Barack Obama's plans for the web

Barackobama.com motivated supporters to contribute, campaign, and vote

By Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News, Washington

On election night, as it became clear that Barack Obama had won the election to become the 44th president of the United States, his supporters received an e-mail in their inboxes.

It started like this:

"I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first. We just made history.

"And I don't want you to forget how we did it….."

With a personal sign off at the end saying "Thank you, Barack", it felt intimate, yet this was a mass e-mail, sent to the millions who had subscribed to Barack Obama's campaign alerts.

One of the things that I'm excited about is to transfer what we've learned from this campaign in using technology, into government Barack Obama

It's just one example of how the president-elect has used the internet to communicate and create a dialogue with supporters. The Obama campaign's effective use of new media played a big part in his success.

His presence on sites such as such as Facebook and Myspace created online communities which organised supporters to register, campaign, and ultimately go out and vote. He also sent out news via text message, using the medium to inform people of his vice-presidential choice.

In an interview before the election, he spoke of how he wanted to continue that conversation into the White House:

"One of the things that I'm excited about is to transfer what we've learned from this campaign in using technology, into government. I mean, there are huge areas where we can open things up, make things more transparent," he said.

New address list

As President-elect Barack Obama has begun a weekly YouTube address, something he is set to continue into office - a technological twist on the traditional weekly presidential radio address.

His transition team has also set up the Change.gov website to keep people informed of his preparations for government. It follows on from the successful Mybarackobama.com website, set up during the campaign as a place for supporters to meet and interact in the virtual world.

Why the internet will shape the Obama presidency

It's thought the Obama campaign employed as many as 95 permanent web staff and spent millions of dollars on its online operations. The reality, once in the White House, could be very different.

David Almacy, who served as Internet and e-communications Director under President Bush from 2005-2007, had a team of just six, and a budget of $1m per year.

The level of resources Barack Obama will throw into a similar set-up is as yet unknown.

Another unknown is how Barack Obama will continue to converse with the 13 million people who signed up to receive his campaign e-mail alerts, and reach out to those who weren't his Twitter followers or Facebook friends. Under privacy laws, the president-elect won't be able to take the e-mail list with him into the White House, though he can e-mail everyone on it to ask if they want to join a new whitehouse.gov e-mail list.

Thomas Gensemer, a managing partner at Blue State Digital, the media company behind Obama's web operation, believes that Obama campaign supporters will choose to follow the president-elect, virtually, into the White House.

"People want to rally to his cause whether it's political or policy. People are going to come. It's a matter of making it open and accessible enough that you do respect all the opt-in privacy policies as well as the campaign laws," he said.

More video

Once a new list is created, Gensemer says it could be used, in the same way as it was during the campaign, to send information directly to people, bypassing the mainstream media. It could be the start of the most interactive presidency we've seen.

Change.gov invites citizens to comment on healthcare reform

"I think a year from now we'll see streaming of the news conferences... there'll be that deeper communication and broadcasts directly to people as opposed to through the traditional media… On the technological side, I think there'll be more applications on mobile devices, more and more video. That will naturally develop as the industry does."

Barack Obama has already said he wants members of his cabinet to host regular webchats. Some campaigners have suggested that the new president himself should answer questions from the public at the end of his YouTube addresses and White House briefings.

But some plans appear to go beyond an increase in transparency to providing citizens with input into policymaking.

The Change.gov transition site is already asking people to submit their comments on Obama's healthcare plans.

Another interesting proposal is to allow the American public to view and comment on non-emergency legislation online before the future president signs it.

David Almacy says there are potential problems here, and the use of new media in this way needs to be carefully managed.

"I think it's wise for any president to use the tools of technology that are available to him to understand what the pulse of the country is talking about and thinking," he says.

"But the question is whether he'll be governing based on how people vote in online polls or whether he'll just be choosing policies and making decisions based on what he feels is right and on what is best to move this country forward."


http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Obama's Bush Doctrine

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, November 28, 2008; A29

In electing Barack Obama, the country traded the foreign policy of the second President Bush for the foreign policy of the first President Bush.

That is the meaning of Obama's apparent decision to keep Robert Gates on as defense secretary and also to select Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

With strong ties to the military and a carefully cultivated image of tough-mindedness, Clinton will protect the incoming president's back from those on the right ready to pounce at any sign of what they see as weakness.

As for Gates, Obama has found the ideal figure to help him organize his planned withdrawal from Iraq, and to bless it.

What's most striking about Obama's approach to foreign policy is that he is less an idealist than a realist who would advance American interests by diplomacy, by working to improve the country's image abroad, and by using military force prudently and cautiously.

This sounds a lot like the foreign policy of George H.W. Bush, and it makes perfect sense that Obama has had conversations with the senior Bush's closest foreign policy adviser, Brent Scowcroft. Obama has drawn counsel from many in Scowcroft's circle, and Gates himself was deputy national security adviser under Scowcroft.

The truth about Obama's worldview was hidden in plain sight in his most politically consequential foreign policy speech. Antiwar Democrats cheered Obama for addressing a rally against the Iraq war in Chicago's Federal Plaza on Oct. 2, 2002. His opposition to the war was a major asset in his nomination struggle with Clinton.

Obama did indeed denounce the impending war as "dumb," "rash" and "based not on reason but on passion." But in retrospect, the speech may be most notable for other things Obama said that separated him from some in his antiwar audience.

Not once but five times did Obama declare, "I don't oppose all wars." The first several paragraphs of the speech were devoted to the wars that Obama thought were justified: the Civil War, World War II -- in which, he said, "that arsenal of democracy . . . triumphed over evil" -- and the battle against terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11. "I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again," he said.

The thrust of his argument against the Iraq invasion was a classic realist's critique of a war he denounced as "ideological." It would, he said, "require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences." It also would "fan the flames of the Middle East" and "strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda."

In fact, Obama sounded a great deal like -- Brent Scowcroft. In a widely noted 2002 op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, published six weeks before Obama gave his speech, Scowcroft warned that an invasion of Iraq "very likely would have to be followed by a large-scale, long-term military occupation." Going to Iraq, Scowcroft said, would "divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism," and it could "destabilize Arab regimes in the region," "stifle any cooperation on terrorism" and "even swell the ranks of the terrorists." Clinton, who once said that "we have to be both internationalists and realists," is a natural fit with the new Obama-Scowcroft-Gates establishment. In explaining the appeal of Clinton, a senior Obama adviser recently spoke several times of the president-elect's respect for her "toughness" and described the practical reasons for choosing a figure who would have instant credibility around the world.

Even before the possibility of Clinton's appointment was broached, Obama was relying heavily on foreign policy specialists closely associated with her. For example, Michèle Flournoy, a co-chair of Obama's Defense Department transition team, is president of the Center for a New American Security, which the New York Times observed last year "looks an awful lot like a shadow policy apparatus for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign." The center, in turn, has warm ties with Richard Armitage, another Republican realist who had grave doubts about going into Iraq.

