Event

NDN and other Groups Deliver Letter to the Obama Administration Outlining Priorities to Fix the Broken Immigration System

Over Twelve-Hundred Groups Sign Letter to New Administration

Over 1,200 advocacy and non-profit organizations, including NDN, delivered a letter to the Obama Administration outlining priorities in order to fix the broken immigration system.  The letter stresses the urgency with which the new Administration should approach immigration reform legislatively and administratively, noting that efforts to address the many ills facing our immigration system have become the victim of gridlock in Washington for too long.

"Over the last eight years, immigrants and their families, employers and workers alike, have suffered from our nation's inability to find common ground on the issue of immigration reform," states the letter, which was signed by groups in 39 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

Noting the President's background and the new era his presidency signals, the letter says, "As the son of a Kenyan national and a woman from Kansas, you validate the American dream and we believe that your victory represents a triumph for tolerance and hope."

While we hope the Administration acts swiftly to address the most egregious problems with the enforcement practices and last minute regulatory changes of the previous Administration, there is only so much President Obama and his team can do on their own.

"While President Obama can address some matters administratively, ultimately the President must propose and the Congress must enact meaningful, broad immigration reform to bring order to the current chaos," said Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum. "Reform that is fair, respects the rights of immigrants and non-immigrants, strengthens our economy, reduces the black market, and gets immigrants and employers playing by one set of enforceable rules should be the goal.  We know what needs to be done, now we have to summon the political will and focus the President's political muscle on making it happen."

"The urgency for reform cannot be overstated," the letter says.  "Unless and until we recalibrate our policies, all Americans' rights will be at risk, our communities will be divided and the power of our nation's fundamental principle of E Pluribus Unum compromised."

The letter, delivered late last week to the President's transition team, is part of a broad effort to bring together immigrants, advocacy and civil rights organizations, faith leaders, employers, trade associations, and labor unions in an effort to enact immigration reform as quickly as possible.

"In the 2008 elections, immigrant voters and their families turned out across the nation in unprecedented numbers. They were inspired by your message, including your commitment to a comprehensive reform of our nation's immigration system. The reform challenge is formidable, but so is our resolve," the letter states.

For the full text of the letter and list of signatory organizations, click here.

Wednesday Buzz: The Inauguration of a New Generation, Pragmatic Progressivism, More

Yesterday's proceedings were an historic landmark in many ways, representing a momentous step forward in race relations in America and a dramatic shift in governing philosophy and ideology. 

But President Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States of America was historic in other ways as well -- NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais helped to provide some context and insight into the generational implications of this inauguration in the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes, the Palm Beach Post, and the Orlando Sentinel. From the Chronicle piece:

"This is our moment," says Jonah Khandros, 23, of Orinda, a Democratic political activist who worked on Obama's campaign and traveled to the nation's capital this week. He plans to celebrate the inauguration by uniting with dozens of friends from high school and college who have scattered around the country. "We've waited for this; a lot of us worked for it," he said. "But even if your only contribution was talking to your mom and dad and convincing them to vote for Obama, we feel our generation gets a lot of credit."

Morley Winograd, an author and a fellow at NDN, a progressive think tank and advocacy organization, says the Woodstock comparison is entirely appropriate. "This is their moment to demonstrate to America what they think America's future should be like," said Winograd. "They are going to celebrate that and underline it for all of America. Of course, the race relations breakthrough is huge, and the media will be focused on it ... but the generational difference, the moment the generational shift takes place, is also an important story."

...NDN Fellow Michael Hais, who co-authored "Millennial Makeover: My Space, YouTube and the Future of American Politics" with Winograd, said that the Millennial generation's overwhelming and early support of Obama means Millennials are poised to watch his swearing-in with a high level of connection. A recent Rasmussen poll, he said, showed they are expected to tune in to today's events at more than twice the level of other generations.

And another quote, this one from the Mercury News article:

Obama's campaign mobilized a new generation of voters, and the turnout of about 1.5 million in Washington was a testament to his wide appeal. The new 47-year-old president claimed a mandate for bold action, despite the doubts of many.

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply," he said.

