Unsolicited Advice to President Obama

The American people like a fighter and, as Yoda says,fight we must.

While it takes courage to weather the storm and congressional politics to see healthcare reform enacted, this is not obvious to people. People are not interested in process and I am afraid you got bogged down in mastering process here in the Beltway. Healthcare would have been more popular if it had the Medicare 55+, which some proposed, because that would have been a visible tangible. And with so many Americans of that age being unemployed or underemployed it would have made a dramatic difference.

Likewise, the Administration and the Democrats failed to sell the stimulus package. As I wrote months ago, the Administration should have broken the stimulus out into its components parts and sold those to the public. What is staggering is that your administration passed the largest Middle Class tax cut in history but no one noticed. In fact, the majority of Americans still believe you raised taxes. In the 2008 contest, you actually won the war over taxes.

It was a strategic blunder to announce the stimulus, promising unemployment would not rise above 8% and that we would see job growth of 250,000+ per month by summer. Even still the Administration depended on others to sell the notion that the stimulus ever saved or created 3 million jobs. In my opinion, this accounts for a large part of the Democrats' losses.

You have already made history as our first African-American President so govern as if you don't care about 2012. Let Obama be Obama. Even if you are a one-term President, you will have accomplished more substantive things than the last two Presidents combined. Remember James K. Polk. He made a list of what he wanted to accomplish and when he completed it he didn't run again. And he still ranks high among historians.

Don't let Congress get you bogged down or tangled up. The Republican leadership in Congress still have approval ratings below 20% and Congress itself will remain unpopular. Be prepared that the Republicans will not compromise and not change their obstructionist policies of the last two years. This time because they have "skin in the game" you can make them pay for this.

The only possible achievement you might get from Congress in the next two years is some agreement on infrastructure spending and that's only because our Highway Fund is depleted and congressmen need to brag about jobs in their district. Remember you only have to suffer through a year of the new Congress because nothing can get done in 2012.

On investigations adopt the policy of the George W. Bush administration and ignore all subpoenas. The House just wants to create kangaroo courts. They don't have the guts to impeach you anyway. Use hearings on Climate Change, etc. as a way to educate the public. No climate change legislation will pass anyway and the Cap and Trade bill proposed during the last Congress had no real Cap so trash it.

Don't compromise on the tax cuts for the wealthy. Let the House pass them if they want but use the Presidency as a bully pulpit and veto such legislation with a call to responsible policies to deal with the debt. Play the Republican problem of saying they want to cut the deficit and wanting to give the wealthy enormous tax breaks. Even if the middle class tax breaks expire because of the Republican game-laying, so be it. You can explain and point to your past record of giving the largest Middle Class tax break and saying you would like to in the future but these games are intolerable and the Republicans are acting in bad faith.

Stop apologizing. You have nothing to apologize about. The Republicans never apologized about anything. When you talk about debt reduction, please break out the national debt in terms of where and when they occurred. Of the 14.3 trillion, 13 trillion was accumulated under the Republicans. You might say so.

Lay out your ideas for the reduction of the national debt by keeping it simple. Please defend Social Security and clearly state your position. Even just say it would all be saved by lifting the cap on the FICA tax and use a chart to explain it. Then let the Republicans try to argue differently. You will have the facts on your side and can clearly exxplain it in a way Americans understand.

Please explain more simply what your three year freeze on discretionary spending means in terms of the size of federal government compared to the rest of the economy. This is simple and should be explained this way. Don't play this game of waiting to see what can be negotiated. If you lose, you lose but at least the public will have a clear sense of where you are coming from.

On DADT, this is a prime example of how you got hung up on the process and not the result. You say and I believe you that you want to repeal it. Give it one last shot with the lameduck congress and if that fails, repeal it by executive order and let the Republicans go batshit. Over 60% support the position that openly gay people should be able to serve in the miltary. then go for it. If it actually gets to the Supreme Court, it opens up a whole other bag of beans. You are the Commander in Chief after all.

Which brings me to the war party beating the tom-toms on going to war against Iran. Don't get muscled by these punks. They didn't pay for the last two wars, they won't for another one. The idea is insane.

As Commander-in-Chief sign an executive order closing Gitmo and if need be move the prison population to the Military prison in South Carolina. That is federal, not state property. Get the issue done with and don't bother with threats of not paying for their transfer.

Make the case for cutting unnecessary weapons systems, especially the jet engines produced in John Boehner's backyard. Defense spending has to be cut dramatically.

Use executive orders to get as much possible done in the last two years.

Forget the idea that somehow you have to appease Congress. Make them directly challenge the Presidency, not you. Frame these situations as things of presidential perogatives, not subjective choices by a black man.

Absolutely ignore all advice by the established punditry--there are all wealthy, predominantly white people who have not suffered one whit in the recession.

If you come out fighting, people will shutter and the GOP will shot back, but who cares? The American people will defend you as soon as you speak clearly and simply and push back against all these clowns.

Encourage Nancy Pelosi to be an attack dog back-bencher. Ignore all the Washington nonsense that she will cause your problems because everyone thinks you should accomodate the GOP. Since she knows the details of what the GOP want to repeal, let her have at it.

You might suggest to the television networks, who have featured round-the-clock Republicans the last two years, that this time they should feature Democrats to balance the Boehner/ Tea Party coalition.