Obama's national security choices are already causing grumbling from parts of the antiwar left, even if Obama made clear six years ago that while he was with them on Iraq, he was not one of them.

Ironically, Obama is likely to show more fidelity to George H.W. Bush's approach to foreign affairs than did the former president's own son. That's change, maybe even change we can believe in, but it's not the change so many expected.

postchat@aol.com

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Area's Other Obamas Revel in Rare Moniker

By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 28, 2008; B01

Nicanor Obama began to realize he might be on to a good thing when he didn't get a speeding ticket not long ago. After stopping the 28-year-old for a little lead-footing near the Verizon Center, a District police officer looked at his driver's license and put the citation book away.

"He said, 'Well, I'm going to let you go because you have the Obama name' " is how the Arlington County resident recalled the encounter.

Since Election Day, his moniker has sparked goodwill, from nightclub freebies to hearty handshakes from fellow students at the University of the District of Columbia, where he studies political science. "I'm not related to the president, but I think Obama is a good name to have right now."

Their lives might not have changed as dramatically as a certain Chicago-based Obama family, but the area's non-Barack Obamas have been basking in a little low-watt glory of their own. Suddenly, having the most famous last name in the world means cashing a check, flashing an ID or making a dinner reservation might never be the same.

"I signed up for a Harris Teeter card the other day, and the woman was, like, Obama?," said Denise Maye Obama, 19, of Alexandria. "She said: 'That's a first. Are you related to the president?' Everyone asks if I'm related to the president now. One of these times I'm going to say yes, just for the fun of it."

Having a famous last name of any kind sparks a lifetime of predictable checkout-line chitchat; just ask anyone named Sinatra or Kissinger (or, in this reporter's experience, anyone sharing a name with a certain electric-guitar master). But being asked whether you can sing "My Way" or play "Purple Haze" pales in comparison with "Can you get my cousin pardoned?" or, more earnestly, "Can you get me inauguration tickets?"

Denise, a recent graduate of T.C. Williams High School and a freshman at the University of Virginia, said she is asked daily whether she can leverage her name for good seats at the parade or a White House visit. But the only time she has seen the other Obama, at a campaign rally in Charlottesville, she had terrible seats. "My name didn't do me much good that time," she said. "I didn't even get to shake his hand."

At the very least, according to Francisca Obama, a graduate student in Human Resources at Strayer University, no one forgets or botches her name any more.

"Sometimes African names are kind of hard," said Francisca, 29. "Now I don't even have to spell my name. Everybody knows it already."

If it's good to be an Obama, it's also exceedingly rare. According to databases, there might be fewer than 20 Obama families in the United States, compared with more than 11,000 Clintons and 60,000 Bushes. (Whitepages.com shows more than 70 Obama listings, but many of those are clunky fakes, including the entry for Hillary C. Obama of Cleveland.)

Sharing a presidential name can bring small blessings, according to others who have seen their names rise to the highest office in the land.

"People will remember your name, that's for sure," said Jackie Nixon, a research director at National Public Radio. Nixon, who married into her presidential name, said that memorability was a professional bonus when she once worked as a social worker in Missouri, even if some people only remembered one of her handles. "I had one client who always called me Jacqueline Nixon and another who always called me Tricia Nixon. But at least they remembered me."

"It was a really big deal for a fairly brief period," said John Eisenhour, 69, of Alexandria, who shares a pronunciation with the 34th president if not an exact spelling. He was a high school student when his surname entered the Oval Office, and he instantly enjoyed a more conspicuous presence at school dances. "The young ladies would remember your name, which wasn't always a good thing."

Nicanor Obama said he has been riding a small social wave that started election night, when he was waved under the rope line at a Washington nightclub with no cover charge. He was the toast of the delirious crowds that night, he said.

And last week, when Nicanor and his family went to visit a cousin and her new baby at Virginia Hospital Center, they created a minor buzz in the lobby when they asked for Josephina Obama's room.

"They said, 'Obama? Is she one of the Obamas? Are they here?' " Nicanor said. "They treated us like VIPs."

Nicanor, like most of the Obamas in this area, is a native of Equatorial Guinea. The name is common there -- much more so than in Kenya, in fact, where the president-elect's father was from -- and Guineans wonder whether they can make their own claim to a branch of the president-elect's family tree. There are also a few Obamas of Japanese decent.

"Every day, I'm having so much fun with this," said Susie Obama, a real estate investor in Palm Coast, Fla. "When I stop at the bank, they say, 'Roll out the red carpet.' I get e-mails from Japan saying, 'Hello to the first lady.' "

It's all a big improvement over her most recent name association, she said.

"I'm so glad Obama is finally a good guy. I really had a hard time for a while there with Osama."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

A Stimulus In His Own Image

Obama Memorabilia, Keeping Sales Aloft

By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 28, 2008; C01

As a pointless exercise in self-flagellation, it's fun to look back and wonder how you should have invested your money in the last year. You'd have ditched stocks and bonds, of course, and you would have avoided real estate. And if you really had foresight, you would have bet the rent on Barack Obama baby bibs.

Or Barack Obama mugs, T-shirts, stationery, posters, postcards, notecards, aprons, coasters, dog jerseys, throw pillows and mouse pads. With so many segments of the economy in the fetal position, the Obama memorabilia business is one of the very few that is actually thriving.

In most election years, the candidate T-shirt and button market pretty much disappears after the ballots are counted. Not this time. Our next president has become a living, breathing stimulus package for a modest-size group of entrepreneurs who are slapping Obama's image on any surface it'll stick to. At CafePress.com there are 96,000 different Obama-related designs for sale, according to vice president of marketing Amy Maniatis. That includes a T-shirt that says "Now I don't have to move to Canada" and a poster that says "Once you go Barack, you'll never go back." All the designs come from "virtual shopkeepers," who upload images to the site and then sell them on any number of stock items, splitting the profits with CafePress.

"This is our third election, and for us, what we saw in 2000 and 2004 was really different," Maniatis says. "There was a lot of anti-Bush merchandise after those elections." Anti-Bush stuff sold so well for so many years that there was genuine concern at CafePress that the end of the president's second term would hurt the company's bottom line. ("Economists Warn Anti-Bush Merchandise Market Close to Collapse" read a recent headline in the Onion.) Instead, Obama love has more than offset the downturn.

At America!, the exuberantly punctuated chain of patriotically themed souvenir shops, they're moving a lot of life-size cardboard cutouts of Obama, at $42.99 each. (And by the way, all the McCain product -- half off.) Spokeswoman Donna Tsitsikaos sounds like a woman trying hard not to crow about sales numbers.

"Product is driving people to the stores," she says, "even in this economy."

