Barx2, I really, really wish I had an answer for that question, but I'm afraid I just don't know. In a perfect world, someone in the new Administration would look at the technical specifications, compare them to the piece of junk that Ares is, and say "this is a no-brainer!" but we live in an imperfect world, and the decision won't be made solely on technical merit. It will be a political one as well. Funding is needed, and the new President and Congress may decide that not all of that money can be spent developing this right away. The one thing that they need to be aware of, and you should write your congressmen and the President, and say to them, "If Ares fails, and all that money spent so far was wasted, what effect will that have on NASA and the future of American technological superiority? DIRECT is a better program, derived straight from NASA engineering studies, and optimized to get us there less expensively, much more safely, much faster, and with greater flexibility than Ares can ever provide."
If enough people hand write letters like these, then someone will HAVE to take a much closer look at it.
But that's just MVHO.