The choice of a new generation?

January 29, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Sure, Congressional Democrats continues to work on a giant spending bill even with the economy in the doldrums. But luckily, President Obama seems to have instituted his own stimulus plan to help our struggling businesses create more jobs – companies like Pepsi are capitalizing on the themes of the Obama campaign to move more of their own project.

As this Metro billboard suggests, Pepsi has adopted the mantra of hope and change. It’s more appropriate than they know – Pepsi has been claiming to be the “choice of a new generation” for decades – probably long enough to be the choice of the next generation that came along after the original new generation. It’s a message based more on positioning a brand than on any kind of substance.

Snowbama

January 28, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Two inches of snow plus a little ice canceled schools in Your Nation’s Capital and the surrounding areas over the past two days. I treated my walk to and from the Metro like an Obama Administration “process,” taking it slowly and methodically because the unshoveled snow on the sidewalks had turned to ice.

Given that this weather is a mere dusting in places like the upper Midwest (and my adopted homeland of New England) President Obama has called on the DC area to “apply some flinty Chicago toughness.”

You know something? He’s right on about this one.

Yes We Cantor

January 27, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

A running theme of the early Obama Administration has been “process.”

When will the President make good on his promise to pull troops out of Iraq? How will the President handle the suspected terrorists at Guantanamo? When will the government pass an economic policy to make everything better? White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has frequently referred to each situation as a process – giving the Administration a chance to delay and diffuse questions.

And as Mama Eltringham pointed out to me today, one Republican is turning that back on the Administration. Faced with a harmful economic stimulus bill, Republicans are looking to delay and diffuse too – delay (or destroy) a harmful bill and diffuse criticism that they are suffering from sour grape syndrome since November. So Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia used the same language:

“The House is set to vote on the legislation as soon as tomorrow… Cantor said the House vote on the legislation ‘is only the first step in the process.'”

Gibbs later credited Cantor with successfully pushing to publish the stimulus package online for public scrutiny – a tactic which not only delays the bill’s passage, but forces the Obama Administration to explain spending $800+ billion in tax dollars during a time when working folks are pinching every penny to get by.

But don’t accuse the Republicans of trying to sink the stimulus. They’re just letting the process play out.

We can put the terrorists back in Gitmo if we cross the streams

January 26, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Of all the chatter by alleged experts in blogosphere, perhaps the best analysis of the Guantanamo Bay issue came from my brother Mike. After all, anyone who has seen the movie Ghostbusters knows what happens when you shut down a containment unit.

Tech revisionism?

January 23, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This week the Washington Post reported on the frustration of new Obama Administration staffers at the state of technology in their new White House offices. Though the headline suggested the Bush Administration was in the “technological dark ages,” a careful reading suggested otherwise: workstations had desktops instead of laptops, and they all ran on Windows XP.

As Patrick Ruffini points out, the Obama online team is not necessarily in the moral authority to talk about tech issues, as updates to the shiny new whitehouse.gov have been slow in coming in the first days of the administration.

But beyond that, Craig Colgan reminds us that the Bush Administration pioneered the use of the internet to create an online White House presence – but the facts aren’t always enough:

“This White House was of course the first with a rigorous online presence. The contribution of the Bush administration in this regard will of course not be a part of the official narrative. How this all works is no surprise. The reigning meme out there goes like this: When Republicans get it right online, and/or do it well, then it doesn’t matter. Or doesn’t matter anymore.”

Well, ok, maybe just a few more, but after that NO MORE LOBBYISTS!

January 23, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

In assembling his team, President Obama has been staunch in his public statements that lobbyists would not find a revolving door from their private sector work into his administration.

His administration? Not quite as staunch. Spokesman Robert Gibbs has already admitted that there may be “reasonable exceptions” to the no-lobbyist rule for folks like Bill Lynn (who was a lobbyist for a defense contractor before being named to the #2 spot in the Department of Defense) and Bill Corr (the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services who used to lobby the department of Health and Human Services). Gibbs claimed that each could assume their positions under waivers to the ethics rules.

Could Richard Nixon have summed it up any better? (“Well, if the President does it, that means it’s not illegal.”)

Instead of the political grandstanding with sweeping regulations he didn’t intend to follow anyway, President Obama should have pursued a different strategy that he has been claiming all along: transparency. A simple index of any previous lobbying activity by any member of the Administration – available online – would have allowed our new President a chance to make a statement against DC influence peddling without looking like a hypocrite.

Today’s chance to reach across the aisle

January 22, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Two days after D.C. hosted an inaugural crowd on over a million people, Your Nation’s Capital is the scene for the annual March for Life. The pro-life organizers have invited the President to speak despite his pro-choice stance, but unlike his predecessor it appears President Obama will not address the estimated 200,000 pro-life activists – not even with a pre-recorded message, as George W. Bush did. It would be a missed opportunity.

President Obama has spoken about reaching across the aisle and even went to George Will’s house for a dinner with conservative columnists. Reaching out to inside-the-beltway Republican voices is one thing, but the March for Life gives the President a conduit to grassroots conservative activists – and even more significant, grassroots activists who are concerned about abortion, which is by far the most charged issue in American politics today.

But if there was ever a week when Americans wanted to find common ground, this is it. A short, pre-recorded, honest speech could candidly recognize vast differences between the President and the pro-life movement while identifying common goals and recognizing activists for their energy and efforts. This type of outreach would signal his acceptance of the diversity of opinions on issues – and could partially deflate one potential wedge issue for Republicans to use in trying to pick up the pieces of their base.

On the other hand, as RealClearPolitics notes, President Obama may be more concerned with getting in with opinion leaders, the “intellectual establishment” of both parties. If George Will and William Kristol aren’t writing columns railing against President Obama’s policies, perhaps he doesn’t need the 200,000 people out on the Mall today.

Free passes for the cabinet?

January 21, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Hillary Clinton’s husband accepted donations from foreign interests (again!) which could create a conflict of interest in her work as America’s chief diplomat (and are rewriting ethics laws). Yet her nomination as Secretary of State was overwhelmingly approved this afternoon.

Timothy Geithner looks to be headed for the same success in his bid to be Treasury Secretary – despite a track record which shows he is at worst a tax cheat and at best careless about details.

Politically speaking, the Republicans were right to give Clinton a pass – to hold up her nomination would have cast the image of a party fighting the same battles it did in 1998. But polls suggest Senate Republicans should think again about a second rubber stamp to Geithner – the American people are dead even on whether or not he should be approved.

Fiscal policy is going to be a critical battleground over the next two years, and Geithner’s confirmation hearings offer Republicans a way to score an early victory – and, equally important, a chance to demonstrate that Team Obama does not own a monopoly on the concept of transparent, open government.

My President…

January 21, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Look, yesterday was a great day to show the peaceful exchange of power in America, and a big step for racial healing, blah blah blah.

Forgive me for not being excited. For me, no President can come close to my favorite, our only UMass alum to occupy the White House, Bill Pullman:

Now that was a speech.

Welcome to the online home of Hope and Change

January 20, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Hours after his inauguration, Barack Obama has already re-launched Whitehouse.gov. The site features a blog, facts about the executive branch, and other informational links. It also includes an indexed policy agenda and a page for the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs. These two items will, in all likelihood, operate hand-in-hand in the new administration: as the President pursues the agenda, look for the Office of Public Liaison to mobilize public support to publicly lobby Congress. This office may also act as a way to run instantaneous focus groups to identify agenda items that will resonate most among the President’s “standing army” of supporters.