Obamamania has been a boon for tiny Greenville, Ohio, the home of Tigereye Design, which manufactured and handled the fulfillment for official Obama campaign materials, such as shirts, hats and buttons. It also has its own site, DemocraticStuff.com, which peddles an astounding variety of niche Obama buttons, including "Beekeepers for Obama," "Emo for Obama" and "Ventriloquists for Obama." Tigereye started the year with a staff of 50, then just kept on hiring.

"We had about 500 people at the peak," says Steve Swallow, the company's president. "It really had an impact on our local workforce, because almost all of the people we hired were unemployed before. And it wasn't just us. If you call the post office here, I bet they'll say they never handled so much mail."

Wealth from Obamabilia is currently spread all over eBay, where a search using "Obama" yields more than 21,000 items, including a rhinestone tote bag, a glow-in-the-dark bottle stopper and a flip-top lighter. On Craigslist, there are Obama banks ($40 apiece), a bobblehead doll ($100) and a doll that sings and dances ($100).

There has even been some additional work for tattoo artists. Some people prefer their Obama souvenirs permanent.

"Right after the election, I had four ladies come in here together and say they wanted the Obama 'O,' " says Justin McCrocklin, who works at Tatu Tattoo in Chicago. "You know, the 'O' he used on the logo, with stars and stripes on it."

These women had worked on the campaign, they explained, and they wanted to remember the experience. For $70 per person, each now has a half-dollar-size forget-me-not on an ankle or forearm.

But no one has seized on the Obama keepsake market with quite the ambition of A.J. Khubani, the president of TeleBrands. The New Jersey company is best known for creating the "As Seen on TV" logo and selling items like the Flat Fold Colander, the Stick Up Bulb and the Pedi Paws, "the incredible nail trimming solution for dogs and cats." On election night, Khubani was watching the euphoria at his home in Saddle River, N.J., and thought, as he put it, "There has to be something we could sell."

By Wednesday morning, he'd hired an artist to design a commemorative plate, with Obama's face and some fireworks on the front, along with the inscription "Change Has Come" and on the back, the electoral count as of election night.

"We had an image in hand by Wednesday afternoon," says Khubani, "we had a prototype on Thursday, and the plates arrived at the shoot on Friday morning."

The commercial was edited over the weekend and went on the air a few days later.

"Yes you can . . . own a piece of history," booms a narrator in the ad, which can now be seen all over cable television, "with a bonus display stand and a certificate of authenticity, for $19.99."

Khubani expects big things from this tchotchke. He's ordering 1 million of them. Sadly, the manufacturing upsides of the "victory plate" won't be part of the Obama economic mini-surge here in the United States.

The plate is being made in China.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Blessings Of the Moment

By Eugene Robinson
Thursday, November 27, 2008; A29

"May you live in interesting times" is supposed to be an ancient Chinese curse, but I can't find evidence that the saying is Chinese at all, much less that it's ancient. One of the earliest reliable citations seems to be a 1950 short story by the British science-fiction author Eric Frank Russell, writing under the pen name Duncan H. Munro, who quotes the imprecation and then adds: "It isn't a curse any more. It's a blessing."

That's the glass-half-full way of seeing this extraordinary moment. As we celebrate Thanksgiving and enter the holiday season, it feels as if our nation is at a cusp, a brink, a verge. It's true that if things get much more "interesting," we might have a collective nervous breakdown. But along with the anxiety, there's also a sense of rare opportunity -- a chance to emerge better than we were economically, politically and socially.

Easy for you to say, many people would respond, and they'd have a point. I've been as mesmerized and freaked out as anyone watching the stock market lose nearly half its value, then recover some ground, then oscillate so wildly that a 200-point gain or loss in the Dow is the new definition of a slow day. I've lost money (not that I had that much in the first place), but I haven't been wiped out the way some people have. I don't have an adjustable-rate mortgage or a house that's "underwater." My employer is still in business.

I do have to learn to live with the new economic reality, though. I now know that there's no law of economics that says real estate prices must always rise. I know that a house doesn't make a very reliable bank, that "credit" isn't an infinite pot of cheap money and that having a little money in a savings account is better than Ambien for inducing a good night's sleep.

More important, we've all learned that dealmaking for dealmaking's sake -- for decades, the most highly compensated business activity in America -- does not in fact create enduring wealth. There are straight-A seniors at Harvard and Princeton who planned to go into investment banking before the whole industry imploded. Now, maybe some of these brainiacs will go to work for the auto industry and save Detroit. Maybe some will invent, manufacture and market world-changing "green technology." Maybe some will join the Peace Corps. Maybe some will become teachers.

Politically, Americans are less divided than we've been since at least the Reagan era, perhaps longer. I know that many people would dispute that assertion, but I'll defend it. Barack Obama's victory margin, 53 to 46 percent, didn't qualify as a popular-vote landslide. But considered with other factors -- Obama's electoral vote haul, which was a landslide; the Democratic Party's gains in both houses of Congress -- the outcome was a clear mandate.

It's meaningless to argue whether ours is a center-left or center-right polity; the midpoint of the nation's political spectrum is, by definition, center-center. Ronald Reagan took office as the whole spectrum was moving to the right, and he pushed it further in that direction. Obama was elected as the spectrum was shifting back to the left, and he will try to give it a helping shove.

Whether you voted for Obama or not, it's hard to watch this crisply orchestrated transition and doubt that the president-elect both understands and relishes the great possibility of this moment. That doesn't mean he'll succeed, and it certainly doesn't mean he won't make mistakes. It means he has big ideas and big plans -- right or wrong -- and I think most people know intuitively that this is no time for small.

The social transformation that has already begun is in many ways more definitive and profound than anything in the political or economic spheres. A conservative opinion-maker told me recently that she really, truly, with all her heart wanted John McCain to win -- and then, when Obama and his family appeared on election night, "it all just went away." It wasn't that she forswore her candidate or her conservative philosophy -- soon she'll be writing elegant eviscerations of the new president's policies. But she understood the epochal significance of the election of the first African American president, and she was deeply moved.

In myriad ways that we'll discover over the next four years, Obama's election makes this a different country -- "a more perfect union." I, for one, feel blessed to live in such interesting times.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Save the Economy, and the Planet

November 27, 2008

Editorial

Environment ministers preparing for next week’s talks on global warming in Poznan, Poland, have been sounding decidedly downbeat. From Paris to Beijing, the refrain is the same: This is no time to pursue ambitious plans to stop global warming. We can’t deal with a financial crisis and reduce emissions at the same time.

There is a very different message coming from this country. President-elect Barack Obama is arguing that there is no better time than the present to invest heavily in clean energy technologies. Such investment, he says, would confront the threat of unchecked warming, reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil and help revive the American economy.

Call it what you will: a climate policy wrapped inside an energy policy wrapped inside an economic policy. By any name, it is a radical shift from the defeatism and denial that marked President Bush’s eight years in office. If Mr. Obama follows through on his commitments, this country will at last provide the global leadership that is essential for addressing the dangers of climate change.

In his first six months in office, Mr. Bush reneged on a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide and walked away from the Kyoto Protocol, a modest first effort to control global greenhouse gas emissions.

