Monday, October 27, 2008

The Economist on Obamacons

As always, the economist says it well.

Some subset of the Obama coalition is going to be very disappointed once he gets into office and starts to govern, as he cannot simultaneously please those who want radical lefty change and those who want Larry Summers and other moderates who will give a more serious and intellectual cast to policy than we have experienced the past eight years.

A key early signal will be who gets put in charge at the Department of Education and what they do with the Institute of Education Sciences. The ed schools and teacher unions do not like all this business about real evidence nor do most ed school types appreciate having so many economists around crowding in on their traditional turf. But the IES is almost certainly the greatest positive achievement of the Bush II years.

Fingers crossed.