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If you were Obama...


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Presidents are not prime ministers. Their powers are limited in comparison. But I think that, right now, Obama can get almost anything through congress. I doubt that window of opportunity will last long. So he should push through some big changes that would never normally make it.

The biggest, and most important would be a drastic change to election financing laws. I think Obama could push through a law right now similar to what Canada has, essentially banning donations from corporations, companies, unions or organizations, and dramatically limiting what an individual can give. That would take the wind right out of the lobbyists' sails. With that done, he would have less opposition to anything else he wants to do. Which should include national health care - though I don't know if that can be passed given the current economic conditions and the huge deficit.

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1) Bomb the Somalian Pirate bases.

Just to show everyone he doesn't play favourites

I like the idea, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't use up precious political capital on it. However, he could cut a deal with the British and French and a few others - make it an international police action - an example of the new American spirit of cooperation and American leadership.... be popular at home and abroad. You need to do more than bomb it, though. You need boots on the ground.

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If I was Obama I would get to work. Sure fancy speeches play on peoples emotions and evoke warm fuzzies but phase 1 is over. Get a black man elected to the oval office. Now he has to deliver and do what he said he was going to do. So start making preparations so that the day after the swearing in he starts doing something because the people are demanding that.

Yes, I know that the usual suspects will disagree with me as they always do. I'm not Mr. Obama and this whole topic is hypothetical so take a deep breath and take it with a grain of salt if possible. No need to discredit me with drive by smears and one liners.

Edited by Mr.Canada
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I think the very first thing is for to do is for Obama to expand the Secret Service to try to cut down the odds of him ending up like JFK. He's had 2-3 death threats already and he's probably going to get alot of groups and organizations really peeved with him when he goes and starts to change things within the country. On CNN, this morning one guy said he got an e-mail from an Afghani that said the Taliban may be ready to talk peace because a man with the name "Hussein" is president. I think IF Obama has enemies its within his own country. I hope Obama can keep his word for all the promises is has made and not be like Harper.

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On CNN, this morning one guy said he got an e-mail from an Afghani that said the Taliban may be ready to talk peace because a man with the name "Hussein" is president.

:lol: He is not friends with terrorists. (but don't tell the terrorists!)

Obama should set his sights on something where tangible results can be demonstrated. Obviously fixing the economy is the top priority, but that is a slow boat to turn, regardless of what the president does. He should get to work on it. But he should also get to work on something where the policy IS the result. I pick healthcare.

-k

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:lol: He is not friends with terrorists. (but don't tell the terrorists!)

Obama should set his sights on something where tangible results can be demonstrated. Obviously fixing the economy is the top priority, but that is a slow boat to turn, regardless of what the president does. He should get to work on it. But he should also get to work on something where the policy IS the result. I pick healthcare.

-k

Health care! Why should people get sick and become homeless? That is simply not very civlized is it? :P It irks me to no end how lawyers suck the life out of people - and American doctors have become the parasite class also. Imagine - you have a minimum amount of money - you get cancer and the doctor tells you - I will save your life but I get the house...what the hell is that about?

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Presidents are not prime ministers. Their powers are limited in comparison. But I think that, right now, Obama can get almost anything through congress. I doubt that window of opportunity will last long. So he should push through some big changes that would never normally make it.

Most Presidents try to push an action plan for the first 100 days. It might be the best opportunity to get major work done because into the second year, Congress gears up for the mid-terms and will be less compliant on anything resembling controversy.

The biggest, and most important would be a drastic change to election financing laws. I think Obama could push through a law right now similar to what Canada has, essentially banning donations from corporations, companies, unions or organizations, and dramatically limiting what an individual can give. That would take the wind right out of the lobbyists' sails. With that done, he would have less opposition to anything else he wants to do. Which should include national health care - though I don't know if that can be passed given the current economic conditions and the huge deficit.

I don't know that election financing was as high up on the list. Some of what people have proposed might be challenged constitutionally.

His biggest challenge will be the economy in the first 100 days. He has to figure a way to cut spending, bring liquidity to the market and to somehow end the housing crisis. I expect he will have to reach across the floor to Republicans to do a lot of this. Like Reagan, he will have to appeal directly to the people on some of what he wants to achieve.

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First thing is take a long mf'ing nap.The a holiday.

That schedule, for two years no less, must be incredibly gruelling. I cannot for the life of me see how those 4 people are standing and looking so good. Imagine, all the late nights, travelling back and forth across the continent time and tiem again.

Curious question, does McCain and Palin get paid anything for running? (it'd be Obama Biden if they lost)

Obviously fixing the economy is the top priority, but that is a slow boat to turn, regardless of what the president does. He should get to work on it. But he should also get to work on something where the policy IS the result. I pick healthcare.