Still two months from the White House, Mr. Obama has convincingly reaffirmed his main climate related promises.

One is to impose (Congress willing) a mandatory cap on emissions aimed at reducing America’s output of greenhouses gas by 80 percent by midcentury. According to mainstream scientists, that is the minimum necessary to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and avoid the worst consequences of global warming. Mr. Obama’s second pledge is to invest $15 billion a year to build a clean economy that cuts fuel costs and creates thousands of green jobs. That includes investments in solar power, wind power, clean coal (plants capable of capturing and storing carbon emissions) and, as part of any bailout, helping Detroit retool assembly lines to build a new generation of more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Mr. Obama has surrounded himself with like-minded people who have spent years immersed in the complexities of energy policy.

His transition chief, John Podesta, was an early advocate of assisting the automakers and of finding low-carbon alternatives to gasoline. Peter Orszag, his choice to run the Office of Management and Budget (where environmental initiatives went to die during the Bush years) is an expert on cap-and-trade programs to limit industrial emissions of greenhouse gases.

Success is not guaranteed. Last year, a far more modest climate-change bill fell well short of a simple majority in the Senate. At least on the surface, it seems counterintuitive to impose new regulations (and, in the short term anyway, higher energy costs) on a struggling economy. Mr. Obama will need all his oratorical power to make the opposite case.

The historical landscape from Richard Nixon onward is littered with bold and unfulfilled promises to wean the nation from fossil fuels, especially imported oil. What is different now is the need to deal with the clear and present threat of global warming. What is also different is that the country has elected a president who believes that meeting the challenge of climate change is essential to the health of the planet and to America’s economic future.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Good Time For a Brainy President

By David S. Broder
Thursday, November 27, 2008; A29

When I started covering the White House more than 50 years ago, I believed that the smarter a president was, the better he would be. That was wrong.

Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan were certainly not intellectuals, but they understood the power of the presidency and they knew how to impose their agendas on their political partners and rivals.

By contrast, Jimmy Carter was a whiz at policy analysis and Bill Clinton grasped the connections among issues almost intuitively. Yet neither of them left the White House with a record of great achievements.

So for several years, I have been arguing that there are traits much more important to the success of a president than brainpower. Self-confidence, curiosity, an eye for talent, the ability to communicate, a temperament that invites collaboration -- all these and more rank higher on the list of desirable presidential traits.

I am not ready to abandon that view. But I am struck by how lucky this country is, at the moment, that the president-elect is a super-smart person like Barack Obama.

With each passing day, it becomes more evident that even the smartest and most experienced managers of the American economy are struggling to understand -- and fix -- what has gone wrong in our markets.

I attempt to follow the discussion in newspapers and on Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour" and other deeply serious television programs about the latest moves by the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury -- and I am stumped.

The sums are so staggering, the vocabulary so unfamiliar, the experience so uninformative that I have not a clue whether Bernanke, Paulson and Co. are on top of the situation or are inadvertently making things worse.

That's an embarrassing admission. I get paid to cover the government, and this is by far the most important challenge facing Washington. But I am utterly dependent on others to decipher the clues that may unravel these mysteries.

Obama is not similarly handicapped. Even in the emotional maelstrom of his election victory, and even with the pressures of assembling his administration, everything points to his managing to focus on the policy choices looming in the economic field.

I have talked to two people on the fringe of the transition team -- both members of Congress with major responsibilities in the economic area. Both have been asked for input by Obama, and both say that the quality of his questions -- and his follow-ups -- were a measure of the depth of his knowledge of the situation.

He has not been tested that rigorously in the news conferences he has held so far, but his ability to respond to the questions he has been asked, to make his points in a coherent, balanced way and to avoid any misstatement has certainly been a treat to watch.

The appointments he has made to his economic team have been impressive, and the response to them has been almost uniformly positive from Capitol Hill to Wall Street. But it is not just the incoming White House and Cabinet people who have been reassuring; it has been Obama himself.

As well as he handled himself during the long campaign, he has been equally sure-footed in the transition. And behind the smooth public performance is a mind that seems able to stretch to encompass even the most complex of policy choices.

I am sure that in coming weeks and months, there will be judgments that will jar this confidence and decisions that Obama himself may come to regret.

But for a nation in crisis, it is worth giving thanks for the performance the next president has turned in so far -- and for the mind that is working on the nation's behalf.

davidbroder@washpost.com

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Obama: 'Old ways of thinking just won't do'

Nov. 26: President-elect Barack Obama announces the formation of an economic advisory board to assist his administration in formulating, implementing and evaluating the economic recovery plan.




http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Obama reassures nervous nation on ailing economy

By SARA KUGLER and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writers Sara Kugler And Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writers Wed Nov 26, 6:16 pm ET

CHICAGO – President-elect Barack Obama sought to reassure the nation and nervous holiday shoppers about the ailing economy Wednesday as beleaguered stores braced for their most important month of the year.

"Help is on the way," he proclaimed at his third news briefing on the economy this week. Fifty-five days away from taking office, he declared he would have an economic plan ready for action "starting day one."

Investors' improved spirits kept pace. The Dow Jones industrials climbed 247 points, marking the first time since last spring that the average had risen for four straight sessions.

To help with ideas from outside the White House, Obama announced he was forming a new team of advisers with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker as the head.

"There is no doubt that during tough economic times family budgets are going to be pinched," Obama said. "I think it is important for the American people, though, to have confidence that we've gone through recessions before, we've gone through difficult times before, that my administration intends to get this economy back on track."

The crucial holiday shopping season gets under way in earnest on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, with deep discounts already in place as stores try to lure buyers who are worried about their jobs and homes.

Volcker, 81, will head the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. The board's top staff official will be Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist, Obama said.

Volcker is no stranger to economic crises, having led the Fed under two presidents from 1979 to 1987. Volcker is a legendary central banker who raised interest rates and restricted the money supply to tame raging inflation in the 1980s. It was a painful prescription that helped send the economy into one of the nation's worst recessions.

However, he is largely credited with ushering in nearly three decades of relatively low inflation — an unthinkable feat in the 1970s, when the country was grappling with high unemployment, high interest rates and ever-rising prices.

"He pulls no punches," Obama said of Volcker. "He seems to be fairly opinionated."

Obama spoke as businesses were preparing for what many fear could be a disastrous month. And there was more bad news on the economy's current state.

The government reported Wednesday that jobless claims had remained at recessionary levels, consumers had cut back on their spending by the largest amount since the 2001 terrorist attacks, orders to U.S. factories had plunged anew and home sales had fallen to the lowest level in nearly 18 years.

Still, investors produced the Dow's fourth straight day of gains.

Fresh government bailout programs this week were given much of the credit. But Obama's encouraging words seemed to help as well.

