- MENU
- HOME
- SEARCH
- WORLD
- MAIN
- AFRICA
- ASIA
- BALKANS
- EUROPE
- LATIN AMERICA
- MIDDLE EAST
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Argentina
- Australia
- Austria
- Benelux
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Korea
- Mexico
- New Zealand
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Poland
- Russia
- South Africa
- Spain
- Taiwan
- Turkey
- USA
- BUSINESS
- WEALTH
- STOCKS
- TECH
- HEALTH
- LIFESTYLE
- ENTERTAINMENT
- SPORTS
- RSS
- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Kenneth T. Walsh
president likes to reach out to "real people" across the country
President Obama visited Prague last week to sign a new agreement with Russia reducing nuclear warheads. But
Actually, Obama intends to get out of town more than ever in the coming months, mostly on domestic trips, his aides say. Like so many of his predecessors, he is adopting the rhetoric of the Washington outsider. He has begun regularly mocking the excesses of the capital, its penchant for pettiness, and its hyper-partisanship, and he is emphasizing his need to get away. It's become a mantra that laces many of his speeches and his private comments, aides say.
In recent weeks, Obama has appeared at places as varied as Iowa City, Iowa, Boston, Charlotte, N.C., and Portland, Maine. And he rarely misses a chance to say how much he loves to visit with "real people" and not the regular crowd of Washington insiders that he associates with, including many of his own advisers. "The back and forth of what happens in this town grinds you slowly down," says
Other presidents have experienced the same need to escape from the capital. Ronald Reagan spent a total of a year of his eight-year presidency at his Santa Barbara ranch, where he replicated the outdoor lifestyle of a 19th-century Western landman, far from the duties and artificial protocols of the West Wing. Bill Clinton, like Reagan, talked about the need to tap into public concerns outside the beltway, and he held many events outside Washington. George W. Bush escaped frequently to his ranch in Crawford, Texas. He said it cleared his mind, gave him a respite from Washington's echo chamber, and enabled him to bring fresh thinking to the nation's problems.
Obama's correspondence is especially important to him. His staff selects 10 letters a day from the tens of thousands he receives for him to peruse, with an eye to illustrating the concerns of everyday people. He has read these batches of letters since his first week in office. "There are very few times that we discuss issues in meetings where he doesn't bring up something that he's read in the letters he's received," says a senior
Adds
Obama believes that "nothing punctuates a problem like the plight of an average American," says another senior
All this may seem a bit odd, since a president is by definition the leader of the Establishment, in charge of the government and setting much of the tone for official Washington. But presidents need a connection to the larger world beyond the beltway, and, as with Obama, they devise many ways to get it.
Available at Amazon.com:
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
AMERICAN POLITICS
WORLD | AFRICA | ASIA | EUROPE | LATIN AMERICA | MIDDLE EAST | UNITED STATES | ECONOMICS | EDUCATION | ENVIRONMENT | FOREIGN POLICY | POLITICS
Obama Aims to Escape Washington Bubble | Kenneth T. Walsh
© Tribune Media Services