Hope amid the ruins.(THE ELECTION)

ALL Americans should hope that President-elect Barack Obama's time in office will redound to the country's long-term benefit. The odds are nonetheless against it. Liberals will soon be in the driver's seat in Washington in a way they have not been since the days of the Great Society. The Democratic majority in Congress will be about the same size as the one that greeted President Clinton in 1993, but much more homogeneously liberal.

Yet the public has not embraced many of the central aspects of liberalism. This may explain why, while Obama's record and positions put him well to the left of any president in the last four decades, he is, to judge from his campaign, a man who wants to cut taxes, defend an individual right to own guns, take a hard line on terrorists in Pakistan, reduce the abortion rate, allow people to stay in their health-care plans, and keep trade free. Polls suggest that he was wise to run in this fashion: The public remains as skeptical about federal activism and social liberalism as it has been for years.

The public has, however, clearly rejected the Republican party in its present configuration. It is always difficult for a party to maintain control of the White House after two terms in office. But both President Bush and Senator McCain made the task harder. Bush took too long to change course in Iraq and botched the response to Hurricane Katrina. McCain rarely stuck to one message or strategy. The financial crisis, for which we do not primarily blame either man, sealed the party's fate.

But Republicans have been so unpopular for so long, and their failure has been so sweeping, that it is a mistake to dwell too long on the flaws of specific men or the consequences of particular events. Neither Bush nor McCain nor congressional Republicans gave much sign that they understood the frustrations that average Americans have felt over the last few years toward the economy and Washington, let alone that they had solutions. The exit polls demonstrate this failure again and again: in questions about which party and candidates voters consider the most sympathetic to regular people, in questions about who would do best for the economy, in the breakdown of the vote by income.

Senator McCain's principal economic message concerned spending and, more narrowly still, earmarks. Any winning ...