The post-electoral glow will be short-lived, this time. The President of the United States will probably not receive another Nobel Prize. More problematic, the Republican party has a majority in the House of Representatives, which means that he will have to deal with their obstructionist tactics to pass anything through Congress. That corner of government has quickly taken action: on the eve of the President's re-election, the Speaker of the House John Boehner said that the President has “no mandate for raising taxes.”

However, as Thomas Friedman points out the mandate is another one ( The New York Times). Obama, despite his failures, must continue to try reach across the aisle to govern. And the Republican legislators must turn away from their extremist base and towards a moderate form of conservatism to begin to recover credibility. Governing with a diverse legislative body intrinsically requires compromise.

The need for this step cannot be highlighted enough. The United States faces a cliffhanger fiscal policy in 2013 ( CBO). This was a result of a long and contested budget battle during Obama's first term, and incorporates dramatic tax increases on all segments of income. Should the parties not take some legislative action, the economy will take a dramatic turn for the worse.

The U.S. government also needs to refresh its moderate facade to maintain credibility on a much more personal level. Not only has the Republican party largely defined itself as an anti-Obama party (although not as dramatically as Democrats would make it out to be) ( The Washington Post), but it has also alienated the broadest segment of the Obama voters: women ( Statista). Republican candidate Todd Akin not only doomed his own election bid by stating that rape victims do not need abortions because they rarely become pregnant ( The Atlantic), but also colored his party as regressive and misogynistic.

Obama's own supporters often admit that he is far from perfect. The slow fumble of his legislative agenda while the Democrats controlled Congress during his first term in office (with the very noteworthy exception of the health care reform), is outdone by an array of minor scandals the american public seems to be much less interested in. For example, he appears to be directing the questionable criminal charges against Julian Assange ( Nbc news) and Kim Dotcom ( Eric Goldman) outside the United States. Worse yet, the draconian George W. Bush era policies that were enacted under the shock of the September 11 attacks have been extended under the Obama administration.

Cooperation would also engender faith in both parties. If the fiscal cliff is avoided, the gradual but inevitable economic recovery will be a credit to anyone in power at the time. And there will have to be candid discussions about replacements for retiring Supreme Court Justices, who are appointed by the President, but must be confirmed by Congress. The current Supreme Court has a conservative majority, but several justices have mentioned that retirement is on their radar, and one of them has some precarious health issues ( Reuters). The Court, with the support of the executive branch's attorneys, will have to shepherd the american legal system through the pitfalls of the information age and the demands of transparency. In other words, there is much work to do, credit to give to those who do it, and more gray hair for everyone involved ( CNN).

Text by Nazim N. Karaca