-k

Economy first on the agenda.

Dealing with the war is second.

I cant see how he can tackle health from numerous angles.

If he gets the war under control, then he has the cash freed up to attack healthcare.

But the problem with healthcare is that the country is soooo huge, the lobbyists for health are so strong, and the average american is not all that keen on a system of healthcare as we have.

Many people have said, repeatedly, "would you want to call the 'DMV' equivalent of healthcare to find a doctor?" Many think we call the govt before seeking health care.

Anyhow, they voted for change, maybe they can.

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The first thing he should do is name a responsible cabinet from the best available advisors, regardless of party affiliation. First to be announced should be his team of financial advisors that is going to reassure the markets that his focus on the economy is going to be laser-like (e.g., Lawrence Summers as his Treasury Secretary, Bob Rubin as economic advisor, maybe a known Republican as budget director, etc.).

I'd advise that he fill several cabinet posts with Republicans (keep Gates at the Pentagon, perhaps Hagel as Sec of State).

My long term advice would be for him to rule from and for the middle of the country. I think putting people of different ideologies around him would help him toward that aim.

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If I was Obama, first thing I'd do is have a nice loooong nap.

I liked Obama's agriculture policy, but I didn't think he would pull off the win. Oh well I was wrong.

Both were pretty good candidates nonetheless. McCain did a good job considering all of the baggage of the previous administration and his twit of a VP pick.

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The first thing he should do is name a responsible cabinet from the best available advisors, regardless of party affiliation. First to be announced should be his team of financial advisors that is going to reassure the markets that his focus on the economy is going to be laser-like (e.g., Lawrence Summers as his Treasury Secretary, Bob Rubin as economic advisor, maybe a known Republican as budget director, etc.).

I'd advise that he fill several cabinet posts with Republicans (keep Gates at the Pentagon, perhaps Hagel as Sec of State).

My long term advice would be for him to rule from and for the middle of the country. I think putting people of different ideologies around him would help him toward that aim.

I'm sorry but you seem to be projecting WRT Obama. He's a far left activist who will might pick a token GOP, but governing from the middle will not be in the cards.

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The first thing he should do is name a responsible cabinet from the best available advisors, regardless of party affiliation. First to be announced should be his team of financial advisors that is going to reassure the markets that his focus on the economy is going to be laser-like (e.g., Lawrence Summers as his Treasury Secretary, Bob Rubin as economic advisor, maybe a known Republican as budget director, etc.).

I'd advise that he fill several cabinet posts with Republicans (keep Gates at the Pentagon, perhaps Hagel as Sec of State).

My long term advice would be for him to rule from and for the middle of the country. I think putting people of different ideologies around him would help him toward that aim.

I agree that his first order of business will be to name a cabinet and then a whole series of nominations throughout the bureaucracy.

Obama's position is not unlike Clinton in 1992: he's starting pretty much from scratch.

----

I have seen the name of Summers elsewhere too. If Obama chooses him, it would be a good sign that Obama intends to play to the centre. However, he risks alienating his core support.

Lawrence H. Summers resigned yesterday as president of Harvard University after a relatively brief and turbulent tenure of five years, nudged by Harvard's governing corporation and facing a vote of no confidence from the influential Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

...

Hailed in his first days as a once-in-a-century leader, in the mold of perhaps Harvard's greatest president, Charles W. Eliot, Dr. Summers, 51, came into office with plans to expand the campus, put new focus on undergraduate education and integrate the university's schools. But he eventually alienated professors with a personal style that many saw as bullying and arrogant.

His well-known desire to change Harvard's culture, which he saw as complacent, was accompanied by slights to some faculty members and missteps like his statement last year that women might lack an intrinsic aptitude for math and science.

NYT

I think this will be a constant in Obama's administration: he will have to choose between the "progressive radicalism" of his base and pragmatic, workable policies. On balance, he will probably go with pragmatism. Obama knows that he could copy the policies of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and yet many of his supporters would still vote for him.

-----

BTW, here's a very good analysis of the election results (once you strip away the spin):

Obama's win in the popular vote was impressive, taking an estimated 52 percent to Republican John McCain's 46 percent. That's the biggest margin for any president since George H.W. Bush won 53.4 percent in 1988, and the biggest for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson's 61.1 percent in 1964.

...

African-Americans surged to the polls for the African-American candidate, their share of the vote rising to 13 percent from 11 percent four years ago, and their support for the Democrat rising to 95 percent for Obama from 88 percent for Kerry.

Hispanics held steady at 8 percent of total turnout. They broke heavily for Obama, however, giving him 66 percent of their vote, versus 53 percent for Kerry.

More significantly, perhaps, Obama and the Democrats established beachheads in once solidly Republican regions, taking Virginia in the South, Indiana in the Midwest and Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada in the West, not to mention hard-to-get swing states, including Florida and Ohio.