Morley Winograd, author of "Millennial Makeover" with Michael Hais, said Obama "was elaborating on the theme of generational change, that we are getting past ideological division, that we need government action and to rebuild our image abroad."

Simon was quoted in the Financial Times and the Boston Globe (and its sister papers) on the challenges facing our new president. From the Globe:

Obama begins his term with a long list of national troubles to address: an economic recession, massive home foreclosures, high unemployment, two wars, a healthcare crisis, and a damaged US image abroad - any one of which could derail his presidency in the first year.

But Obama also starts with a deep reservoir of good will among the public and elected officials in both parties. Recent polls have found that Obama is the most popular incoming president in a generation, with 80 percent of Americans in a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday saying they approved of the way Obama handled the transition. Further, 71 percent said Obama had earned a mandate to work for major new social and economic programs.

"These are happy times for our politics, but a very tough time for the country," said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a progressive think tank. "There's both tremendous hope and a great deal of sobriety. People are having both of these feelings at the same time."

Simon was also featured in the New York Times blog talking about immigration reform.

Finally, Michael Moynihan was featured in the Los Angeles Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Obama's climate change challenge. From the LA Times feature:

"Before you spend billions of dollars on new lines, you have to spend millions of dollars on design work," said Michael Moynihan, the green project director of the liberal think tank NDN in Washington, who has worked extensively on green infrastructure and the stimulus. "Nobody had been thinking about this much money [becoming available]. So the planning just has not been done."

Tom Friedman Offers A Nice Early Take on Obama's Inaugural Address

I thought Tom Friedman did a very good job this morning at capturing the moment.  An excerpt from his column, Radical In The White House

George W. Bush completely squandered his post-9/11 moment to summon the country to a dramatic new rebuilding at home. This has left us in some very deep holes. These holes - and the broad awareness that we are at the bottom of them - is what makes this a radical moment, calling for radical departures from business as usual, led by Washington.

That is why this voter is hoping Obama will swing for the fences. But he also has to remember to run the bases. George Bush swung for some fences, but he often failed at the most basic element of leadership - competent management and follow-through.

President Obama will have to decide just how many fences he can swing for at one time: grand bargains on entitlement and immigration reform? A national health care system? A new clean-energy infrastructure? The nationalization and repair of our banking system? Will it be all or one? Some now and some later? It is too soon to say.

But I do know this: while a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, so too is a great politician, with a natural gift for oratory, a rare knack for bringing people together, and a nation, particularly its youth, ready to be summoned and to serve.

So, in sum, while it is impossible to exaggerate what a radical departure it is from our past that we have inaugurated a black man as president, it is equally impossible to exaggerate how much our future depends on a radical departure from our present. As Obama himself declared from the Capitol steps: "Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed."

We need to get back to work on our country and our planet in wholly new ways. The hour is late, the project couldn't be harder, the stakes couldn't be higher, the payoff couldn't be greater.

If you have other columns, post or essays you've found you think we should post and promote on the our blog here please send them to Sam DuPont at sdupont@ndn.org.  More soon....

A Serious Thought or Two on the Inauguration, from Half-Way Around the World

Ulan Bator, Mongolia -- I'd rather be spending this week in Washington, celebrating with friends and my country the politically and spiritually invigorating elevation of Barack Obama to our presidency. These feelings lie very close to the heart of patriotism, and they are an exquisite pleasure to feel again without reserve.

Instead, I find myself in one of the coldest places on earth, Mongolia's capital city of Ulan Bator, giving advice on the process of economic and social modernization. On the way, I stopped off in Beijing, where the extravagant new bones of that ancient city, from the Olympic Village to the new Ritz Carlton on Financial Street (no joke), have the signature taint of the very recent time when money was no object, prosperity seemed unending, and architectural glitz was the national emblem of conspicuous consumption. Here in Mongolia, a country perched atop huge mineral deposits, people are adjusting with difficulty to the end of ballooning commodity prices and an accompanying overconfidence that led to tax and regulatory changes for extracting as much as imaginable from the foreign mining companies developing the resources. Now that those prices have sunk, those changes could force the companies to pull up stakes from Mongolia and head for Africa's mineral deposits. So the global crisis leaves Mongolia wrestling with how to give up its most recent hopes for itself and settle for a slower route to modernization that will cost a lot more.

