Obama, pushing ahead his notion of an agent of change (and in doing so implicitly criticizing Hillary as another insider), said yesterday in Iowa:
"Part of the problem here is not just George Bush and the White House," Obama told a crowd of hundreds gathered at a park in Cedar Falls. "We can't just change political parties and continue to do the same kind of things we've been doing. We can't just go about business as usual and think it's going to turn out differently."
Senator Obama then went on to list the ways in which he said he would start enlisting the support and even the consultation of the American people in the decisions of government....
Among his proposals:
To make the government more accountable, Obama said he would post all non-emergency bills online for five days before he signed them into law, allowing Americans a chance to weigh in on the legislation. In addition, he said he would post all meetings between lobbyists and government agencies online.
Quite a departure from the Bush-Cheney doctrine of meeting with industry execs and fighting tooth & nail to keep those meetings as secret as possible.
Even more interesting:
Obama said he would require Cabinet officials to speak to Americans via national broadband town-hall style meetings to discuss issues at their agencies.
That's actually a proposal that I've never heard before, but think it's a great idea. Doing so could increase civic participation and lessen the skepticism so many (often rightly) have about their government.
He also pledged to issue an executive order that information about the government's operations must be released to those seeking it unless it could harm a protected interest.
Generally speaking, what I find most interesting about these proposals is that it's the first really clear way in which a candidate for 2008 is explaining how they'd start to relinquish some of the "unitary executive" notions of secrecy established under Bush. Certainly, there is much more Obama and all need to spell out about how they'd release this power.
And it is vital that we keep on all candidates to explain exactly how they would relinquish the unconstitutional power established under the Bush years for the executive branch. The problem is, when powers are established, the next executive will be loathe to give them up. That's why we need them to spell out exactly how they would do so in the campaign so they can be held accountable during an administration.
I support Senator Obama for President (unless Gore jumps in), and am happy to see these proposals. But I would feel even better if all of our candidates embraced similar proposals for openness. We know the GOP candidates won't, so by doing so we can make it that much more clear that the Democratic Party represents real change.