Fortune Watch

President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition team is reported to be deeply divided over whether to offer a post to Monica Lewinsky, the former White House Intern whose intimate relationship with President Bill Clinton led to his impeachment.

No decision has been reached as to exactly what sort of job Lewinsky might be offered.
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With today being the day when Barack Obama will take office as the 44th President of the United States – and historically, the first  president we  have asked our global economists to give us a summary of some of the challenges the new president will have.

The 44th president of the United States will inherit some tough challenges when he is sworn into office today. But since his election victory, Barack Obama has moved swiftly to put the tools in place to promote economic growth – good news for investors in US equities.

Despite his assertion that there is “only one president at a time,” Mr Obama hit the ground running after his November election win, and has moved quickly to put the tools in place for swift action on the economy.

Last week, the Democratic Party unveiled its much-anticipated USD 825 billion stimulus plan, a package of tax cuts and public spending designed to stem the economic slide and kickstart growth. Mr Obama said the plan, which he is keen to see passed before Congress goes into recess in mid-February, aims to save or create up to 4 million jobs.

In addition, Mr Obama has successfully lobbied Congress for the release of the second half of the USD 700 billion set aside by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), avoiding a potentially messy battle in the first few weeks of his administration. Lawmakers criticised the Bush administration’s use of the first half of the funds, citing the lack of transparency and lack of conditions attached to bank aid, but Obama’s team have provided assurances that these concerns will be addressed.

The “who’s who” list of choices to fill key positions in Mr Obama’s cabinet has also generated positive marks. Among the appointments are Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and Timothy Geithner, the former president and CEO of the New York Federal Reserve, as treasury secretary. Other economic hard-hitters in the team include Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary in Bill Clinton’s administration, and Paul Volcker, a former Fed chairman.

Consequences for investors
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So it’s now official, and 80,000 packed into the Denver Broncos’ football stadium in Denver on Thursday were there to see it: Barack Obama is now indisputably the Democratic candidate for the 2008 presidential election campaign, and the first bi-racial man in American history to win the nomination of a major party. The unlikely campaign that began 19 months ago in the freezing winter of Springfield, Illinois had reached and passed its penultimate hurdle.

Senator Obama himself, revelling in the biggest political extravaganza the US has ever seen, seized the opportunity on prime-time, coast-to-coast television to switch gears in campaign strategy – and the nation witnessed non-confrontational Obama morph into combative Obama.

“If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to serve as the next commander-in-chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have,” he roared with the characteristically brilliant, soaring oratory that has stirred so much enthusiasm across the world. “I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first… John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.”

McCain, meanwhile, also took advantage of the evening to spring a surprise, one-upmanship campaign ad on the nation’s television screens. Oozing supposed sincerity, McCain looked straight into the camera and congratulated his opponent: “Senator Obama, this is truly a good day for America,” he said. “Too often, the achievements of our opponents go unnoticed.” Minutes later, viewers saw an Obama campaign ad featuring a negative personal attack on McCain – all with the overall effect that Mr Nice Guy seemed to have transformed into an attack dog during the course of the evening, while the veteran old toughie McCain had changed into the warm and fuzzy of the two candidates.
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There was this lady Hillybilly
Told Obama you look silly,
With your policies so dumb,
Just like your black bum,
And your small black willy.

All Obama could do was have a big laugh and say “How silly can you get Hilly?”

“We won north, we won south and we won in between,” Obama told a roaring crowd, referring to his victories over Washington and Nebraska. “The Democratic Party must stand for change, not change as a slogan, change we can believe in.”

To deafening cheers Obama, 46, hammered home to party activists that he was the candidate of change, as he laid claim to the Democratic Party’s nomination and down the track the presidency.

Tomorrow’s contests have been dubbed the Potomac Primary, Obama, bidding to be the first black president, is expected to do well in tomorrow’s vote due to the large African-American population in the region.

Hillary Clinton was seen as the inevitable Democratic nominee. She has run a strong campaign, and been an impressive candidate, but much has changed in a short time. Instead of finding a clear path to the White House, has run into the rather extraordinary movement set in motion by Barack Obama.

In reflecting on all of this, I am reminded of a haunting line in one of Bob Dylan’s more memorable songs from the 1960s (Ballad of a Thin Man) It was written in the midst of the upheavals of that period, as the civil rights and anti-war movements and the just-dawning cultural revolution were converging into a social movement.

What is clear now, months later, is that the threads of Obama’s appeal and inspiration, woven together, spring from a powerful philosophy of change that has resonated across generational lines.

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