Leading up to Election Day, The Progressive Policy Institute is publishing a series of “memos to the next president” offering the winner, regardless of his name, some specific, bold initiatives aimed at solving big national problems. My own submission, published earlier this week, argues for a two-pronged assault on the political climate in Washington through voluntary public financing of congressional campaigns and redistricting reform.

I wrote the piece before the recent financial crisis, which may tempt the winner on November 4 to demand a recount. But I’m more convinced than ever that a direct attack on the money/influence nexus based on campaign contributions, and on the self-perpetuation of the status quo in Washington through political gerrymandering, is an essential stage-setter if the next administration is going to accomplish the radical change the times call for.

That’s particularly true if my candidate, Barack Obama, is the winner. Throughout this long campaign, progressives have conducted a running debate over Obama’s “theory of change,” and the expectations he has aroused, in a remarkable grassroots-based movement, for the kind of systemic change in Washington that eluded the last Democratic administration. Even if Democrats make major gains in congressional elections, an Obama administration will have virtually no margin for error if it is to overcome the institutional barriers in Washington to long-sought progressive goals like universal health care, a real commitment to post-petroleum energy policies, and assault on income inequality and economic insecurity, and a sensible 21st century foreign policy. And while the financial crisis may make emergency economic initiatives a no-brainer first priority, it also guarantees a fiscal situation in which there is no maneuvering room.

In general, the deep and deepening public hostility towards Washington may have fed the Obama movement, and contributed to victory, but it could also damage an Obama administration irretrievably if it appears to succumb to business-as-usual.

That’s why I think a president-elect Obama should ignore the counsel of those in Washington who invariably roll their eyes at “process” reforms like public financing of campaigns and a radical change in redistricting rules, as though the current system can be trusted to produce radically different results than in the past. More than a year’s worth of powerful Obama rhetoric about the influence of lobbyists and the irresponsibility of self-serving and insulated congressional incumbents needs to bear fruit immediately, and actually can, given the emergency conditions in the country.

I won’t recapitulate my PPI memo here, but I’ve specifically suggested that the next president push for action on the Specter-Durbin legislation creating a “clean campaigns/clean elections” system of voluntary public financing of congressional campaigns (along with the Feingold-Collins legislation aimed a fixing the outdated public financing system for presidential campaigns), while championing a strengthened version of the Tanner-Johnson proposal for restricting political gerrymandering of congressional districts, on the eve of the next decennial round of congressional reapportionment.

The window of opportunity for fundamental change in Washington is going to close very quickly after November 4. Keeping it open for the course of the next administration requires a bold, direct, and serious challenge to the prevailing political culture that mobilizes and sustains public support for everything else that needs to be done. “Reforming Washington First” is more than a slogan: it’s recognition that national recovery from the ongoing disaster of the last eight years won’t be accomplished simply by inaugurating a new and very different president.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 10:11 am and is filed under Politics, Presidential Campaign .