Obama's Never Ending Campaign

Of course he is on permanent campaign mode. From the town halls to the Leno performance the President has convinced himself all he has to do is give speeches and voila, substance and policy will follow. In the real world facts are facts and running a country is not the same as running a government. Anyway I don't think he will be as successful in motivating people and as the 2008 election fades Obama is going to be increasingly reliant on special interest money, be it from unions or corporations.

Mr Obama is currently deploying the formidable resources he built up during his campaign—including contact details for 10m donors, supporters and volunteers—to sell his policies. David Plouffe, the man who managed Mr Obama’s presidential campaign, has sent millions of e-mails to encourage them to support the White House’s agenda.

One of them contains as good a definition of the permanent campaign as any: “In the next few weeks we’ll be asking you to do some of the same things we asked of you during the campaign—talking directly to people in your communities about the president’s ideas for long-term prosperity.” Another, which includes a video of the president, asks supporters to put pressure on their congressman to pass Mr Obama’s budget, by calling his or her office and reciting a little pro-Obama speech.
Mr Obama frequently looks like a man in campaign mode. He has delivered a striking number of speeches in swing states which he needs to retain in 2012, for example. Democratic pressure groups are also fuelling the campaign atmosphere. MoveOn.org has sent millions of e-mails talking up Mr Obama’s budget as “ambitious, amazing and unapologetically progressive”.

Running a government is not the same as running a campaign.
More from CNN:

ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) -- Democrats mounted a nationwide effort Saturday to try to harness the grassroots support that helped propel President Obama's campaign and use it to push for his administration's initiatives

Volunteers met in 1,200 to 1,300 locations across the country, organizers said -- from a library in Arlington, Virginia, to a park in Brooklyn, New York, to homes and restaurants in California.

In some, participants discussed the president's agenda. In others, they set out to homes, subway stations and farmers' markets, asking people to sign forms in which they pledge support for "President Obama's bold approach for renewing America's economy" and commit to asking friends, family and neighbors to do the same.