Obama's Post-Presidency, An Idea! HD

The idea of The Obama Center explained: when President Obama leaves office in January, 2017, he will be just 56 and-a-half years young, with at least two whole decades of productive working years ahead of him. He’ll also have the best perspective on the approaches that are, and are not, working in our communities. I think he needs to put that wealth of knowledge to good use immediately, by creating a nonprofit organization, for now let’s call it The Obama Center, that focuses on strengthening our cities by identifying the ideas that are working best around the country and the world, and then compelling elected officials at the state and local level to adopt versions of these ideas. Subscribe to TDC for full coverage of the Obama Presidency and American politics: https://www.youtube.com/TheDailyConversation/ Like our page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/thedailyconversation Join us on Google+ https://plus.google.com/100134925804523235350/posts Follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/thedailyconvo Using his vast network of personal connections, BO would hire a team based in whichever city he and the First Lady settle in. They would identify a number of core issues to work on, like increasing high school graduation rates; reducing gun violence; tackling obesity; and maximizing the effectiveness of law enforcement’s ability to handle cyber-crime, or the racial divide in their communities. And then the cities that are doing the best at tackling each particular issue would be identified, with the help of a small group of the best qualified experts from around the country, who would eventually come together for a few days to dive deeply into the issue and come up with a general blueprint for success. Now I know they aren’t going to be able to offer a one-size fits all solution, and their plans probably won’t be perfect, but it will go a long way toward helping to provide a higher standard. With the analysis step complete, and having hired teams to start centers in cities across the country, the Obama center would disseminate this blueprint to these local centers so the staff on the ground can create an approach tailored to the needs of their specific city, and then, they’d bring together the city’s decision makers and local experts on that issue to present the Center’s findings to those individuals who are capable of working together to enact changes in practice and policy to do the job better. As the Obama center makes progress on an issue, positive developments can be shared on social and traditional media to foster a spirit of productive competition that increases awareness and momentum nationwide. President Obama and his team have already been doing a lot of this work by putting together task forces and summits, but stretched thin by the many commitments of the Oval Office, and restricted by Washington politics, the President can only do so much to help good ideas spread. Since the central aim of the Obama Center would be to strengthe