On this wondrous day of the inauguration of a serious, intelligent and deep-valued person -- all things relatively new for us and for the world to be looking to us again -- the question is how rude our own awakening will be. Like the Mongolians with their mineral deposits, President Obama has enormous resources. And much as the Mongolians could squander their assets by holding fast to a narrow-minded view that doesn't take into account new conditions, we could squander our own historic moment of extraordinary unity of purpose and faith in our new leader's capacities.

To avoid this trap, we all have to recognize not only the real nature of our deep and dangerous economic and geopolitical problems, but also the pitfalls in our own system that could divert our new leadership from the tasks history will ultimately remember them for.

President Obama's signature governing act in his first year will almost certainly be the paths he charts for the $350 billion bailout fund and the trillion dollar stimulus. The pitfall for both is politics-as-usual, while the path to meaningful, productive change will rest on transparency, accountability, and innovation. The change we need here is an end to giving the most well-connected financial institutions and interest groups whatever they ask for. The change we need for both the bailout and the stimulus are openness about who gets what and under what conditions; accountability that requires those who receive bounties from the taxpayers to actually use them for those taxpayers' benefit, by extending more credit and advancing a 21st century economy and society; and innovations that can address the underlying forces driving our problems, especially the rising foreclosure rates for the financial crisis and the stagnation of incomes that laid part of the foundation for the current Great Recession.

The other pitfall for our new president and the rest of us to begin to think about is the hangover that will hit us from the extraordinary steps we're being forced to take now. Several years of deficits topping $1 trillion, on top of what looks to be a doubling of our monetary base over just six to eight months, could ultimately produce the greatest underground, domestic inflationary pressures in more than a half-century. Moreover, they are likely to come to the surface a few years from now, just as our boomers' demands on government spending begin to add up exponentially. This could create an acute financing crisis for American government, on top of rising inflation, and the second economic crisis of the Obama presidency. Recalling John Kennedy, what we can do for our country is to be prepared to support serious entitlement reforms that will mean less for all of us and even, yes, new taxes on top of it.

But today, wherever we are, let's celebrate our own good judgment and good fortune in Barack Obama.

NDN Participates in Latino Political Action Training Day, Pre-Inaugural Day Weekend

Washington, D.C. - Today, Simon and Andres will address approximately 100 Latino organizers, community leaders, and individuals interested in increasing the civic participation of Latinos from approximately 20 different states. 

It is most fitting that Simon and Andres begin the day's program, reflecting on Latino vote in 2008.  NDN's most significant accomplishment has been our advocacy for what we have called the "new politics."  For years NDN has made the case that a new politics was emerging in America, driven by three major changes: 1) the emergence of a new governing agenda and priorities, 2) the emergence of a whole new media and technology construct that was fundamentally changing the way we communicate and advocate, and 3) the emergence of a new American people, one very different from the demographic makeup of the U.S. in previous decades.  As part of this third pillar of the new politics, NDN has made the case to progressives and those on the center-left that for us to succeed as a 21st century movement, we must involve Hispanics and encourage Latino participation in politics. 

This day-long event is intended to serve as one major step to ensure that Hispanics continue to build on the momentum built by their participation in the 2008 elections, and engage civically.  Panelists are experts in the areas of political organizing, media strategy, and advocacy.  Attendees are coming to this pre-Inauguration event from AZ, CA, CO, D.C., FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, MA, MD, NV, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, PR, TX, VA.

LATINO POLITICAL TRAINING DAY
Más que nuestro voto: The New Latino Movement

Saturday, January 17, 2009
8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
National Council of La Raza Headquarters
Raul Yzaguirre Building, Washington, D.C.
1126 16th Street, NW, Washington, D.C.

Honorary Co-Hosts

Rep. Xavier Becerra & Rep. Linda Sanchez

Schedule & Speakers
8:30-9:30 a.m.  Registration. Continental breakfast. Activity on challenges facing the Latino community.

