The 44th Vice President of the United States, Dan Quayle, offered advice to the 44th President (President-elect Obama) recently- Learn to say no. President-elect Obama seems to be challenged with a need to say no to a lot of people right now, whether he wants to or not.

He is going to have to say no to many who thought his administration was going to immediately shift into major immigration reform. Some will say this is because his aunt is an illegal immigrant, but that isn’t the issue - although it could prove to be a short period embarrassment for a new president. But President Obama has a lot of other reform to achieve and most of it will not be easy -with or without Rahm Emanuel.

The Obama Administration is going to have to tackle the economy first and fast. There is health care to address and this issue alone is going to bring out all of the rancor and rhetoric that can be mustered in American politics. Social inSecurity is going to occupy this administration as more boomers, whose retirement plans have been devastated by the Fannie and Freddie debacle, begin to ease out of the workforce.

Which reminds me - if there was any doubt that how people “retire” is forever changed in America, that should be comepletely gone at this point. Except for some of the Union workers and government employees out there, there are no more “Gold Watch and Pension” retirements for the average American.

President Obama is going to find that the enormous political capital reserve he has will dry up very fast with the American people. It is time to look at policy and a lot of that landscape looks bad, bad. On January 21st, the Kumbaya portion of President Obama’s administration is over. I pray that “Hope and Change” does not better define how we get over and Obama administration - we’ve got a lot riding on this guy.

Is he graying yet?