Obama’s Permanent Campaign

The New America Foundation’s Steve Clemons, who is always good fun, has been giving rave reviews to this Edward Luce piece in the FT that argues, essentially, that Obama’s Gang of Four – Emanuel, Axelrod, Gibbs & Jarret – have cut the President off from a wider circe of voices, many of whom he could usefully be hearing from and that the Obama White House is proving less successful than it should be. Pithily, there’s too much Chicago and not enough DC.

That’s accompanied by a second, but related, complaint: the White House is being run as though it were an extension of the campaign. But the United States government is rather bigger than even a Presidential campaign. Thus:

Whatever issue arises, whether it is a failed terrorist plot in Detroit, the healthcare bill, economic doldrums or the 30,000-troop surge to Afghanistan, the White House instinctively fields Mr Axelrod or Mr Gibbs on television to explain the administration’s position.