I WANT BARACK TO BE LIKE ROSS

I want President Obama to be like Ross Perot.

Those of a certain age may remember a certain eccentric billionaire who ran for President in 1992, helping Bill Clinton get elected by doing most of Bill's negative campaigning for him. He actually had a viable candidacy until he revealed himself to be a total whackjob.

Yes, he was probably the weirdest guy ever to win more than 15% of the popular vote. But he did something amazing in that election. He endeavoured to not just lay out his policy positions, but to explain them and argue them in excruciating detail. From Wikipedia:

"Perot employed the innovative strategy of purchasing half-hour blocks of time on major networks for infomercial-type campaign ads; these ads garnered more viewership than many sitcoms, with one Friday night program in October attracting 10.5 million viewers.[17]"

Perot would sit down and with nothing but graphs and pie charts explain why the deficit needed to be reduced and how it could be done. Agree or not, his arguments were sophisticated, well-argued, and not bullshit. And people listened, and maybe learned a thing or to. I have never seen a politician (or wannabe politician) do anything like it. But I have always wished for ones that would, ones that would try to convince the nonbelievers rather than just preaching to the choir.

Which brings us to our current president. He has been a busy media presence lately---the Tonight Show, 60 Minutes, 2 prime time press conferences in 2 months, 4 town hall meetings in a few weeks. This has elicited much hand wringing from the media, especially from right-wing talk radio (which I listen to, if only because it feels so good when I finally turn it off)--he should be governing instead of talking to Jay Leno!!!

As regards that last point--can anybody remember a president who has governed more in such a short period of time?

I say--go O-man!

The only way we are going to survive the current economic crisis, much less deal with the even darker clouds that loom in the future (global warming, entitlements, the ever-increasing national debt) is for the American public to realize that there is going to have to be a lot of short-term pain for any long-term gain to happen. It is easy to convince people of what they want to believe (hence the popularity of religion). Much harder to convince people that if they don't want the average daytime high in Houston to hit 115 degrees they are going to have to give up the 10 mpg pickup truck. But that is going to have to happen.

I am encouraged. My heart fluttered when I first heard the phrase "teachable moment." May we have far more More Perfect Union speeches-not necessarily about race, but about all the shit that we have to deal with.

So Mr. President, summon your inner Ross Perot. Be the professor that you once were, and tell us what needs to be done, and why. Make it interesting, make it entertaining, or we are all going to fall asleep, but don't spare any of the gory details.