Once my (bright, Valedictorian,
PBK, 'Summa Cum Laude', Woodrow Wilson,
NSF, Ph.D.) wife gave me a question:

We were running a little consulting
company, and one of our clients was
from a wealthy family. My wife
asked me about that client,
"What has he actually done himself?"
that is, that he didn't mostly get
just handed to him from his position
in the wealth and power of his family?

That was a good question. Prescient. Indeed,
when he started making decisions really
on his own, he made just awful decisions
and lost again and again, in total a bundle,
a big fraction of
his share of the family's wealth.
Not unexpected: The great American
novel is rags to rags in three
generations!

Okay, look at Ohama: What has he actually
done besides have several smart and/or
wealthy people help him ride a wave
to get elected?

From what I can see, generally his approach
is when there is an issue in the news, have his writers
formulate some cliches on the issue,
mouth the cliches, and then do
nothing or nothing significant
and wait until the MSM, etc. forget
about the issue.

In one step more detail, he has
in mind a coalition -- that's one
role of a politician, to form a
winning coalition. So, e.g., one
of the groups he wants in his
coalition are the greenies.
So, back early in 2008 he gave
an interview with the San Francisco
Chronicle where he said that his
idea was to have carbon "cap and
trade" and slowly "ratchet up"
the standards until the coal fired
electric generating plants were
"bankrupt". When I read that, I
went into orbit somewhere in the
outer planets before returning to
earth. Why? Easy enough to find in
Department of Energy reports
was that then 49% of all of our
electric power and, as I recall,
23% of all our energy was coming
from coal. So, in simple, stark
terms, his "bankrupt", taken literally,
would do more damage to the US
economy than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao
ever hoped. And Obama admitted
the effect, that electric rates
would "skyrocket".

But eventually I understood that I
had gotten all excited over next
to nothing: Yes, apparently some
old coal fired plants have been
shut down -- a good report would
be of interest but I don't have
a reference to one. But electric
rates have not gone up like
a "skyrocket". I doubt
that the coal plant shutdowns
have amounted to much.
Indeed, Buffett recently
bought Burlington Northern
Railroad which is big in
hauling coal to coal plants.
So, no doubt Buffett took
Obama's SF Chronicle interview
as, to quote the movie All the
President's Men, "total BS".

So, what the heck did he do?
Well, he got some greenies all
happy for a while and likely
got some political donations.
With the happy greenies, he got
freedom to aim some of the
TARP II and stimulus money
(supposedly $92 billion
and later another $45 billion) to
green projects that
likely resulted in some
political power and campaign
donations.

Big, huge waste, right? Well,
yes, but maybe not totally useless:
Heck in WWII we got
out of The Great Depression
in about 90 days by pouring money
into guns and bullets that
were junk by 1945 (suddenly
had 1-3 jobs for everyone
who could work, women included,
especially if they could learn to
use a rivet gun).
So, maybe pouring $92 billion
plus $45 billion into projects
that might, unfortunately, be just junk soon
enough might help get the economy
going, e.g., as that money soon gets
spent for the usual things --
food, clothing, shelter,
transportation, medical care,
education, .... Or, it was like
the helicopter solution --
fly over the US and drop money
until the economy is going again.

Maybe the greenies
are less than 20% of the population.
So, what about the 80+% of the
population not greenies who don't
want to see 49% of our electric
utility industry destroyed?
Well, apparently that 80+%
just didn't pay attention to
the Obama greenie remarks and
otherwise didn't take him
seriously. And one step
more, as soon as shutting down
our electric power started
to pinch, people would scream
bloody murder and the situation
would be turned around.

So, net, curiously, the 20-% get all
excited and contribute to a coalition
long enough to win an election;
the 80+% mostly pay no attention;
and soon enough everyone forgets about the
issue.

So, can build a coalition, say, long
enough to get elected: (1) Pick a list
of controversial issues and, for each, pick
a small group of highly concerned
citizens. (2) In some speeches, feed each group some
radical raw meat cliches that they will really
like. (3) In reality, do next to nothing or nothing
on the cliches. (4) Let time pass, new issues
dominate the news, and the old issues
fade into the background.

Then what about the real work? (1) Wait
until others propose solutions.
(2) Wait until some such solutions
get some traction. (3a) If the solution
is really popular in the country, then
support it. (3b) If the solution
is just to be implemented in the
Executive Branch, then let it
but don't publicly support it;
if the solution flops, blame
the lower level people who implemented
it; if the solution is successful,
take credit.

But, mostly don't actually have a
vision and push it and bet own
political capital on it.

If Obama has a vision, then my guess
is that he just wants as much more
money and power in DC as he can
bring there so that DC can
take the US by the horns and
lead it somewhere, say, to
social justice. Otherwise
he gets time to work on his
golf game and jump shot.

What's wrong? He's not really leading.
He's not really out in front
with solutions. He mostly is just
letting things happen from others
and avoiding being close enough
to get blamed. So, there's not
much coordination.
Mostly he's avoiding
blame.

Why don't people notice what he's
doing? Because things, especially
the economy and wars, are not bad
enough for people to be
interrupting the rest of their
lives to raise hell insisting
on something better. And,
people do pay a lot of attention to the
MSM, and the MSM has a very
short attention span.

E.g., for the Benghazi controversy?
The NSA controversy pushed that
out of the headlines. For the
NSA controversy? Issue cliches
and otherwise let Clapper, General
Alexander, and Biden
meet the public. For Snowden,
mostly just f'get about him.

Back to the golf game and jump shot.

Or, "How to be President without
Really Trying". Works as long
as the voters put up with it
and there's no crisis that
demands more.

Crisis? What about hurricane Sandy? As at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy

"Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the second-costliest hurricane in United States history."

So, with hurricane Katrina, W got
excoriated, eviscerated, drawn, quartered,
etc. With hurricane Sandy
Governor Christie got some publicity,
Mayor Bloomberg was busy,
but Obama got no blame. Cute.