Obama and Change

I’m a fan of President Obama.  He strikes me as a good, intelligent, and thoughtful person and I feel somewhat sorry for him considering the mess he’s inherited.  But being President is a self-inflicted wound and he knew what kind of situation he was walking into.  So when I heard an “IReporter” on CNN say that she was sick of hearing the President constantly remind the country that he’s inherited this mess, I couldn’t help but agree with her.  And she, like me, is an Obama supporter.

The first 100 days of a new President’s term is often referred to as his/her honeymoon with Congress.  It’s a time when the new president has a political mandate, being fresh off an electoral victory, and is generally in good position to push through the platform he/she campaigned upon.  That said, this doesn’t seem like the most pleasant of presidential honeymoons.  The Republican Party is one that feels very comfortable in the minority – enough to give a popular newly elected president a hard time these first couple of months. The economic crisis highlights the ideological divide between the Democrats and the Republicans, and the latter group has wielded the cries of a sizable amount of the American population that is against the President’s massive spending.

It’s natural for a president to become defensive when faced with the type of heat that Obama’s been receiving.  But, strategically speaking, repeating the fact that you’ve “inherited” this mess, while true, is counterproductive.  It’s just not what people want to hear from their President right now.  They’re looking to be sold on solutions, not sold on who to blame.  Resorting to these soundbites threatens Obama’s usual comfort upon the moral high ground.  And when others are essentially doing it for you, it’s simply not worth it.

Another change I’d like to see within the Obama administration is a new speechwriter.  I have beef neither with Jon Favreu nor the picture of him grabbing Hillary Clinton’s breast.  But I think he’s somewhat lost his utility.  He’s good on the campaign trail where grandiose, sweeping rhetoric has some real political muscle.  After all, Favreau is the one who coined the phrase, “Yes We Can!” and single handedly wrote both the Iowa victory speech that catapulted Obama to the White House and the inaugural address that christened his presidency.  However, the climate today is just not conducive to that kind of talk.  The obsession these days, rightfully so, is over the details of the President’s economic policy.  I don’t think a 27 year old heartthrob has what it takes to write effective speeches that sell the details of what might potentially become the most consequential economic policy since the New Deal.  I never thought this would happen, but I actually found myself rolling my eyes at President Obama recently when he tossed some of that lingo out there.  It’s definitely not as bad as the awkwardness I felt listening to President Bush, but I expect a heck of a lot from Obama on the PR front.

Wouldn’t it behoove President Obama to get a seasoned, grey-haired economist in there to do some real damage?