic Republic of Iran’s airspace.” Analysts tell the Los Angeles Times the statement signals an effort by hard-liners to continue the US-Iran standoff, despite Obama’s calls for diplomacy. “The radicals aren’t happy about Obama’s victory,” Saeed Leylaz said. “To the radicals this change is not to their advantage.”

The 2012 presidential election is nearly 1,500 days away, just soon enough for eager Republicans to begin plotting a run against Barack Obama. So, who do Republicans want to carry the party's mantle? NBC-WSJ GOP pollster Neil Newhouse conducted a survey last night to find out. The majority of Republicans, 33 percent, favor Mitt Romney as the new head of the party, while 20 percent prefer Mike Huckabee. Another 18 precent are behind nominee Sarah Palin, meaning that the barracuda will have some work to do.

Michael Crichton, the bestselling author of Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, passed away yesterday from cancer. "Through his books," his family wrote in a statement, "Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand." He was 66-years-old.

And for some non-election news: The advertising deal between Google and Yahoo, tagged on the internet as "Yahoogle," is apparently dead. According to Kara Swisher at BoomTown, many Google execs opposed the deal from the start, since they feared it would bring their company unwanted scrutiny and feed its image as an evil giant. Google cited "concerns" from regulators and advertisers, and worried that a Justice Department review would drag into next year. Yahoo is apparently disappointed by Google's unilateral withdrawal, but the failed deal at least saved it from an ugly takeover battle with Microsoft.

Among the many things Obama is supposed to fix—the Iraq War, the economy—few had included the newspaper business. Well, Obama, once again, to the rescue. Gawker reports a huge line today outside New York Times headquarters, in Midtown Manhattan, to buy Wednesday’s edition with Obama’s victory on the front page. The Washington Post has chosen to honor the occasion by printing an extra. As Gawker notes, it won’t be enough to bring back newsies, but it’s a glorious day for print all the same.

With the McCain campaign's corpse still warm, Sarah Palin is not ready to reveal her 2012 presidential ambitions just yet. "Right now I cannot even imagine running for national office in 2012," she told CNN's Dana Bash. She also, however, absolved herself of responsibility for McCain's failure. "I don't think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit, that I would trump an economic time in this nation that occurred about two months ago, that my presence on the ticket would trump the economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago and attribute John McCain's loss to me," she said. Exit polls showed over 60 percent of the electorate thought Palin was unqualified to be president.

When did Obama beat McCain? Well, from the start, his campaign was better managed. When McCain’s top advisers sat down to ask why America should elect him, they couldn’t reach a consensus. "Without an overriding rationale, our campaign necessarily turned tactical rather than strategic," a McCain adviser tells The Wall Street Journal. So they focused on disqualifying Obama. Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, hewed tightly to its “change versus more of the same” frame. The real turning point came, however, during the bailout debate, when the two were tied in the polls and McCain decided to suspend his campaign. "We completely blew it," one McCain adviser tells The Journal. "The execution of a potentially great move couldn't have been worse." McCain failed to broker a bailout deal, and while he struggled to recover, Obama built a huge polling lead, ground operation, and financial advantage.

The so-called circular firing within the McCain campaign mostly held its fire Tuesday night, as the candidate delivered a gracious concession speech. But there were a few moments worth remembering. Take the press conference early in the day when Steve Schmidt, the campaign’s chief strategist, was asked if he approved of the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate. “There’ll be time for all the post-mortems in the race,” Schmidt said. Yes, but was he happy with Palin’s performance during the campaign? “I think that, you know, I think we’ll know in a few hours what the results are, you know, and I—there’ll be a time for all the post-mortem parts of it.” We’ll be all ears.

Could this be the start of something special? "Obama is my buddy," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said. "I never believed Hillary Clinton would win." French political strategists are studying Obama's victory as they look forward to their 2012 election, and, in the words of Der Spiegel, say "a lot of things unite Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama.” The enthusiasm goes well beyond France's pro-America president. "America," Der Spiegel writes, "the superpower that the French love to hate, has suddenly, with the election of a black man to the country's highest political office, emerged once again as a societal model and exemplar of democracy."

