It was a wonderful night. Contrary to my fears, Obama’s win was clear very early, and I got to go to sleep at a reasonable hour without uncertaintly in the outcome. When Ohio was called for Obama, I knew it was clinched. And I feel very good for our country, not just happy that this man won the election.
I’m sure Obama is looking for advice from neophytes like me, so here are my recommendations:
- Immediately make it clear that Congress and the Executive Branch need to define a specific set of priorities and execute them quickly and diligently without lots of riders and amendments and bickering. Get Congress to commit to giving some initial time where the focus is to pass meaningful and good legislation to deal with the issues immediately facing us.
- Fill you administration with smart people with up-to-date and actionable knowledge, that appreciate and facilitate dialog and collaboration, that are willing to disagree without rancor, that want outcomes not just activity. Have the smartest, most talented, most productive administration ever seem.
- Immediately, take all this built up executive power from the Bush administration and use it to retract a bunch of that power. Make strong statements – executive orders – that we as a country do not torture, do not indefinitely imprison people without right to counsel or trial, do not listen to private conversations – as a citizen or otherwise – without a warrant, do not ship people off to be tortured or imprisoned by others, do not conduct the country’s business with unnecessary secrecy and distrust of the populous, do not modify laws that are passed with signing statements that fit the administrations whims, etc.
- Put a plan in place to pull our troops out of Iraq and start real diplomatic conversatations with any nation that we need to deal with. Start executing that plan.
Once you get all that stuff in place, then start worrying about a longer term legislative and leadership agenda.
Welcome to the presidency, Mr. Obama.
