Dear Barack,

I hope you don’t mind me using your first name, but you have come to first name basis with America these days.

I’ll state right off, I am really on the fence about you.  But I am full of ideas and needed to share them with you.

You have a rare opportunity here, have you any idea how rare? People are looking to you with Messianic hope, thinking you will lead the Ghost Dance and put things back as they belong.

Hope, Faith, Unity and “Yes We Can!”

Just words, but when you lead people to believe them, you have a responsibility.

If you are to be an Agent of Change, as you espouse, you need to know a few things about that Public Sway that you hold so tenuously in your hands.

There was a time that leaders lead that sway.

There was a time, when Good Men spoke out, changing hearts and minds.

Then there came the Lesser Time… the time when it all turned inside out. It happened when we were both young, you and I. It happened when they discovered they could buy and sell the revolution back to us.

I hate to sound extreme, but Demographics became the Root of all Political Evil.

You see, Barack, there are people who will push-poll, and beta-test the masses.  People who will feed you lines that please the most people.  People who ask things like “What sounds more like some one you could support: ‘A strong American Defense’ or ‘Cut and Run’ ” ?

Then they will feed you, having framed it, to speak to the ends of the Public Sway they have created.

I hope you will be strong enough to resist.

In those older days, Leaders spoke not easy platitudes but hard truths.  They changed the Public Sway, not catered to it.  They would stand boldly, and tell People, “The way things are is wrong, and here is why…” Then they would quote the brightest and the best of their generation to support their claims.  They were not “Deciders” but rather reasoned men who surrounded themselves with true Experts in the Fields.

Real Leaders changed their minds as well. As more information became available to them, they actually adapted. JFK himself, one to which you have the burden of comparison to live with, changed his views with Bobby’s influence, and as he learned in Office.

Thats what real leaders do.  Grow.

Yes, you can.

Please, for the Love of your Country do not submit  your will, your ideas, your honest to God Truths to the demographics of a Nation who knows only what we have been told.  For in truth, we have been told far too little these past decades.

We need someone to trust us enough to tell us these truths.  We need you to trust us.

Inform yourself.  Don’t bring party cronies to your inner circle unless you truly believe they are the best in their fields. Seek out the best.

Then Listen.

Then stand strong, tell us what you have learned and we will in fact follow. Lead us.

We are pretty bright, when given a chance.

Transformational Leadership is just a word without something to back it up, my friend. A Leader doesn’t follow his people into popularity, a Leader gives them the information to form reasoned opinions and allows them to also change their minds.

See, if MLK had polled about his message, he would never have gotten out of the gate. His spin doctors would have said “That message will never go over in America.”

Sorry to use that much weathered analogy, and much sorrier still you will be held to all these Great Men’s standards.

But like I said, you have a RARE opportunity, Barack.

Use it well.

I pray you use it well.

Your Friend,

Diane