After two years of campaigning and a night of celebration, the Obama-Biden administration "will inherit problems of historic proportions" not seen since FDR began his term during the Great Depression, Dan Balz writes in the Washington Post. Top on the agenda: a sinking economy and a war on two fronts. Aiding Obama's task? His diverse "new coalition" of voters that led  him to the Oval Office provided a "personal mandate" for action. Advisors caution they learned from 2006 not to aim for an "unabashed liberal government" and that Obama will "govern inclusively" and will face budgetary hurdles.

Blogger-writer Ezra Klein on what changed Tuesday night: “[Obama] robbed fear of its ability to work through quiet insinuation. He forced America to confront its own subconscious. Obama actually is black. His middle name actually is "Hussein." He actually does know William Ayers. He actually was married by Jeremiah Wright. He actually had lived in Indonesia. These were not smears, though they were often used as such. They were facts.” And yet America overcame them, emerged from the clouds of 9/11: “Fear proved but a temporary detour from our history’s long arc toward justice.”

The election is not quite over, but Bill Ayers has broken his long silence. There's no 25th hour confirmation of conservative insinuation about his relationship with Barack Obama, however. In an interview with David Remnick, Ayers says "I think my relationship with Obama was probably like thousands of others in Chicago and, like millions and millions of others, I wished I knew him better." He bemoans his treatment during the election: "They made me into a cartoon character, they threw me up onstage just to pummel me." And, he insists, contrary to many reports, that he has not said that he wishes he committed more attacks. "I wish I had done more, but it doesn’t mean I wish we'd bombed more shit. ... I wish I had been wiser," Ayers says, "I wish I had been more effective, I wish I’d been more unifying, I wish I'd been more principled."

The economic crisis may have wiped Iraq clean off the front pages this month, but that doesn't mean the next president won't have a complete mess on his hands to confront on Day 1. At least fifteen people were killed today and dozens more hurt after a series of bombings in Baghdad targeting markets and convoys. These new attacks came after a relative period of calm, a grim reminder that the country's celebrated security gains still remain fragile. How the president extricates our troops from Iraq (or doesn't) may be the signature test of their administration, whether we're paying attention to it now or not.

Barack Obama’s victory in Florida is particularly satisfying for Democrats, considering all the grief it caused them two elections ago. How’d he do it? Ben Smith flags a startling stat: Obama carried Hispanic voters in Florida by 55 to 44 percent. In 2004, Bush won 56 percent of Florida’s Hispanic vote. In light of the fact that, a few months ago, many wondered whether Hispanics nationwide would defect to McCain, his victory among Florida’s largely Cuban, particularly conservative Hispanic population is all the more noteworthy.

Are you getting impatient waiting for election updates? Go to Twitter's election page and watch the presidential Tweets filter in at a blistering pace. People are excited and mad and nervous and depressed and they're alerting the world with fascinating sub-140 character messages. Xeni Jardin, co-editor of Boing Boing, is a perfect example: "Is anyone else physiologically hyper today because of elections? I feel like a 5 yr old who just ate a bowl of Froot Loops & red bull." Her frantic psyche is a microcosm of the whole twitter world, with its short, constant, unfiltered updates. Make no mistake though—Twits have no facade of objectivity. They love Obama.

News broke yesterday of Barack Obama’s grandmother’s death the day before his potential election to the United States presidency. Today, the Honolulu Advertiser fills out her biography. Born in 1922, Madelyn Payne Dunham worked on an aircraft assembly line during World War II, then moved to Hawaii in 1960 and took a job with the state’s largest financial institution, the Bank of Hawaii. Dunham, who never graduated from college, was named one of the bank’s first female vice presidents in 1970. She died of cancer a month after she was hospitalized for breaking her hip. “She was like a mother to him,” said State Senator Sam Slom. “There’s no question that the greatest of his influences was his grandmother." Dunham was able to vote by absentee ballot or early voting before her death, and her vote will be counted.

Marc Ambinder on the key to Obama’s Ohio Victory: “He went to places that John Kerry couldn’t afford to go.” Obama campaigned in twice as many counties as Kerry, opened twice the number of field offices, and employed three times as many staffers. And the economy crushed McCain—Obama won whites making less than $50,000.

