Changing Washington from the Outside

A couple of months ago I suggested that we should be listening to President Obama on what to expect in his second term. He laid out his intentions on several occasions...including what he said when Michael Scherer asked him if he'd work to bring his campaign's grassroots organization to bear on the governing process.

I’ve given that a lot of thought...There are a handful of big issues that we’re going to have to deal with...

But for me to get those accomplished, I do think I’m going to need to bring in the voices of the American people much more systematically, much more regularly.

Finding the right mechanisms to do that is something that we’re going to spend a lot of time thinking about. Obviously, the Internet and the digital age helps. We’ve been able to do that on our campaign. We now need to translate that more to how our government works. But I think the American people are ready for it.

And now we find that just two weeks after the election - that's exactly what he's doing.

President Barack Obama is preparing to expand the fiscal cliff fight beyond the confines of Washington, traveling the country and leaning on Democratic activist groups to help apply political pressure.

The goal, organizers said, is to keep engaged the activists and followers who have stood with Obama through two campaigns, and to begin applying external pressure to the president's negotiations with congressional Republicans.

And so, top Obama operatives are gaming out ways to squeeze political capital out of the 2012 elections, aiming to affect the lame-duck session in Congress. Obama previewed the strategy in a conference call with activists after the election, saying that a second term that will include some barnstorming across the country.

"One of my pledges for a second term is to get out of Washington more often," Obama said.

On that same call, one of president's top campaign aides, Mitch Stewart, alerted listeners that they would be asked to help support the White House as it deals with the expiring Bush tax cuts and looming $1 trillion in sequestration-related cuts. Stewart added that some campaign operatives would remain in Chicago "going through what worked in 2012 and what didn't work in 2012 and trying to figure out how we as an organization can get better." He concluded by pointing the 30,000 call participants to a newly developed initiative called TheAction.org.

So we all got our 2 week break after the election. Are you ready to get back to work?