9:30 a.m. Official Opening & Welcome Remarks

9:35-10:35 a.m.  Reflection on 2008 Election

Simon Rosenberg, President of NDN
Andres Ramirez, Vice President for Hispanic Programs at NDN
Temo Figueroa, Obama campaign Latino Vote Director

10:35-11:35 a.m. Political Fundraising

Gabriela Lemus, Director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
Regina Montoya, Poder PAC member, previous congressional candidate in 200, and previous chief executive of the New America Alliance

11:35 a.m.-12:35 p.m. Media Outreach

Estuardo Rodríguez, Raben Group
Fabiola Rodríguez-Ciampoli, Rep. Xavier Becerra Communications Director and former Hispanic Communications Director for Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign

12:35- 1:50 p.m. Lunch and Conversation with Latino Leaders

Moderator: Adolfo Gonzales, Ed.D., National City Police Chief
Mireya Falcon, Mayor, Achichilco, Hidalgo, Mexico
Delia Garcia, Kansas State Representative
Victor Ramirez, Maryland State Assembly
Emma Violand-Sanchez, Arlington County School Board

2:00-3:00 p.m. Advocacy/Lobbying

Sam Jammal, MALDEF
Larry Gonzalez, Raben Group
Alma Marquez, Green Dot Public Schools

3:00-4:00 p.m. Community Organizing
Introduction: Dario Collado, Harvard University Latino Leadership Initiative
Marshall Ganz, Harvard Professor and designer of "Camp Obama" organizing strategies for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Jeremy Byrd, former Ohio General Election Director, Barack Obama's Campaign for Change
Carlos Odio, Deputy Latino Vote Director, Obama for America

4:15-5:00 p.m. Regional Break out sessions

Participants will break into groups based on their geographic region to reflect on lessons learned during the course of the training, key issues to address, and next steps.

5:15 p.m. Closing Remarks

Melody Gonzales, New Latino Movement Committee Chair

Stephanie Valencia, Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs, Presidential Transition Team and Deputy Latino Vote Director, Obama for America

Busy Week for NDN Hispanic Programs

Friends, it has been a busy week for NDN's Hispanic Programs.  Today, NDN released a statement congratulating Sen. Rockefeller for introducing an amendment to the Children's Health Insurance Program that eliminates a five year wait for legal immigrant children to receive care.

You can check out Simon's thoughts on this debate on our blog

Additionally, in case you missed it, NDN issued a statement on Monday regarding President Calderon's visit, and we have begun a new feature on our blog - the Weekly Update on Immigration, which provides analysis of the week's most relevant news in the area of immigration in the U.S. and Mexico. 

Lastly, NDN will be participating in several events during the week of inauguration.   Andres and Simon will be sharing their insight into the demographic transformation of the United States and the role of the Latino electorate at the "Latino Political Training Day,"  being held for organizers and activist from over 20 different states in order to keep the momentum of Latino civic participation from the elections going.  Simon will also speak on Latinos and the Economy during the morning session of the Latino State of the Union event hosted by NCLR.  We hope you can join us at these important events. 

SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 2009

9:00 am-5:00pm

Más Que Nuestro Voto: The New Latino Movement
Latino Political Training Day
Location: NCLR Headquarters, 1126 16th St Washington DC
The aim of this training is to build upon the momentum and increased civic engagement of Latinos in the 2008 presidential campaign season by offering participants the skills training and resources to achieve social and political change in their home districts. The day-long training with experts in political organizing, media, and advocacy, will focus on strengthening the grassroots community to leverage the growing political power of Latinos throughout the nation.
Apply online and receive more information at http://www.newlatinomovement.org/ or http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=52035952222

MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 2009

8:30 a.m.

Latino State of the Union
Cohosts: NCLR, MALDEF, LULAC
Location: Hyatt Regency Hotel
400 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001

NDN Praises U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller for Offering Amendment to Help Legal Immigrant Children

NDN's ROSENBERG PRAISES ROCKEFELLER CHIP AMENDMENT TO HELP CHILDREN OF LEGAL IMMIGRANTS, SAYS IT'S A SIGN THAT PROGRESS CAN BE MADE THIS YEAR ON FIXING BROKEN IMMIGRATION SYSTEM 

NDN President Simon Rosenberg today applauded U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller for offering a successful amendment that will give states the option of providing health insurance to children of legal immigrants through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Rockefeller offered the amendment during the Senate Finance Committee's consideration yesterday of a bill to expand the overall CHIP program.   

