The president may be done running for office, but he’s not done campaigning.
“We’re gonna celebrate today, and tomorrow—back to work,” Jarrett told the Morning Joe crew live from the White House. Getting back to work, she went on to explain, is going to include a lot more campaigning than the president’s first term.
“[We] have to engage the people in the process,” Jarrett said. “One of the lessons that we learned in the first term was that he can’t do this alone, he can’t work with Congress alone and expect they’re going to put their short term political interests ahead of the people.”
Last week, Obama for America converted to a nonprofit organization, a formal indication that Obama won’t be putting his legendary organizing game to bed any time soon.
We’ve already seen this strategy at work during the fiscal cliff when so-called middle-class voters were invited to attend a press conference, cheering and hooting in support of the president even though a fiscal cliff deal had not yet been struck.
The president employed the tactic again at his press conference announcing his gun control intentions, filling the room with children who had written to the president after the Newtown elementary school shooting. “If we have the people behind us, then there are no limits to what we can do,” Jarrett said. With this change, we’re likely to see even more rally-like pressers and campaign events in support of the president’s policy agenda. “[You’re going to] see the president travelling around the country more, we’re going to have many more opportunities at the White House to bring people in to inform them and communicate and engage with them about our agenda. And if we have that, then we’re confident they can have a very robust second-term agenda.”
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