"People should understand that help is on the way. And as they think about this Thanksgiving shopping weekend, and as they think about the Christmas season that is coming up, I hope that everybody understands that we are going to be able to get through these difficult times," Obama said. "We're just going to have to make some good choices."

As for his own choices for top officials, he defended his selection of former Clinton officials to help run his administration.

"The American people would be troubled if I selected a treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council at one of the most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in government whatsoever," Obama said.

"What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking," he said. "But understand where the vision for change comes from. First and foremost, it comes from me. That's my job."

Obama said he will announce the remaining members of his new economic panel in the coming weeks. He already has named New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner as his treasury secretary and Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag as his candidate to run the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Geithner was a Treasury Department official during the Clinton administration, and Lawrence Summers, who will head Obama's National Economic Council, was Clinton's treasury secretary. Other Clinton administration names include Eric Holder, who will be Obama's attorney general, and Rahm Emanuel, the president-elect's chief of staff.

"What I don't want to do is to somehow suggest that because you served in the last Democratic administration, that you're somehow barred from serving again," Obama said. "Because we need people who are going to be able to hit the ground running."

Obama said his new economic panel will include people from business, labor and academia, "who will bring to bear their wisdom and expertise on the formulation, implementation and evaluation of my administration's economic recovery plan."

His economic team largely complete, Obama is expected to introduce national security officials next week, including Hillary Rodham Clinton as his secretary of state. He is expected to announce he has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain at the Pentagon for a year. James Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander, is Obama's pick to be national security adviser.

__

Stephen Ohlemacher reported from Washington.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Obama Vows to Look for Budget Savings to Help Finance Recovery Plan

November 26, 2008

By JEFF ZELENY

CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday to scour wasteful spending from the federal budget to help offset an investment in a huge recovery plan to jump-start the ailing economy, a pledge that he called part of his “mandate to move the country in a new direction.”

For the second straight day, Mr. Obama called a news conference to explain how his administration would respond to the nation’s financial crisis. He named no specific government programs to be eliminated but said tightening the budget was part of the sacrifice he would ask Americans to endure.

“We can’t sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists or interest groups,” Mr. Obama said. “We simply can’t afford it.”

With an eye on the economy, Mr. Obama announced that he would nominate Peter R. Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget. After running the Congressional Budget Office for nearly two years, as well as handling economic policy in the Clinton and Bush administrations, Mr. Orszag “doesn’t need a map to tell him where the bodies are buried in the federal budget,” Mr. Obama said.

Together with a two-year economic recovery package of hundreds of billions of dollars in spending and tax cuts, Mr. Obama hopes to win early approval in Congress next year for separate language committing the government to actions that would bring deficits under control once the economy recovers.

Advisers to Mr. Obama and to Congressional leaders say they have hardly begun to figure out what kind of process they could devise to enforce fiscal discipline. But Obama advisers, in particular, consider it essential to signal that Democrats are not using the economic crisis to go on a spending binge without concerns for future deficits.

“In these challenging times, when we are facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy, budget reform is not an option,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s a necessity.”

Budget controls are also considered important to securing the votes of conservative Democrats in the House and the Senate, who might otherwise balk at an economic stimulus package that could exceed $500 billion. One of those at the center of the effort to draw up proposals is Rahm Emanuel, who was the fourth-ranking House Democratic leader until Mr. Obama tapped him to be the White House chief of staff.

Mr. Obama, who on Tuesday passed the three-week mark of his election, is seeking to take a more forceful and visible role in the transition to power. He said he would not overstep his role as president-elect but added that Americans should know that he and his ever-growing circle of advisers were preparing to tackle the economic problems.

“We don’t intend to stumble into the next administration,” Mr. Obama said.

A briefing on Monday, followed by one on Tuesday with another set for Wednesday will triple the amount of time that Mr. Obama has spent in public view as president-elect. His aides limited the questions to four on Tuesday, but Mr. Obama spoke about his margin of victory in the most expansive way since the election.

Mr. Obama called his triumph “decisive,” saying that voters were demanding change in Washington. He recorded 365 Electoral College votes to 173 for Senator John McCain, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate in decades to win states like Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia.

“I don’t think that there’s any question that we have a mandate to move the country in a new direction and not continue the same old practices that have gotten us into the fix that we’re in,” Mr. Obama said.

“But I won 53 percent of the vote. That means 46 or 47 percent of the country voted for John McCain,” he added. “It’s important, as I said on election night, that we enter into the new administration with a sense of humility and a recognition that wisdom is not the monopoly of any one party.”

The top Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Finance Committee issued a joint statement on Tuesday praising the selection of Mr. Orszag, calling him a smart and straightforward expert on the economy. Mr. Obama also said Tuesday that he would nominate Rob Nabors, the staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, to be Mr. Orszag’s deputy.

Mr. Obama cited, as an example of the possible cuts he expects Mr. Orszag and the rest of his budget team to find, the findings of a recent government report indicating that farmers whose incomes exceeded $2.5 million had most likely been mistakenly paid about $49 million in government subsidies from 2003 to 2006.

He did not offer any other specific targets, and by itself, correcting the problem with the farm program would make an undetectable dent in the government’s soaring deficits. After the financial recovery is under way, Mr. Obama said, the chase after wasteful spending will begin in earnest.

“Just because a program, a special interest tax break or corporate subsidy is hidden in this year’s budget does not mean that it will survive the next,” he said. “The old ways of Washington simply can’t meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.”

Jackie Calmes contributed reporting from Washington.


http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Obama Places Stringent Limits on Inaugural Contributions

November 26, 2008

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

President-elect Barack Obama plans to bar special interests from contributing to his inaugural festivities and limit the amount he accepts to $50,000 per donor, the most stringent restrictions in the memory of campaign finance experts.

Mr. Obama’s newly formed inaugural committee said Tuesday that it would not accept money from corporations, political action committees, people who are currently registered with the federal government as lobbyists, those who are not citizens of the United States or registered foreign agents.

Campaign finance experts said that to their knowledge, the limits were tighter than for any previous inauguration, both in dollar amounts and in who will be permitted to give. Donations for earlier inaugurations have carried dollar limits, but they were higher — up to $250,000 for individuals in the case of George W. Bush, who allowed corporations to give more than that.

The restrictions are in keeping with Mr. Obama’s pledge to curb the influence of money in government, and signal his intention to encourage broader public participation at the inauguration than in the past.

The inauguration, on Jan. 20, is expected to draw more people than any in history. The largest previous inauguration is believed to have been that of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, attended by an estimated 1.2 million people.

Mr. Obama’s committee has not put a price tag on the inauguration and is still wrestling with an array of details, not least the question of how much to pare the festivities in recognition of the nation’s economic crisis and the serious tasks ahead.

Mr. Obama, who has been preoccupied with the economic woes as he prepares to step into the presidency, formed his inaugural committee only in recent days and announced its five co-chairmen on Tuesday.

