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Change I Can Believe In

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By DAVID BROOKS New York Times News Service

The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 9, 2008

I have dreams. I may seem like a boring pundit whose most exotic fantasies involve GAO reports, but deep down, I have dreams.

Right now I'm dreaming of the successful presidency this country needs. I'm dreaming of an administration led by Barack Obama, but which stretches beyond the normal Democratic base. It makes time for moderate voters, suburban voters, rural voters and even people who voted for the other guy.

The administration of my dreams understands where the country is today. Its members know that, as Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center put it on "The NewsHour," "This was an election where the middle asserted itself."

Walking into the Obama White House of my dreams will be like walking into the Gates Foundation. The people there will be ostentatiously pragmatic and data-driven. They'll hunt good ideas like venture capitalists. They'll have no faith in all-powerful bureaucrats issuing edicts from the center. Instead, they'll use that language of decentralized networks, bottom-up reform and scalable innovation.

They will actually believe in that stuff Obama says about postpartisan politics. That means there won't just be a few token liberal Republicans in marginal jobs. There will be people like Robert Gates at the Defense Department and Ray LaHood, Stuart Butler, Diane Ravitch, Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Jim Talent at other important jobs.

The Obama administration of my dreams will insist that congressional Democrats reinstate bipartisan conference committees. They will invite GOP leaders to the White House for real meetings and then re-invite them, even if they give hostile news conferences on the White House driveway.

They will do things conservatives disagree with, but they'll also show that they're not toadies of the liberal interest groups. They'll insist on merit pay and preserving No Child Left Behind's accountability standards, no matter what the teachers' unions say. They'll postpone contentious fights on things like card-check legislation.

Most of all, they'll take significant action on the problems facing the country without causing a mass freak-out among voters to the right of Nancy Pelosi.

They'll do this by explaining to the American people that there are two stages to their domestic policy thinking, the short-term and the long-term.

The short-term strategy will have two goals: to mitigate the pain of the recession and to change the culture of Washington. The first step will be to complete the round of stimulus packages that are sure to come.

When the recession shows signs of bottoming out, then my dream administration would begin phase two. The long-term strategy would be about restoring fiscal balances and reforming fundamental institutions.

Is it all just a dream? I hope not. In any case, please be quiet and let me have my moment.

David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times.

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