President Barack Obama, after weeks of private talks, is putting the finishing touches on a new election-year strategy that replaces sweeping "change" with incremental reform, according to senior White House officials.
“Reform is the new change,” a senior aide told POLITICO.
The revamped 2010 plan focuses extensively on new reform efforts, starting with a “competitiveness” push, a call for tighter campaign finance laws and renewed attention to Obama’s open-government agenda.
The strategy involves heavy use of presidential statements and Obama's White House platform to position him as an agent of popular change, with less reliance on a complicated legislative agenda. It represents a downsizing from the heady days just a year ago when he hoped to rack up legislative achievements of a scope not seen since the Great Society triumphs of President Lyndon Johnson.
It acknowledges implicitly something Obama aides make explicit in background conversations - the president is unlikely to pass the most expansive parts of his agenda this year and is too tied in public perceptions to a messy legislative process and unpopular congressional leaders.
Presidential aides say they recognize that there’s not enough time before the 2010 elections to transform the toxic political environment that has given Republicans a real, albeit remote, chance of winning control of the House or Senate. Instead, the White House is going to try to mitigate the damage by reminding voters, especially independents, of the reasons they voted so eagerly for Obama in 2008. - Politico Story
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