They are William M. Daley, commerce secretary under President Bill Clinton; Penny S. Pritzker, finance chairwoman of Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign; John W. Rogers Jr., founder and chief executive of the mutual fund company Ariel Investments; Patrick G. Ryan, a Republican who is in charge of Chicago’s efforts to host the 2016 Summer Olympics; and Julianna Smoot, the Obama campaign’s national finance director.

Although the cost of the inaugural is as yet unclear, Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for the committee, said Mr. Obama expected to incur expenses that past presidents had not, because he wanted to make as many events as possible accessible to the public.

“We’re going to explore all kinds of creative ways to open this up to the public, everything from the swearing-in to the events,” Ms. Douglass said, adding that the celebration would include activities elsewhere in the country.

“This inauguration is more than just a celebration of an election,” she said. “This is an event that can be used to inspire and galvanize the public to act. That is what we’re aiming for.”

The committee is also working with federal officials to open to those attending the inauguration as much as possible of the Mall, which stretches two miles from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. The section east of the Washington Monument has traditionally been used as a staging area for marching bands and others who participate in the inaugural parade, but they may be moved elsewhere this time to accommodate the crowds, most of whom will have to view the swearing-in ceremony and the parade on JumboTron screens.

In modern times, inaugurations have been financed by a combination of public and private money. Most recently, in 2005, Mr. Bush spent a record $42.3 million on his inaugural events, most of it collected from corporations and executives. That money was directed mostly toward festivities, including fireworks, inaugural balls, the parade and a concert on the Mall.

But the federal and District of Columbia governments also spent a combined $115.5 million, most of it for security, the swearing-in ceremony and cleanup; the biggest expense by far, $84 million, was to compensate federal workers for the holiday.

In barring lobbyists from contributing, Mr. Obama is continuing a practice he began with his campaign and applied as well to his transition, in which contribution limits are $5,000.

“Given his policies during the campaign, this is as consistent as you can write these rules and still raise the tens of millions of dollars that modern inaugurations have required,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the influence of money in politics.

Ms. Krumholz said she believed that Mr. Obama’s limits for the inauguration were stricter than those for any previous one. But, she noted, there are ways around the limits. Couples can give as much as $100,000 rather than $50,000, which itself is more than 10 times as high as the $4,600 maximum that individuals could donate for the primary and general-election campaigns together. And corporate executives can give as individuals, though their companies cannot. Moreover, many people lobby without being registered as lobbyists.

In any event, the Obama team plans to call upon the hundreds of thousands of supporters who gave small-dollar amounts to the campaign, though it is anybody’s guess to what extent they will contribute this time.

“Paying for other people to party in Washington doesn’t seem like something they might go for,” Ms. Krumholz said.

One of the biggest unknowns for donors is whether they will get tickets to Mr. Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. There are a total of 240,000 tickets, most of them controlled by Congress, and already the requests have vastly exceeded the supply.



http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Obama pledges 'jolt' to economy

Obama unveils his US Treasury team

US President-elect Barack Obama has promised the rapid implementation of a multi-billion-dollar package to deliver a "jolt" to the ailing economy.

Mr Obama said he intended to create and save 2.5 million US jobs by investing in the national infrastructure.

But he stressed that the scale of the problem required action by the US in tandem with other governments.

Mr Obama also named his top economic advisers, confirming Timothy Geithner as the next treasury secretary.

Mr Obama said that having served in senior roles at Treasury, the IMF and the New York Federal Reserve, Mr Geithner would offer "an unparalleled understanding of our current economic crisis, in all of its depth, complexity and urgency".

We are going to do what is required to jolt this economy back into shape Barack Obama

Lawrence Summers, a former treasury secretary, will be the new head of the White House's National Economic Council, tasked with co-ordinating the president's economic plans.

Christina Romer, a co-director at the National Bureau of Economic Research, will chair Mr Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

Mr Obama said his team would begin work straight away as there was not "a minute to waste".

'Under stress'

At a press conference in Chicago, the president-elect said it was necessary not only to have a thriving Wall Street but a thriving Main Street too.

KEY ECONOMIC APPOINTMENTS US Treasury Secretary: Timothy Geithner, president, New York Federal Reserve Director, White House National Economic Council: Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers: Christina Romer, co-director, National Bureau of Economic Research Obama's team so far Obama makes crisis the priority Send us your comments

"We are going to do what is required to jolt this economy back into shape," he said, although he refused to put a figure on the cost of the stimulus package.

Correspondents say there has been much speculation about the price tag, with some US politicians saying it could be as much as $700bn (£463bn).

Speaking of the challenges ahead, Mr Obama said: "We are facing an economic crisis of historic proportions.

"Our financial markets are under stress. While we can't underestimate the challenges we face, we also can't underestimate our capacity to overcome them."

He said the problem was "no longer just an American crisis, it is a global crisis - and we will need to reach out to countries around the world to craft a global response".

Mr Obama said he would honour the public commitments made by President George W Bush - who leaves office on 20 January - to support the US economy.

Earlier, Mr Bush assured the American people that the US economy would recover from the crisis, saying the first step was to "safeguard our financial system".

Mr Obama is scheduled to announce further stimulus details on Tuesday - dealing in part with the issue of how to pay for the package.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Barack Obama: The 2004 "God Factor" Interview Transcript

Editor's Note:
On Saturday, March 27, 2004, when I was the religion reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times, I met State Sen. Barack Obama at Café Baci, a small coffee joint in Chicago, to interview him exclusively about his spirituality. Our conversation took place a few days after he'd clinched the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that he eventually won. We spoke for more than an hour. He came alone. He answered everything I asked without notes or hesitation. The profile of Obama that grew from that interview became the first in a series in the Sun-Times called "The God Factor," that eventually became my first book, The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People. Because of the staggering interest in Obama's faith and spiritual predilections, I thought it might be helpful to share that interview here.

GG

–––––––––––––––––––

Interview with State Sen. Barack Obama
Saturday March 27, 3:30 p.m.
Café Baci, 330 S. Michigan Avenue
Me: decaf
He: alone, on time, grabs a Naked juice protein shake


GG:
What do you believe?

OBAMA:
I am a Christian. So, I have a deep faith. I draw from the Christian faith. On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences. I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of six and 10. My father was from Kenya, and although he was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim. And I'd say, probably, intellectually I've drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith.

(A patron stops and says, "Congratulations," shakes his hand. "Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you.")

So, I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that there is a higher power, that we are connected as a people. There are values that transcend race or culture that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.

And so, part of my project in life was to spend the first 40 years of my life figuring out what I did believe – I'm 42 now. And it's not that I had it all completely worked out, but I'm spending a lot of time now trying to apply what I believe and trying to live up to those values.

GG:
Have you always been a Christian?

OBAMA:
I was raised more by my mother, and my mother was Christian.

GG:
Any particular flavor?

OBAMA:
No. My grandparents were from small towns in Kansas. My grandmother was Methodist. My grandfather was Baptist. And by the time I was born, I think, my grandparents had joined a Universalist church. My mother, who I think had as much influence on my values as anybody, was not someone who wore her religion on her sleeve. We'd go to church for Easter. She wasn't a church lady.

