Obama will have a majority in the Senate, but not the 60 votes he’d need to put down a Republican filibuster. And though the gap in the House has narrowed, the GOP will keep control.
So Obama will have to deal. He’ll have to account for the other party’s interests and desires. And he’ll need to forge alliances with key parts of that opposition — Republicans who are more moderate or more focused on solutions than politics — to keep plying his agenda.
One thing that should be certain, though, is the re-emergence of that GOP middle as a formidable voice in the party. The president’s re-election effectively settles the long-running argument over whether new revenues should be on the table as part of America’s economic restructuring. They have to be now, because Romney’s all-cuts and tax breaks scenario has been rejected.