Obama Goes Into Campaign Mode with Media

New strategy seeks to use president's face time more wisely
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 16, 2010 8:35 AM CST
Obama Goes Into Campaign Mode with Media
President Obama reads from a teleprompter while speaking at Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich in this file photo.   (Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Facing criticism that President Obama isn't connecting with the public, the White House is infusing its communications strategy with some of the discipline and outside-the-box thinking that made Obama's presidential campaign famous. Sensitive about talk that the president was sometimes overexposed last year, the administration will now be more frugal with Obama's face time, and more picky about who he talks to.

The new approach will include:

  • More direct, rapid response to criticism.
  • More events at which the president speaks directly to the public without a media filter.
  • Carefully choreographed interactions with the press, with fewer news conferences and more interviews.
It's an approach similar to the one employed successfully by Obama's 2008 campaign. "We ran everything through one strategic filter—how does this help us win the election?" said the White House's communication director. "Anything that didn't help us do that, we didn't do."
(More Barack Obama stories.)

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