Rosenberg also praised Committee Chairman Max Baucus and other Finance Committee members who voted in favor of the amendment.

"For those interested in fixing our broken immigration system, the sensible resolution by the Senate Finance Committee yesterday is a welcome sign and a clear signal that progress can be made this year. For the last three years, the arguments of a few, deeply out of touch with popular sentiment, have held the immigration debate hostage, preventing progress on what Americans consider to be one of our most important national priorities."

Rosenberg continued, "In poll after poll, Americans rank fixing our broken immigration as one of their top priorities. Few blame the immigrants themselves. Most believe that any serious effort to fix the broken immigration system must include the offering of legal status and a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants already here. The American people understand that leaving five percent of our workforce and their families living in the shadows, outside the protection of American law, easy prey for exploitation, with no chance to live the American Dream, is an affront to our core values, and something that cannot stand. It is for this reason that there is such a deep and intense desire in the public to fix the system now."

"The sensible resolution of this first debate in the new Congress over how to best treat the immigrants among us is a hopeful sign that leaders of both parties will be able to come together later this year and pass a comprehensive approach to fixing our badly broken immigration system. In the coming weeks, I urge the full Senate to pass this critical legislation," Rosenberg said.

A Race To the Bottom - A Broken Immigration System Has a Social Cost, Too

According to a report just released by the Migration Policy institute, although the U.S. economy's nosedive has probably contributed to a drop in the number of undocumented immigrants coming into the United States, those already here will be less inclined to return home due to the manifestation of the economic crisis in the U.S. and abroad. The study does not focus on how border enforcement has deterred immigrants from returning home. 

In a great piece in the Post today by N.C. Aizenman, co-author, Demetrios G. Papademetriou explains,"The immigration system of the United States makes people wait in line for years to get their visa...so, by the time it becomes available for a family member or a valued employee...They don't want to return to the back of the line." The current broken immigration system exacerbates the economic crisis because -as explained in the report - the more likely and worrisome potential effect of the recession on undocumented immigrants is that it will drive them to accept ever-lower-paying jobs under ever-worsening conditions.  This is why it's so imperative that our legislators realize that immigration reform can be a tool to help fix the economy - the economy and immigration are inextricably linked, I hope Members realize they must stop seeing these two issues as separate and unrelated.  For those who argue, "how are we going to pass immigration during an economic crisis? How are we going to let in those immigrants?" I say: you think we have an unemployment NOW?...I refer you to the report's author: 

"We have to be careful about what people desperate for a job may do," Papademetriou said. "This begins to affect the labor standards and wages of not just the immigrants, but the people who work with them". This has very important social and economic consequences for the country. . . . If we're not careful, we could have situations that are unanticipated and that we haven't seen in this country for a while."

Abroad, the International Monetary Fund estimates that economic growth in Mexico will decline from 4.9% in 2006 to 1.8% in 2009 - we've already started to see the dramatic devaluation of the peso - which further reduces the incentive of undocumented immigrants to return home.  Let's pass comprehensive immigration reform and stem this race to the bottom.

Thursday New Tools Feature: Citizen's Briefing Book

This week, President-elect Obama's transition team introduced Change.gov's newest feature, the Citizen's Briefing Book. Somewhat similar to Open for Questions, the Citizen's Briefing Book allows users to submit policy proposals and vote on other submissions. From the introductory email:

We wanted to tell you about a new feature on Change.gov which lets you bring your ideas directly to the President.

It's called the Citizen's Briefing Book, and it's an online forum where you can share your ideas, and rate or offer comments on the ideas of others.

The best-rated ones will rise to the top, and after the Inauguration, we'll print them out and gather them into a binder like the ones the President receives every day from experts and advisors. If you participate, your idea could be included in the Citizen's Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama.

Back in October, I wrote:

With the launch of new sites like BigDialogue and WhiteHouse2.org, the tools are there waiting to be picked up. These sites aim to give people a more direct voice in governance...These are some of the most exciting new tools that I’ve seen in a long time; the question is, will our next president embrace them, or ignore them?

