Its nearly time to take a breather from blog posts about the Obama campaign, so lets round up with how he can take his principles of involving people into the White House.

Everyone said it was inevitable that young people wouldn’t vote and people of all ages would think of politicians as remote, elitist and ‘not like them’. Obama has changed that. His resounding victory lowered the barriers and enabled supporters to participate, own a bit of the campaign and reach each other. Its a relationship story with the internet as the facilitator.

Obama can similarly destroy the other accepted wisdom that politicans govern in ivory towers, society as we used to know it is disintegrating and we are all powerless against the ’system’.

For an Obama government there will be greater expectations on feedback and accountability. Ideas being suggested include online forums where the public can comment on legislation, YouTube townhall style meetings where citizens can question the President and an enlightened approach to sharing information and asking people to contribute at local level to achieving improvements in their own communities.

A point made by Rebecca Knight in the FT was that he was recreating the intimacy developed by FDR’s fireside chats with the nation, seeking support from the public for his New Deal measures to revive the economy. Old principles applied in a modern setting!

How amazing that already he's launched his new site, www.change.gov, to promote a new style of govt.