"There are some signs of a fundamental realignment," said Linda Fowler, a political scientist at Dartmouth College. "The inroads Democrats are making in the West suggest something is going on. And the Republicans now have to defend the South."

Yet Obama lost the white vote by 12 points, and whites still make up 74 percent of voters.

In addition, his gains in Congress - picking up five seats in the Senate and 17 in the House as of Wednesday - were smaller than expected.

Moreover, in a horrible environment for Republicans - with President Bush's popularity among the worst on record, two unpopular wars and a financial meltdown all turning people sharply against the GOP - McCain still managed to win 46 percent of the popular vote.

Miami Herald

There was not a massive increase in voter turnout and black turnout was similar to white turnout.

I don't think this was a repudiation of Bush. It was mostly a vote against Washington and its handling of the economy. Voters blame the Republicans for the fall in house prices and the stock market.

The Democrat gains in Congress, on top of the gains in 2006, are the greater cause of concern for the Republicans.

Obama's victory was decisive but it's far less than a landslide. Obama received less support than Bush Snr in 1988.

Edited by August1991
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I don't know that election financing was as high up on the list. Some of what people have proposed might be challenged constitutionally.

Anything and everything he wants to do will be a whole lot easier if he can pull the teeth of the lobbyists. I still vividly recall Clinton's attempt to create a national health care system, and how the health industry lobbyists poured money into congressional pockets to put paid to that idea. Whether it's guns, health care, various economic and taxation policies which concern industry - he'll have to fight much harder to overcome the bribery of the industry lobbyists if he doesn't do something about it first. And frankly, I can't think of anything more important, including the economy. Taking the big money out of congress will safeguard a democracy which has been in increasing danger this past decade, from the big money of lobby groups.

His biggest challenge will be the economy in the first 100 days. He has to figure a way to cut spending, bring liquidity to the market and to somehow end the housing crisis.

Sure. He can do that too. But economic problems rise and fall. I think election reform is more important in the long term.

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I'm sorry but you seem to be projecting WRT Obama. He's a far left activist who will might pick a token GOP, but governing from the middle will not be in the cards.

Advice, by it's very nature, is projective to a degree. But even in my advice, I didn't say what I thought he'd do, I merely said what I thought he should do. Actually, your statement about what is in the cards is infintely more projective and conclusory than anything I've said.

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Economy first on the agenda.

Dealing with the war is second.

These are the most important issues. But both of those are going to take a long time to yield results that people will see as "the Change they believed in".

Healthcare, daunting or not, is an issue where tangible results can be produced in a time frame that is to some degree within Obama's control.

I cant see how he can tackle health from numerous angles.

If he gets the war under control, then he has the cash freed up to attack healthcare.

But the problem with healthcare is that the country is soooo huge, the lobbyists for health are so strong, and the average american is not all that keen on a system of healthcare as we have.

Many people have said, repeatedly, "would you want to call the 'DMV' equivalent of healthcare to find a doctor?" Many think we call the govt before seeking health care.

Anyhow, they voted for change, maybe they can.

Healthcare has been (I believe) one of Obama's main campaign promises. Daunting or not, he promised to do this, and people will be sorely disappointed if he doesn't deliver. He can't say "gee, gang, I didn't realize this was going to be tough when I promised it." "Yes We Can," remember?

He's got the Senate, he's got Congress, he's got the biggest mandate in 20 years. He's got everything he needs to pursue this with vigor.

-k

Edited by kimmy
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QUOTE(guyser @ Nov 5 2008, 01:35 PM)

First thing is take a long mf'ing nap.The a holiday.

That schedule, for two years no less, must be incredibly gruelling. I cannot for the life of me see how those 4 people are standing and looking so good. Imagine, all the late nights, travelling back and forth across the continent time and tiem again.

Curious question, does McCain and Palin get paid anything for running? (it'd be Obama Biden if they lost)

Economy first on the agenda.

Dealing with the war is second.

I cant see how he can tackle health from numerous angles.

If he gets the war under control, then he has the cash freed up to attack healthcare.

But the problem with healthcare is that the country is soooo huge, the lobbyists for health are so strong, and the average american is not all that keen on a system of healthcare as we have.

Many people have said, repeatedly, "would you want to call the 'DMV' equivalent of healthcare to find a doctor?" Many think we call the govt before seeking health care.

Anyhow, they voted for change, maybe they can.

They voted for change but the question is what means.

Change as in govenment reform.

Change as in change of ideology for the nation.

Or change as anybody but GWB or another republican.

Change is a very broad term. What is ment by change?

What did the electorate mean by change. It will be interesting couple of years as we see how Barack intriprits his mandate.

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