That question seems to have been answered, and the team has even addressed the main complaint I had about Open for Questions by improving the navigational scheme for this tool. All in all, Obama's team seems to be adapting with impressive speed - this no longer seems like a gimmicky experimental feature, but something of real and lasting value.  

However, the successful implementation of this tool raises its own interesting set of questions about open-sourcing a representative democracy:

In the first round of Open for Questions, one of the top questions was "Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?" At the time, the Obama team essentially dismissed the question, issuing a one-line response saying that Obama was not in favor of legalizing marijuana. However, as of right now, the top submission in the Citizen's Briefing Book is "End Marijuana Prohibition," and there are three other posts about ending the drug war in the top 20, as well as other proposals like "Revoke the George W. Bush Tax Cuts for the Top 1%" and "Get the Insurance Companies out the Health Care."

There has been much written about the massive moral and economic failure of the "war" on drugs, and I personally believe it is a very important and serious issue that deserves more attention. However, for many political and social reasons, it's something no politician will ordinarily touch with a fifty-foot pole (despite very broad acadademic and popular support for reform), and given Obama's likely pick of the wildly un-progressive Republican Jim Ramstad for Drug Czar, the prospects for these proposals seem especially grim.

In this light, it will be very interesting to see how an Obama administration handles this kind of situation - are they merely attempting to create the appearance and feel of accessibility and openness, or do they really believe deeply in the intrinsic value of this enterprise? How far will they be willing to push this experiment? How far should they? These are questions that undoubtedly will come increasingly to the fore as we enter headlong into a new era of American politics.  

Mr. President: Bring Us Together

The election of Barack Obama signaled the beginning of a "civic" realignment, produced by the political emergence of America's most recent civic generation, Millennials (born 1982-2003). Civic generations, like the Millennials, react against the efforts of divided idealist generations, like the Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) to advance their own moral causes. Civic generations instead are unified and focused on reenergizing social, political, and governmental institutions and using those institutions to confront and solve pressing national issues left unattended and unresolved during the previous idealist era. The goal of a transition during such realignments has to be to lessen the ideological splits that have divided America during the preceding idealist era and take steps to unify the country so that the new Administration can more effectively deal with the major issues it faces.

Reducing ideological divisions and unifying Americans to achieve important common goals has been a focus of Barack Obama since even before he announced his presidency. It is one of the key reasons his campaign had strong appeal to the emerging civic Millennial Generation, which he carried by a margin of more than 2:1. When CBS’s Steve Croft asked the then-candidate in a pre-election interview what qualified him, a junior senator with limited governmental experience, to be president of the United States, Obama led off his reply by citing his desire and ability to bridge differences and bring people together.

Through Your Actions

One way a civic era president-elect can demonstrate the importance he places on the need for national unity is to name members of the opposition party to his cabinet. The actions of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only two other Presidents to preside over transitions to civic eras, demonstrate how this game should be played.

For all the media commentary on Lincoln's first cabinet, deemed a "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin, it should be noted that it contained no one from the discredited Democratic Party, even though it did have representatives that spanned the breadth of opinion within the relatively new GOP. However, Lincoln did add a Democrat, Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, to his cabinet less than a year after taking office. Stanton, a strongly pro-Union Northern Democrat, had opposed Lincoln's election and had served as Attorney General in the final months of the Buchanan administration. However, Lincoln’s selection of pro-Union Democrat, Andrew Johnson, as his vice-presidential running mate in his 1864 re-election campaign demonstrates that it’s sometimes possible to take even a good idea too far. FDR appointed two Republicans to his initial cabinet–industrialist William H. Woodin, who as Treasury Secretary helped FDR implement his economic and fiscal program at the outset of the New Deal, and Harold L. Ickes, who served as Interior Secretary throughout the entirety of the Roosevelt administration. Both Woodin and Ickes were progressives who had supported FDR in the 1932 election. While neither was a member of the Republican Old Guard, together they demonstrated Roosevelt's willingness to reach beyond his own party to enlist what today would be called "moderate Republicans" in a unified effort to overcome major national problems.

