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.

Today’s advice is this.  Take credit for anything good that happens during your presidency.  Add to that the following corollary.  Give blame for anything bad to George Bush and the Republicans.

On its face, this advice seems pretty simple.  After all, if the jobless rate falls, You can take credit for it during your term.  If the economy improves, you can take credit for it.  This, though, isn’t quite to the level that I mean.

When I say “take credit for everything,”  I mean EVERYTHING.  As the new messiah, it is important that everything good that happens in the world be credited to you, Mr. President-Elect. This means, if a research laboratory attached to NC State University discovers a way to convery spent uranium into non-radioactive, non-toxic, and rather tasty chocolate treats, you have to announce it from the White House.

If medical science somehow proves, once and for all, that a child in the womb is merely a mass of cells up until the moment it is delivered into the air and becomes a human life, you have to announce it from the White House.

When the truth starts to become clear about how the Earth has been cooling since 1998, thus placing us in a period of “global cooling,” you have to annouce it in the White House.  I suggest using words like, “Due to my policies of carbon-dioxide reduction, a move to more fuel-efficient transportation, and increased regulation of industrial pollutants, we have turned the tide against the global warming threat.”  Don’t harp too much on how the cooling started two presidencies ago, or how the actual climate scientists would never actually conclude that carbon dioxide caused global warming.  Don’t say anything about how global average  measured temperatures rose at a rate that could  be explained by the closure of measuring stations in colder regions such as Siberia.  Just leave the truth out of it.  If the people wanted truth they’d have elected… well, I’m not sure who they’d have elected this time, but it wouldn’t have been a Democrat.

At any rate, you have to take credit for any good news (meaning cooling in this case, which may not be better than warming overall) that happens.  It’s your job as the new messiah.  You just can’t go letting people believe that the old messiah’s Dad had anything to do with it.

The people are looking to you, Mr. President-Elect, to BE that new messiah.  YOU  have to be the source of all that is good in this world.  YOU have to make the rose garden speech announcing new technological innovations from IBM.  YOU have to speak from the oval office if science ever finds a single, solitary use for embryonic stem cells after all these years of trying. YOU announce the results of scientific studies that have gone on for years, if they publish during your presidency.  YOU announce that GSK or Merck have discovered a new treatment for cancer, after decades of research.  Heck, if you can announce that Baby Jessica has been rescued from the well, do it.

Don’t let the fact that the work on these things has gone on for years, or even been completed for a decade or more.  Annouce them as if YOU were the visionary who made it happen.

You’re going to need a short press conference (no questions from the gallery) every weekday for four years to say something positive.  How you handle these daily briefings will determine if you get another four years.

Oh, and the bad news?  Either ignore it, release it on a Friday afternoon (after 3:30 means missing Limbaugh and the deadline for the 6pm evening newscasts) or blame the Republicans.

I know you can do this.  It’s so important that you do this. You have an image to maintain.  That’s more important than the economy, or the country, or those little people clinging to guns and faith.  It’s more important than the police officers you had removed from your sight while they protected you during the campaign.  It’s important, because without the image you are nothing.  Without the image, you have no power.  Your image got you elected, and it’s your image that can get you re-elected.  Protect and enhance that image, and you get to grow, and keep your power.

Hey, if you can handle this advice properly, yesterday’s advice on the middle-class tax cut should be easy enough to handle.

Daniel 11:36-37