November 9th, 2008 | 
Author: Mr. Obama got a lot of help from a lot of people and from many interest groups including the media to get where he’s got and the question has to be asked, “so what does he owe, and to who?”.
Most of the different interest groups that helped Obama to get elected are already working on wish-lists that they hope he’ll feel obliged to ‘honor’, but given the nature of Obama’s victory it’s not clear how much he really ‘owes’ to anyone.
Many people such as Norman J. Ornstein from the ‘American Enterprise Institute’ insist that the unparalleled ground organization and campaign infrastructure that Obama built makes him less reliant on groups like the labor unions, “He doesn’t have the traditional strings attached”, Ornstein said. “For labor, it’s not like they can come to him and say, “You would not be president were it not for us”. And Steve McMahon who was a democratic strategist concurs, “He owes nothing to anyone except the people who elected him”.
Right now, the labor unions are pressing Obama to move quickly on universal healthcare and also on legislation that will make it easier for workers to organize. The Latino advocacy groups want immigration reform and even the ‘National Trust for Historic Preservation’ want full federal funding, “to protect our heritage”.
Also waiting in the wings are the more moderate elements in the Democratic party, Wall Street and big business that helped fund his campaign.
A huge saving grace for Obama is that he rejected campaign contributions from political action committees and federal lobbyists which means that at least he clearly owes them nothing.
In addition to the various interest groups many politicians around the country backed him and many of them did so early on in the campaign and although it’s unclear who will be rewarded Obama personally thanked McCaskill and Kaine on many occasions for their backing and Napolitano and Sebelius are on several appointment lists in Democratic circles with Napolitano being pushed for ‘Attorney General’ and Sebelius for ‘Health And Human Services Secretary’.
Perhaps the bottom line is that the biggest outstanding debt that Obama has is to his grass-roots supporters and it would seem that they presently understand that he will not be a miracle worker, and Obama himself is already working to lower expectations.
Departing from prepared remarks last Friday he said, “It is not going to be quick, it is not going to be easy to dig ourselves out of the hole we are in”.
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