President-elect Barack Obama faces more urgent and potentially life- and lifestyle-changing crises domestically and internationally than any other president in US history.
He didn’t sweep into office with a mandate, but his get-elected strategy was the first one to pay attention to the voice of citizens on the Internet. His transition team wants to continue the dialogue, so they’ve created a direct pipeline to the Presidency with the Citizens Briefing Book.
For only another week or so, you have the power to directly influence your new president. The interactive website lets you vote on the issues most important to you in 10 main categories or on a subject of your choosing. Your vote adds 10 points to the importance of that issue. Issues receiving the highest points will be compiled into a briefing book and presented to the President Obama after he’s sworn in. Your votes (you can vote for more than one issue) could be instrumental in shaping the focus of the President’s first 100 days in office.
This may be the second most important vote you cast for the future of our country
Instead of leaving politics to the politicians, what if cutting out the middleman and telling President Obama exactly what you want him to do to solve this country’s problems really worked?
The transition team promises the Briefing Book will be presented directly to the president at one of his first briefings, the traditional method used for keeping the president informed by his cabinet. For example, if your hot button is Energy and the Environment, the current top 5 issues on the Citizens Briefing Book site (as I write this post) are:
- Bullet Trains & Light Rail
- Commit to becoming the “Greenest” country in the world
- Increase MPG requirements now!
- Bring Back the Constitution
- Let’s make reduced-scale farming profitable! Less dependence on imported foods
Each vote gets 10 points. Vote on as many issues as you want. Or submit issues of your own. There are only a few simple steps to get started:
- Sign up for an account. This took me less than 1 minute.
- Use the search box to find an issue you care about. Or pick an issue category listed on the left-hand sidebar.
- Select the “popular ideas” button to see which issues have gained the most traction so far.
- Vote. A vote “up” adds 10 points. A vote “down” subtracts 10 points.
- Leave a comment. Comments will be included in the briefing, and comments are ripe for plucking by the mainstream news media (and other blogs) who seek newsworthy story ideas. Your voice becomes part of the national conversation on how our top problems should be solved.
That’s it…other than you must act quickly. There’s no guarantee how long this site will be up before votes are tallied and the briefing is compiled.
President-elect Obama has demonstrated over the past 12 months that he’s very committed to inclusive government. Does that mean he’ll be swayed by popular opinion? Who knows. Too early to tell. But it does mean that for the first time in the history of American politics, the most powerful leader on earth has openly and directly solicited my advice, unfiltered by party politics. Power to the People! Pass it on.
