Absolutely a smart thing to do. I've been saying for years that the reason Democrats have so much trouble pushing their agenda is they think too literally: They lay out the problem and state the proposed solution without selling it to the public.
This is where the Republicans have always excelled, because they come from a sales and marketing culture and average citizens are conditioned to be consumers. So if this is how the Obama administration is going to operate, it's very good news:
President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to lead a full-scale marketing blitz to pass the massive new stimulus package that he says is needed to revive the slumping economy and put the nation on the course he laid out during his campaign.
Obama will move to Washington this weekend, checking into a hotel with his family. In the remaining weeks of the transition, and after he is sworn in, he will use the bully pulpit to make the case for passage of a stimulus package of up to $775 billion, an aide said.
Obama, now in Hawaii on vacation, may travel outside Washington after Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, while others in the new administration scatter across the country to explain in minute detail the scope and purpose of the stimulus plan, said David Axelrod, a senior advisor to the president-elect.
"We'll fan out, and this will be a public process," Axelrod said in an interview. "We'll make clear to people why we need to do what we're doing, why it's the size it is, what the individual component parts are, and why they are an important part of the equation in terms of short-term recovery." Obama, he said, "wants the American people involved in this discussion."