As I said, we moved to Indonesia. She remarried an Indonesian who wasn't a practicing Muslim. I went to a Catholic school in a Muslim country. So I was studying the Bible and catechisms by day, and at night you'd hear the prayer call.

I don't think as a child I had a structured religious education. But my mother was a deeply spiritual person. She would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the world's religions, and talk to me about them. And I think always, her view was that underlying these religions were a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act not just for yourself, but also for the greater good. And, so that, I think, was what I carried with me through college.

I didn't start getting active in church activities until I moved to Chicago. The way I came to Chicago in 1985 was that I was interested in community organizing. I was inspired by the Civil Rights movement and the idea that ordinary people could do extraordinary things. And there was a group of churches out on the South Side of Chicago that had come together to form an organization to try to deal with the devastation of steel plants that had closed. They didn't have much money, but felt that if they formed an organization and hired somebody to organize them to work on issues that affected their community, that would strengthen the church and also strengthen the community.

So they hired me, for $13,000 a year. A princely sum. And I drove out here and I didn't know anybody and started working with both the ministers and the lay people in these churches on issues like creating job training programs, or afterschool programs for youth, or making sure that city services were fairly allocated to underserved communities.

And it was in those places where I think what had been more of an intellectual view of religion deepened, because I'd be spending an enormous amount of time with church ladies, sort of surrogate mothers and fathers. Everybody I was working with was 50 or 55 or 60, and here I was a 23-year-old kid running around.

I became much more familiar with the ongoing tradition of the historic black church and it's importance in the community, and the power of that culture to give people strength in very difficult circumstances, and the power of that church to give people courage against great odds. And it moved me deeply.

One of the churches that I became involved in was Trinity United Church of Christ. And the pastor there, Jeremiah Wright, became a good friend. So I joined that church and committed myself to Christ in that church.

GG:
Did you actually go up for an altar call?

OBAMA:
Yes. Absolutely. It was during a daytime service. And it was a powerful moment. It was powerful for me because it not only confirmed my faith, it not only gave shape to my faith, but I think, also, allowed me to connect the work I had been pursuing with my faith.

GG:
How long ago?

OBAMA:
16, 17 years ago. 1987 or 88

GG:
So you got yourself born again?

OBAMA:
Yeah, although I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I'm not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I've got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others.

I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it's best comes with a big dose of doubt. I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.

I think that – particularly as somebody who's now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart – there's an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.

GG:
Do you pray often?

OBAMA:
Uh, yeah, I guess I do. Its' not formal, me getting on my knees. I have an ongoing conversation with God. Throughout the day I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why am I doing it.

One of the interesting things about being in public life is there are constantly these pressures being placed on you from different sides. To be effective, you have to be able to listen to a variety of points of view. You also have to know when to be just a strong advocate, and when to push back against certain people or views that you think aren't right or don't serve your constituents.

The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass. Those are the conversations I'm having internally. I'm measuring my actions against that inner voice that for me is audible, is active. It tells me where I think I'm on track and where I'm off track.

I always think of politics as having two sides. There's a vanity aspect to politics, and then there's a substantive part of politics. Now you need some sizzle with the steak to be effective, but I think it's easy to get swept up in the vanity side of it, the desire to be liked and recognized and important. It's important for me throughout the day to measure and to take stock and to say, "Now am I doing this because I think it's advantageous to me politically, or because I think it's the right thing to do? Am I doing this to get my name in the papers or am I doing this because it's necessary to accomplish my motives?"

GG:
Checking for altruism?

OBAMA:
Yeah. I mean, something like it. It's interesting, the most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I'm talking to a group and I'm saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I'm just being glib or clever.

GG:
What's that power? Is it the holy spirit? God?

OBAMA:
Well, I think it's the power of the recognition of God, or the recognition of a larger truth that is being shared between me and an audience.

That's something you learn watching ministers. What they call the Holy Spirit. They want the Holy Spirit to come down before they're preaching, right? Not to try to intellectualize it, but what I see is there are moments that happen within a sermon where the minister gets out of his ego and is speaking from a deeper source. And it's powerful.

There are also times when you can see the ego getting in the way, where the minister is performing and clearly straining for applause or an Amen. And those are distinct moments. I think those former moments are sacred.

GG:
Who's Jesus to you?

(He laughs nervously)

OBAMA:
Right. Jesus is an historical figure for me. And he's also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher. And he's also a wonderful teacher. I think it's important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.

GG:
Is Jesus someone who you feel you have a regular connection with now, a personal connection with in your life?

OBAMA:
Yes. I think some of the things I talked about earlier are channeled through my Christian faith and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

GG:
Have you read the bible?

OBAMA:
Absolutely. I read it not as regularly as I would like. These days I don't have much time for reading or reflection, period.

GG:
Do you try to take some time for whatever, meditation, prayer reading?

OBAMA:
I'll be honest with you. I used to all the time, in a fairly disciplined way. But during the course of this campaign, I don't. And I probably need to and would like to, but that's where that internal monologue, or dialogue I think supplants my opportunity to read and reflect in a structured way these days. It's much more sort of as I'm going through the day trying to take a moment here and a moment there to take stock. Why am I here, how does this connect with a larger sense of purpose?

GG:
Jack Ryan [Obama's Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate race at the time] said talking about your faith is frought with peril for a public figure.

OBAMA:
Which is why you generally will not see me spending a lot of time talking about it on the stump.

Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I'm a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root in this country.

I'm very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics. Now, that's different from a belief that values have to inform our public policy. I think it's perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values that inform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.

A standard line in my stump speech during this campaign is that my politics are informed by a belief that we're all connected. That if there's a child on the South Side of Chicago that can't read, that makes a difference in my life, even if it's not my own child. If there's a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that's struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent. And if there's an Arab American family that's being rounded up by John Ashcroft without the benefit of due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

I can give religious expression to that. I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper, we are all children of God. Or I can express it in secular terms. But the basic premise remains the same. I think sometimes Democrats have made the mistake of shying away from a conversation about values for fear that they sacrifice the important value of tolerance. And I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive.

GG:
Do you think it's wrong for people to want to know about a civic leader's spirituality?

OBAMA:
I don't' think it's wrong. I think that political leaders are subject to all sorts of vetting by the public, and this can be a component of that. I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God's mandate. I think there is this tendency that I don't think is healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism.

GG:
The conversation stopper, when you say you're a Christian and leave it at that.

OBAMA:
Where do you move forward with that? This is something that I'm sure I'd have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There's the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people who haven't embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, that they're going to hell.

GG
You don't believe that?

OBAMA:
I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That's just not part of my religious makeup.

