Obama, please remember to impress the public, not the pundits

you were elected by the public, not the pundits, you owe the pundits nothing.

if you impress the pundits at the expense of the public, you gain the votes of a few, but lose the support of the many.



while i'm hopeful about Obama, i have to admit that i've seen Democrats in Washington often reflexively try to sound reasonable to the people that interview or talk about them in the mainstream media environment in Washington.

but it's at Democrats' peril if they succeed in impressing DC punditry, the centrist-at-any cost, no matter how much it harms people, that DC punditry fetishizes.

even third way Bill Clinton refused major cuts to Medicaid and shut the government down when pressed. the press would have had him cave. the pundits thought that to be fair, some poor people would need to be thrown off Medicaid. but Clinton wouldn't and let the government shut down, TWICE, over it and at first he lost the press, but then won the public.

please heed this lesson Mr. Obama, please.