You should have been to the United States of America...

• Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Mr. Kirchner inherited an economy that he called "devastated, pressured and extorted" by international creditors, a grinding recession and the collapse of the Argentine currency.

Some in Argentina's rough-and-tumble political establishment considered him little more than a naive provincial politician without the shrewdness to push through reforms. As he rose to the national stage, the media in Buenos Aires focused on the heavy lisp in his speech and a lazy eye that wandered as he talked.

Mr. Kirchner, though, was a strong-willed president who, in the tradition of other Peronist Party leaders, astutely delivered a populist message that won him support as he guided Argentina out of its economic morass.

He blamed the country's troubles on the International Monetary Fund and American-style economic reforms advanced by Menem. Mr. Kirchner studiously ignored market orthodoxy, forcing holders of Argentina's debt to accept far less than what they had invested.

"If they want to squeeze, let them squeeze," Mr. Kirchner told reporters in 2004, explaining that Argentina had no intention of paying defaulted bonds at their full price. "Here, we have Argentines ready to build a new destiny, a new reality."

Mr. Kirchner spent generously on social programs and infrastructure. Coupled with a dramatic rise in worldwide demand for Argentine commodities, from soybeans to beef, Argentina's economy made a fast recovery.

In 2003, the country's economy grew for the first time in five years, rising 8.7 percent. And throughout Mr. Kirchner's presidency, growth averaged 8 percent annually.

"Without a doubt, he was the leader who rescued Argentina from its worst economic crisis," Agustin Rossi, a congressman and close ally of the former president, told Argentine television. "He showed us that we could dream again. He showed that politics could deliver hope."

If the polls are right, then we can expect to see more of this sort of thing, the economics of pain and punishment, during the second part of Obama's first term in office.

The biggest public works project in the U.S. — a $9 billion-plus train tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York City — is dead in its tracks. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Wednesday he is sticking by a decision announced earlier this month to kill the project because of runaway costs.

The decision to abandon construction more than a year after it began burnished the Republican governor's reputation as a cost-cutter but was criticized as foolishly shortsighted by transportation advocates, train riders, union leaders and some Democrats. It also leaves New Jersey with nothing but a $600 million hole in the side of the hill.

Supporters of the project — an idea that has been on the drawing board for about 20 years — said it would create 6,000 construction jobs and thousands more jobs afterward, as well as ease train delays in a region with one of the nation's longest commute times.