Part of the reason I think it's always difficult for public figures to talk about this is that the nature of politics is that you want to have everybody like you and project the best possible traits onto you. Oftentimes that's by being as vague as possible, or appealing to the lowest common denominators. The more specific and detailed you are on issues as personal and fundamental as your faith, the more potentially dangerous it is.

GG:
Do you ever have people who know you're a Christian question a particular stance you take on an issue? How can you be a Christian and …?

OBAMA:
I haven't been challenged in those direct ways. And to that extent, I give the public a lot of credit. I'm always struck by how much common sense the American people have. They get confused sometimes, watch FoxNews or listen to talk radio. That's dangerous sometimes. But generally, Americans are tolerant, and I think recognize that faith is a personal thing. They may feel very strongly about an issue like abortion or gay marriage, but if they discuss it with me as an elected official they will discuss it with me in those terms and not say, 'you call yourself a Christian.' I cannot recall that ever happening.

GG:
Do you believe in heaven?

OBAMA:
Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?

GG:
A place spiritually you go to after you die?

OBAMA:
What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, I will be rewarded. I don't presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.

When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I've been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother, and that they're kind people and that they're honest people and they're curious people, that's a little piece of heaven.

GG:
Do you believe in sin?

OBAMA:
Yes.

GG:
What is sin?

OBAMA:
Being out of alignment with my values.

GG:
What happens if you have sin in your life?

OBAMA:
I think it's the same thing as the question about heaven. If I'm true to myself and my faith, that is its own reward. When I'm not true to it, that's its own punishment.

GG:
Where do you find spiritual inspiration? Music, nature, literature, people, a conduit you plug into?

OBAMA:
There are so many. Nothing is more powerful than the black church experience. A good choir and a good sermon in the black church, it's pretty hard not to be move and be transported. I can also be transported by watching a good performance of Hamlet, or reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, or listening to Miles Davis.

GG:
Is there something that you go back to as a touchstone, a book, a particular piece of music, a place ...

OBAMA:
As I said before, in my own sort of mental library, the Civil Rights movement has a powerful hold on me. It's a point in time where I think heaven and earth meet. Because it's a moment in which a collective faith transforms everything. So when I read Gandhi or I read King or I read certain passages of Abraham Lincoln, and I think about those times where people's values are tested, those inspire me.

GG:
What are you doing when you feel the most centered, the most aligned spiritually?

OBAMA:
I think I already described it. It's when I'm being true to myself. And that can happen in me making a speech or it can happen in me playing with my kids, or it can happen in a small interaction with a security guard in a building when I'm recognizing them and exchanging a good word.

GG:
Is there someone you would look to as an example of how not to do it?

OBAMA:
Bin Laden.

(grins broadly)

GG:
... An example of a role model, who combined everything you said you want to do in your life, and your faith?

OBAMA:
I think Gandhi is a great example of a profoundly spiritual man who acted and risked everything on behalf of those values but never slipped into intolerance or dogma. He seemed to always maintain an air of doubt about him. I also think of Dr. King, and Lincoln. Those three are good examples for me of people who applied their faith to a larger canvas without allowing that faith to metasticize into something that is hurtful.

Final Note: WantToKnow.info believes it is important to balance political information with inspirational writings which call us to be all that we can be and to work together for positive change. Please visit our Inspiration Center at http://www.WantToKnow.info/inspirational for an abundance of uplifting material. Also note that a free online course which powerfully inspires us to be the change that we want to see in the world just recently launched. To explore the rich and highly educational Insight Course developed by PEERS, click here.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc

Adrift With Two Captains

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, November 25, 2008; A15

Having two presidents is starting to feel like having no president, and that's the situation we'll face until Inauguration Day. Heaven help us.

President Bush spent the weekend in Lima, Peru, at a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, conferring with Pacific Rim leaders who had no reason to pay attention to anything he said. Bush did, however, cut a dashing figure in a traditional Peruvian poncho. Yesterday morning, minus the poncho, he was back home lending his imprimatur to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's latest diving catch to save the global economy from utter ruin -- this time, the massive bailout of Citigroup.

A couple of hours later, the other president, Barack Obama, presented his new, high-powered economic team. Obama made a point of saying that the prospective officials -- led by Timothy Geithner, his pick to head Treasury -- would start working immediately. Obama also made clear that there's very little they can do except monitor the situation, study possible solutions and develop a plan to be enacted after Jan. 20. We can't afford another month or more of drift, Obama said. But I'm afraid that's just what we're going to get.

The problem, and it's becoming serious, is that no one is prepared to orchestrate a comprehensive program to stabilize the financial system, put a floor under housing prices and keep the economy from sinking into a long, punishing recession.

Bush could and should do it -- he is still president, and preventing economic collapse is part of the job description. But he won't. It's ironic that after being so aggressive and proactive in other areas, the Decider is so indecisive and passive about the economy. He has limited his role to signing off on whatever Paulson says is necessary -- most recently, $20 billion in cash and $306 billion in guarantees for Citigroup, a move that Bush apparently approved during his flight home from Peru.

In part, Bush's inaction stems from ideology. If the free market is always right, it ought to correct itself and get back on course. All the government really needs to do is take care of a few emergencies such as Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, IndyMac, AIG, Wachovia, Citigroup . . . and, of course, whatever comes next. Not the auto companies, however: In Bushworld, the firms that created the toxic mortgage-backed securities that threaten to bring down the global financial system are somehow morally superior to the companies that created the Mustang, the Malibu and the minivan.

I don't think ideology explains it all, though. Even if he wanted to make a real run at righting the economy, at this point Bush has neither the energy nor the credibility to make it happen. Frankly, he comes off as less a lame duck than a cooked goose.

That leaves the other president, who has plenty of energy and credibility -- but no authority. Bush said he called Obama to inform him of the Citigroup bailout, but informing isn't the same as consulting. Obama said his new economic team will be monitoring the situation and giving him daily reports on where things stand. He could save them the trouble and just watch CNBC or Bloomberg all day.

Obama said he believes a huge economic stimulus is needed "right away." But he knows that won't happen -- it's unlikely that anything big enough could get through the outgoing Congress, and, in any event, a big stimulus is not something that Bush is willing to support. Obama said that "we cannot hesitate and we cannot delay," but he knows full well that hesitation and delay are all but inevitable. And he knows full well that by the time he gets the power to shape events, the economic situation might be much worse than it is now.

James Baker, the former secretary of state and current Republican eminence grise, made an amazing suggestion on "Meet the Press" Sunday -- that Bush and Obama develop and announce a joint economic rescue program. It was a stunning acknowledgment of how weak the Bush presidency has become and how dangerous it would be to spend the next two months meandering from crisis to crisis.

But that's the road we're on. When I get frustrated with Paulson's zigzags and reversals, with his overnight decisions to buy huge companies or write hundred-billion-dollar checks, I remind myself that he doesn't really have a president to work for. The poor man may stumble here and there, but he's dancing as fast as he can.

The writer will be online to answer questions at 1 p.m. today. His e-mail address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc