September 23, 2010--Kitchen Cabinet

With Larry Summers finally departing from the Obama economic team, it is an opportunity not to just replace him with someone like him but reconceptualize it.

The president needs a very different kind of Council of Economic Advisers. The type he and previous presidents have had is made up of economists, academics, and corporate types such as Summers. Of course he needs the advice these kinds of folks from their expertise can provide since our economy is complex and globally interconnected.

But he needs something more--advice from people with common sense. From, as Obama would put it, "ordinary people" who are living daily with the consequences of government economic policy.

Presidents from Andrew Jackson to Harry Truman had Kitchen Cabinets that informally advised them. Now, Obama needs one of his own.

For the most part his predecessors' were not composed of ordinary people and they did not meet in anything resembling a kitchen. (Though Jackson may have used the White House kitchen for some of his meetings.) They were mostly made up of academics and trusted aides who advised the former presidents about the shape of their policies and how their practices were playing out politically.

Obama should establish a version that would benefit by meeting in an actual kitchen. Say, once a month in the kitchen of one of its members. So he could hear informally, outside the White House bubble, what is on people's minds and what they suggest he might do to be a more effective leader. Perhaps this might help penetrate his "cool" and make him more publicly empathetic.

I have a recommendation about who should be the first member--the woman who the other day at his MSNBC-televised "town meeting" confronted him about her frustrations with his leadership and administration.

She is Velma Hart, who described herself as a chief financial officer, a mother and a military veteran. She spoke forcefully, telling President Obama that though she had been an enthusiastic supporter, she is now disappointed that he has not lived up to her once-lofty expectations. She said she and her husband are worried that if things get worse for them they will have to go back to eating a lot of dinners of franks and beans.

“I’m exhausted of defending you, defending your administration. . . . I’m deeply disappointed where we are right now,” she said, adding that when she voted for Mr. Obama, she thought he would change Washington. “I’m waiting, sir. I’m waiting. I don’t feel it yet. . . . Is this my new reality?”

He didn't address the "new reality" issue--to do so honestly would have been politically disastrous because it may be true: what we are experiencing may presage a new, reset reality--but she did appear to get to him. At first uncomfortable being confronted, after a tense attempt to find some humor in the situation, Obama took the rest of what she asked seriously. But then he lapsed into the now familiar checklist of all the the things he has accomplished while in office that are supposed to benefit the middle class--from health care reform to some new regulation of the credit card industry.

But the people at the meeting as well as the viewers at home were still left feeling that though some legislation has passed none of it is as yet having much visceral impact on the economy or the lives of ordinary people. Or, additionally important, that Obama is feeling their pain.

To do so he has to get out more and spend real time in unmediated situations where he can hear directly and privately from the people who had such high hopes for him but now, like the woman he encountered, are having a difficult time believing in him or his leadership.