Election Day may just be a few hours behind us, but Barack Obama will waste no time in preparing his administration. According to The Washington Post, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, John Podesta, began heading Obama’s transition operation about 10 weeks ago. They plan to move “quickly, but not hastily”—avoiding the chaos that Clinton wreaked by not picking much of his administration until five days before his inauguration. Staff members are “hinting at the potential for several ‘outside the box’ picks for top jobs.” Possibilities include New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein as education secretary and retired Marine Corps commandant Jim Jones as national security adviser.

Last night, Barack Obama became the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win a majority of American voters. How’d he do it? “With the near unanimous backing of blacks, the overwhelming support of youth as well as significant inroads with white men and strong support among Hispanics and educated voters,” according to Politico. Obama’s success with white voters is particularly noteworthy. He equaled Bill Clinton’s 43 percent of white voters in 1996, and though he did slightly worse among white women than Al Gore, he earned 41 percent of the male vote—the highest total again since Carter. He also split independent voters with McCain. All these stats were underwritten by the huge number of voters who listed the economy as the most important issue—a full 63 percent, according to exit polls.

The French, who have held back their love from George Bush, have fallen truly, madly, deeply for Obama. The usually anti-American left wing website Rue89 led with, “This time the world says thank you to America.” The establishment paper Le Monde breathlessly pronounced, "What intelligence, what mastery, what sang-froid..." Former socialist arts minister Jack Lang said, "The America that we love is back. This election will have the effect of an electric shock and will bring about a spiritual revolution." But the London Times’s man in Paris advises caution. “The euphoria, which is partly driven by the imminent farewell to George W Bush, will soon subside. Some commentators are trying to calm the near hysteria, reminding France that Obama is still an American, not a Frenchman, and that there will be inevitable disappointment. But rekindled love affair with les Etats Unis is enjoyable while it lasts,” he writes.

Obama will meet with top intelligence officials Thursday to be informed of America’s most sensitive and secret intelligence reports from the CIA, the FBI and other key government agencies. From now on he will receive the same daily intelligence briefings that Bush currently receives. Joe Biden, the vice president-elect, will be briefed separately starting this week.

A memo from Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador in Washington, to Gordon Brown leaked to The Guardian reveals the full extent of the behind the scenes tensions between McCain and Palin. According to a “military friend” of McCain, he has been joking to friends, “What is the difference between Sarah Palin and a pitbull? The canine eventually lets go.” Sheinwald described Obama to Brown as a "decidedly liberal" man who "got diverted by his presidential ambitions."

To fulfill his promise as a healer and a uniter, Obama should avoid aligning himself with the two hostile camps of liberals and conservatives and instead walk the fine line between the two, argues Fareed Zakaria. “The present crisis presents an opportunity for Obama to recast the traditional divide in American politics,” he writes. “Rather than the usual left-right split over the size and role of government, he has to address himself to the greatest problem most Americans have with Washington: they see their government as predatory and corrupt...If he truly wants to mold the future, Obama will have to demonstrate similar leadership” to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Amid all the celebration, it’s easy to overlook a large setback that happened last night for the progressive agenda: Proposition 8 passed in California, outlawing same-sex marriage and calling into the question the future of those 18,000 same-sex marriages that have already occurred. Its coalition, oddly, looks similar to Obama’s: Whites opposed it 53 to 47, but blacks supported it 70 to 30 (and Latinos supported it 51 to 49). In early polling, the measure was behind by as many as 17 points. Same-sex marriage was also banned on Florida and Arizona.

President Medvedev greeted Obama’s elections with an escalation of his challenge to America’s NATO alliance with Europe. He announced the siting of short-range Iskander surface-to-surface missiles on the borders of the EU states of Poland and Lithuania, saying it was in response to the erection of an American missile shield in Eastern Europe. “Medvedev’s speech had been postponed twice and commentators in Moscow say it is no accident that the Kremlin decided it should be delivered on the day the United States presidential election results were announced,” The Daily Telegraph reports. “They suggested that Russia was deliberately attempting to test Mr Obama’s mettle.”