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MARTIN PETERSON |
Dear President Obama:
Congratulations on your re-election and inauguration to your second term as President of the United States. Our ability to have highly competitive elections followed by peaceful continuations or transitions of governmental administrations is perhaps the single most important defining characteristic of our great country.
I hope that you can also break the chain established by your two Democratic predecessors – Carter and Clinton -- who will be most warmly remembered for what they did after leaving the White House, rather than what they accomplished while living there.
You had some strong accomplishments during your first term. Obama Care, which has been used as a pejorative term, will likely end up as a complimentary term. Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson would have been elated with the terms Roosevelt Security and Johnson Care for their two landmark programs. Likewise, the 2013 Detroit Auto Show has attracted major positive attention from both the industry and the public. The most talked about car has been the new
generation Chevy Corvette from a company that might not even exist without your support for the GM bail-out. And, of course, we can’t overlook the final destruction of that terrorist slimeball Osama ben Laden.
Second terms provide the opportunity for a president to establish the legacy of his administration. Unfortunately, too often it ends up being a negative legacy, such as Johnson’s Vietnam, Nixon’s Watergate, Carter’s Iranian hostage situation, Reagan’s gun sales to Iran, Clinton’s Lewinski affair and Bush-the-Younger’s middle east malaise. This is your opportunity to break that chain and leave a positive second term legacy.
Let me give you some advice on making your second term more successful. And don’t write it off just because it is coming from a guy in a state that only gave you 32% of the vote. A couple of Idahoans have been among the best advisors in your administration. Jim Messina, a 1988 graduate of Boise High School, managed your incredibly successful 2012 campaign. Mitt Romney and his supporters were convinced, right up until election night, that you were toast.
But Jim Messina orchestrated one of the best run and most successful presidential campaigns in history.
Likewise, the other half of your team, Vice President Joe Biden, selected Coeur d’Alene native Bruce Reed to be his chief of staff. Reed served as President Clinton’s chief domestic policy advisor and, more recently, served as staff director of the Simpson-Bowles commission appointed by President Obama to seek solutions to the federal fiscal mess.
First of all, make some congressional friends. The solutions to most of our problems lie with the ability of you and Congress to forge compromises, but such compromises require that you have friends on both sides of the aisle. Harry Truman used to invite key congressional players to the White House to drink whiskey and play poker. LBJ invited congressional members down to the LBJ Ranch in Texas for barbecue and arm twisting. Maybe you could invite members of congress to the White House kitchen to brew and sample some of your homebrew. (more…)