Reflecting America's changing demographics and social mores, Barack Obama has chosen the most diverse cabinet and set of top advisors of any president in U.S. history. Two members of Obama's larger number of appointees -- Robert Gates and Ray Lahood -- are not Democrats, the same number for which FDR found room. This represents a greater number of members of the a different or opposing party than were present in the Cabinets of any of Obama’s idealist era predecessors.

President-elect Obama’s attempt to include a wide range of political opinion and backgrounds in his Cabinet and White House team has generated criticism from the most ideological members of his party, just as FDR and Lincoln faced such criticism from the extreme partisans of their day. Obama's appointment of many "centrist" cabinet-level officers who previously served in Congress, the Clinton Administration, or as governors suggests to his critics that he is abandoning his pledge to bring about significant change in economic, foreign, and social policy. But as political scientist Ross Baker points out, "In uncertain times, Americans find it much more comforting that the people who are going to be advising the president are steeped in experience. A Cabinet of outsiders would have been very disquieting." And civic realignments like the present one have come at the most uncertain and stressful times in America's history.

Through Your Words

Lincoln and FDR are also renowned for their ability to use their words to rally Americans to a common cause. Both did so at the very outset of their terms. Both of these great civic presidents’ first inaugural addresses addressed the fears of a nation in crisis with rhetoric that has continued to ring through the ages.

Lincoln, in another last-ditch effort to forestall secession, told the South that neither he nor the Republican Party would make any attempt to undo slavery in states where it already existed. But he also reminded the South that, while only its actions could ultimately provoke civil war, his "solemn oath to preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution would require him to prosecute that war if it came.

Lincoln concluded his address with an appeal to the secessionists to rejoin the Union:

We are not enemies, but friends…Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Roosevelt used his inaugural speech to rally the country to the task ahead by telling it, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He reminded his listeners that at previous dark moments in our national history vigorous leadership joined with a supportive public to win ultimate victory in the nation's trials. Perhaps most important, FDR gave clear recognition that the United States and its people had moved from what we have called an "idealist" era of unrestrained individualism to a "civic" era of unity and common purpose:

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective.

Even before President-elect Obama had a chance to utter similarly comforting and inspiring rhetoric, his inaugural plans came under fire for inviting Pastor Rick Warren, a fundamentalist minister and activist in the passage of California's Proposition 8 outlawing gay marriage, to give the invocation at his inauguration. But the selection of Warren should not have been surprising to careful observers. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Obama signaled his desire to find common ground on divisive social issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and gun control.

By bookending his inaugural with a benediction from Joseph Lowrey, a minister who favors legalizing gay marriage among other liberal causes, Obama has signaled his determination to put an end to the debates over social issues from an idealist era that is ending and enlist all those willing to join his cause to rebuild America’s civic institutions.

For in the end, it is the American people that Barack Obama must rally to his side. It is they who will ultimately decide the effectiveness of his transition as a springboard to a civic era Administration. So far their judgment is overwhelmingly positive. A late December 2008 CNN national survey describes "a love affair between Barack Obama and the American people." That survey indicated that more than eight in 10 Americans (82%) approved of the way Obama was handling his transition, a figure that was up by three percentage points since the beginning of the month. Obama's approval is well above that of either Bill Clinton (67%) or George W. Bush (65%) at that point in their transitions.

More specifically, the poll suggests that the public approves of Obama's Cabinet nominees, with 56 percent saying his appointments have been outstanding or above average. That number is 18 percentage points higher than that given to Bush's appointments and 26 points above that of Clinton's nominees. To quote CNN polling director Keating Holland: "Barack Obama is having a better honeymoon with the American public than any incoming president in the past three decades. He's putting up better numbers, usually by double digits, than Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, or either George Bush on every item traditionally measured in transition polls."

Of course, the final judgment of the Obama presidency by the American people and history will be based on his performance in office starting on January 20. Still, these polling results clearly suggest that Barack Obama has internalized and put into operation the historical transition lessons provided by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the presidents who led America's two previous civic realignments. If his inaugural address comes close to matching their first inaugural speeches, President-elect Obama will begin one of the most important administrations in the nation’s history with an enormous reservoir of political and public support that will serve him well in the crucial early days of his Administration.

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