By Lindsay Beyerstein, The Media Consortium

Obama's healthcare agenda has been the subject of much discussion in progressive media circles this week.

We know that healthcare will be one of the top priorities for the Obama administration. The candidate put it third in line after the economy and energy independence.

As Sara Robinson of the Campaign for America's Future notes in AlterNet, Americans support the idea of a single-payer healthcare system by an astonishing 2-1 margin. So much for the myth that America is a center-right country.

by Zach Carter, TMC MediaWire blogger

As Barack Obama readies himself to lead the United States through what appears to be a scathing recession, he faces a choice between feeding the political sphere's Wall Street addiction and investing in economic progress. Two key former Clinton cabinet officials could determine which course he takes.

 It was more than a little startling to hear a U.S. leader who sounded like (gasp!) an economist at the president-elect's first press conference  last week, after years of Bush speeches that treated economic policy as a realm defined exclusively by tax cuts and bailouts. But without policy specifics, we still do not know which voices of the many men and women flanking Obama at the event will impact the next administration's economic platform. Mother Jones notes that several of the names included on the list of Obama's economic advisers represent schools of thought that brought us directly to the current crisis. Two of the alleged experts, former Clinton Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, signed off on major financial deregulatory moves in the latter half of the Clinton years. The two sided often with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on policies that included a refusal to place government oversight on the credit derivatives market, which eventually ballooned into the $60 trillion quagmire that destroyed AIG in September (who got another $40 billion from taxpayers on Monday).  

By Lindsay Beyerstein, TMC MediaWire Blogger.

Before a cheering crowd in Chicago, Barack Obama thanked his supporters, his campaign staffers, his running mate, and his family for his historic victory.

I hope he also sends a nice note to Sarah Palin. He couldn't have done it without her.

Palin was chosen for her impeccable culture war credentials in the hopes of galvanizing the Republican base. Ironically, Palin energized the conservative base and the progressive base, in equal but opposite measure.

Palin's candidacy, as the running mate of a 72-year-old cancer survivor, forced us to imagine a young earth creationist, anti-abortion zealot in the White House. To their great credit, Americans said, "Thanks but no thanks."

The Obama victory can be seen as a mandate for science and rationality across the board, especially in health care policy. The economic crisis has become an excuse to ignore health care, but nothing could be more shortsighted.

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire blogger

 Welcome to The Media Consortium's Economy MediaWire project! Check this space every Tuesday for a discussion of the best economic coverage available on the information superhighway.

 This Tuesday, of course, is no ordinary Tuesday, but the day of the most important U.S. election in generations. Poll after poll has shown the economy to be the top concern for voters this year, as an epic financial crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble have ensured that the next president will have his hands full come January.

 But while there is plenty of bad news to go around of late, Ezra Klein notes for the American Prospect that economic downturns can be extraordinary opportunities to overhaul national  infrastructure, as the government steps in to fund projects that support what the private sector can no longer afford.

In a world of political sound-bites and talking heads, it's nearly impossible for everyday people and grassroots leaders to get the attention of the media. In June, The Media Consortium launched Live From Main Street, a five-episode town hall series hosted by Laura Flanders that set out to overcome that challenge. We wanted to go beyond horse-race campaign coverage to uncover how issues like the housing crisis are impacting communities around the country--and to shine a light on the grassroots activists that are making a difference. Live From Main Street traveled to Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Columbus and Seattle to seek out the voices ignored by the mainstream media.

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This week finds our war hero, on Old Hallow's Eve, having finished yet another very difficult stretch of his presidential campaign, as it draws to a close. As if it wasn't tough enough to find himself having to defend his home state of Arizona from that one's blithely effortless incursion onto desert turf -- never mind the continuing parade of defectors and detractors among high-powered Republicans -- G.O.P. presidential nominee Sen. John McCain learned, via the press, that his senior advisers think his vice presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a "diva" and "a wack job" who was bent not just on "going rogue," but going even "more rogue" than her campaign has already gone. Which would be pretty far, since her remarks this week indicated that she may have already set her sights on 2012 presidential race, reportedly having written off the top-of-the-ticket's chances in 2008.

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"We've got them just where we want them." With each bit of bad news for his presidential campaign, that's the refrain one hears from John McCain. This week brought so much bad news as to turn the wishful-thinking chorus into the sort of frantic chant one might expect from someone curled up in a corner, hugging his own knees.

 

With less than three weeks to go in the run-up to the presidential election, the McCain campaign, with help from the Republican National Committee, continued to keep its focus on attempts to discredit the Democratic contender, Sen. Barack Obama, more than on the policy goals of G.O.P. standard-bearer Sen. John McCain -- or those of either man, for that matter.

In a week that featured RNC-sponsored robo-calls in battleground states alleging all manner of evil from the Democratic nominee, the McCain campaign, apparently with a little help from the Bush Justice Department, continued to demonize the non-profit, community-organizing group, ACORN, which conducts a large-scale voter registration program among low-income citizens.  During Wednesday night's debate, McCain sought to link Obama to ACORN, which he called a threat to "the fabric of our democracy."

Meanwhile, many issues of interest to major constituencies -- issues such as immigration, reproductive health and gender equity -- went largely unaddressed.  But first, a little levity.