Advice for President-Elect Obama – Make Promises; Lots of them
As self-appointed advisor to President-Elect Obama, I am duty-bound to offer advice as I have it, on how to succeed in the office of president. Since I’m not tied to any particular field of work, I don’t have to limit my advice to economic, international, or domestic issues. Instead, I offer my advice for success of the man in the office itself. Today’s advice: Promise something to someone every single day you can.
When I look back through history at Democrat Presidents, the greatest personal successes came from those who promised a lot. Promises are an important tool in the Democrat arsenal, and one that you haven’t used to great effect so far.
Through your campaign, you pushed hard on the themes of “Change” and “Hope” without spending a lot of time on the details. Even when directly attacking an issue, you managed to hedge your bets to cover nearly every possible situation.
Pull out of Iraq? You definitely will, within 16 months, but maybe not. The issue is still open.
Govt. wiretapping of suspected foreign terrorists on phone calls to or from the United States? Against, but supporting.
You can’t do this once you’re in office, making the promises that matter. No, I don’t mean promises like pulling out of Iraq, ending all the restrictions on abortion that you can, or giving tax refunds to people who don’t have any money paid in to refund. I mean the little things.
One little promise every day can endear you to one little segment of society every day. That’s the goal. On Monday, promise working families additional tax credits to help pay for raising their children. On Tuesday, go for the minority scholarships. Wednesday is the day for promising money for targeted education improvements (not reform. That’s considered racist on the left, because it might place standards too high for minorities.). Thursday is health-care day, so promise to remove the impediments of [insert disease sufferers here] to receiving the medicines that they need.
Friday’s promise is an important one. This promise has to carry you through the weekend. I highly suggest somethnig that will generate a lot of discussion, and maybe a little controversy. It should involve spending government funds on something, but then again, most of your promises will if you choose them correctly. Maybe a promise to spend $100 million on pregnancy counseling services for lower-income single women. In the paper briefing to accompany your announcement, create the controversy by allocating 75% of the money to Planned Parenthood, 25% to another group that supports abortion, and none to fund counseling for alternatives to abortion. That will get the pundits talking. On Monday, you can clarify the issue by saying that the numbers were incorrect, and that the money is intended to offer all alternatives to pregnant, single, poor mothers.
Here’s the most important thing to remember. You just have to MAKE the promises. You don’t have to keep them.
If there’s one thing Bill Clinton taught us, it’s that there are two types of people in this world. There are people who don’t pay enough attention to what happens to know that a Democrat President hasn’t kept his promises, and there are Republicans. If you demonize the Republicans hard enough, nobody on your side will care what they say.
So, it really doesn’t matter what the numbers on the “pregnancy counseling” promise are. In the end, it’s not even something you need to bother yourself with. Those who are interested in the issue will love you for the promise, thinking that the promise is actual legislative action. The rest won’t remember it. In fact, the only one on the left that is likely to remember is Christopher Hitchens. He may even write a book. Nobody on the left will read it, though, because you can just tar him as Judas to your messianic rise.
It’s the promises that are important, not whether you keep them. Your supporters didn’t pay enough attention to the truth and facts to care that you weren’t experienced enough for the job. It was your wife that said you weren’t ready to run because you hadn’t done anything yet, not your supporters. Your supporters are useful, but not always informed. Don’t count on them figuring out the truth behind your promises.
So, to summarize: If you want to solidify and expand your base, with little political or fiscal cost, just make a promise every day. Not even your own party expects you to keep it.
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