Economics will require careful choices about everything from taxes to health care to schools.

My first real presidential election was 1960, when John Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon.

That election spoke to me and my generation of Americans much in the same way that last Tuesday's election spoke to the generation between 18 and 25, who voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.

Obama, only a year ago an improbable Democratic nominee for the office, has triumphed by energizing youth and convincing many of the rest of us that we could trust him most in a time of unnerving economic challenge.

Here in Maine we returned a team of talented, mostly moderate leaders to Washington. Sen. Susan Collins made much of her bipartisan approach to easily hold off a challenge from Rep. Tom Allen. Chellie Pingree promised, like the president-elect, to be more centrist than her previous electoral experience suggested.

Rep. Mike Michaud simply continued being Mike – an honest, plain-spoken person who connects well with his 2nd District constituents.

At the state level, this was a resoundingly Democratic year, as might have been expected. Democrats strengthened their majority considerably in the House and significantly in the Senate.

Moderates of both parties made some gains, but not, I fear, significant enough to make much difference in the House. Moderates will have a significant voice in the Senate, although the Democratic majority has moved from one vote to four. Most disappointing to me was Democrat Jeanne Hulit's loss in Senate District 11 in an extremely close race and Reoublican Tom Dunne's loss in Senate District 7.

These two bright, able and articulate candidates would have brought real-world experience to Augusta. They will be missed.

As expected, Maine voters decisively rejected the ill-conceived beverage tax, passed in an 11th-hour move in the last Legislature to keep the Dirigo health program afloat. Unfortunately, this vote did not force a much-needed reassessment of Dirigo, as the program has a default funding mechanism.

And then there were the 18 school district reorganization votes up for ratification in communities across the state. Twelve of these plans were approved.

Most disappointing to me was the failure of the proposed consolidation of Falmouth, Cumberland and North Yarmouth. A joint group from these communities had been working on a plan for the past two years.

The proposed district would have been geographically compact, lending itself to efficiency in such high-ticket items as bus routing but also to creative use of curriculum specialization. In short, this was the kind of proposal of which one could say: If this proposal fails, what hope is there for any consolidation plan to succeed?

 The seeds of its defeat were sown in the changes Gov. Baldacci had to accept to get the consolidation legislation passed, particularly the fact that each town in a proposed district must approve the plan.

An influential group of Falmouth citizens tapped into a deep vein of local-control sentiment, an unfortunate sense of elitism, fears about the ultimate fate of its own high school and the difficulty of proponents to be convincing enough in the savings rationale.

So the opportunity to create a new district that had the chance to be the best in the state has been missed. It is most unfortunate. Perhaps the real opportunity was missed a year ago when the town of Yarmouth, which also had the opportunity to join this new district, decided also to go its own way.

Perhaps, in retrospect, we needed to have provided stronger incentives to join and stronger disincentives not to join. Whatever the reason, the Department of Education needs to learn from this. Going forward, the cost and economic imperatives that cried out for a consolidation effort will only get stronger.

The state and nation are now into an economic downturn that is likely to last at least two years.

We will not be able to sustain current levels of K-12 spending, particularly as the student population continues to decline. School districts will be scrambling to find savings – a task most are singularly ill-equipped to achieve.

Many communities will be taking another hard look at consolidating something before this recession is over.

If state officials learn from this excruciating experience, we may be able to put together an approach that reaches many more of Maine's 288 districts.

More of the president-elect's "Yes We Can" spirit could go a long way in Augusta.