I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.
-Franklin Roosevelt, comment to reformers
Yesterday, I wrote that the winners of the 2008 election were the people and that the winners shouldn't go home. We can count on Obama to work on the agenda he spelled out on the campaign trail, but there is still a place for activism after your guy wins. While the right is trying to launch an "Obama doesn't have a mandate" narrative, this seems doomed to failure to me, since it requires you to believe BS about what it is you want. I kind of think you're the expert there. You really don't need some jerk explaining to you what you think. As spin jobs go, this one seems a little pointless.
But Obama only has a mandate to do what he proposed in his presidential campaign; restoring tax fairness, reforming health care, rebuilding the economy, getting out of Iraq, investing in infrastructure and green energy, etc. These are the things we can expect the new president to address in his first term.
But there are issues that weren't brought up on the campaign trail. In discussing the president-elect, we tend to forget the sitting president. George W. Bush hid out during the campaign, an invisible president who avoided the public spotlight the way a vampire avoids sunlight. One big issue was fairly successfully avoided by John McCain and that was what the hell to do about George W. Bush and company...
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