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As Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny reported in the New York Times, the Democrats appear to be preparing to go it alone on health care reform while trying to hang the obstructionist tag on the Republicans.

Cross Posted on The Huffington Post.

The Obama administration and 111th Congress will inherit an aging national transportation infrastructure and no clear path for funding its much-needed overhaul. While some short-term projects and funding decisions may get resolved in the lame duck session — possibly rolled into a supplemental stimulus package — several must-pass appropriation and authorization measures need resolution before they expire next year.

The backlog of authorization and appropriation measures have been put on hold while Congress funded two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and addressed the global banking crisis. These legislative “must-do’s” threaten any immediate reform or change that might come from the Obama administration or a re-energized Democratic Congress.  Further, building the new administration and shifting committee assignments on a practical level delay significant movement on transportation issues.

The Good News

The good news is that the Obama administration and key leaders in Congress support reinvesting in America’s transportation system. Throughout the campaign, Obama drew a connection between infrastructure investment and jobs, economic benefits and long-term energy policy.

As an Illinois lawmaker, Obama has been a strong supporter of rail, aviation and public transit. Chicago is the hub for United Airlines and American Airlines, a significant freight and passenger rail hub and home the second oldest public transit system in the nation – Chicago’s elevated train system.  Further, Biden is a daily Amtrak commuter, and his son sits on the Amtrak board.

Because transportation has traditionally been a less partisan issue, it could naturally rise to the top of the “to do” pile as Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi look for easy, forward moving progress on issues that affect people’s daily lives. There will be significant pressure on the new administration to quickly deliver on some campaign promises, particularly in the area of job creation.

The Bad News

The bad news is that while there may be a will, the way is not so clear. The high cost of fuel has moved Americans to consume less gasoline. The result has been fewer gas tax dollars and a significantly under-funded Highway Trust Fund that supports most of our nation’s road and rail and public transit work.  Similarly, reduced airline capacity and weakened demand for air travel has resulted in fewer ticket taxes feeding into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. Given the tough economic times and a renewed focus on helping the “middle class,” there is little appetite on either side of the aisle to raise the gas tax or add new airline passenger ticket taxes.   So the traditional transportation funding sources are not expected to be able to meet the budgeted projections.

In his campaign, Obama sketched out the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to supplement existing federal funding mechanisms. However, his vision for this bank was low on details and would require $60 billion in federal funds over 10 years.

Clearly, finding sustainable funding streams for upgrading our national transportation infrastructure is a major challenge facing Congress and the new administration.

Highways as Job Creators

The congressional infusion of $8 billion into the Highway Trust Fund will only keep the program operating until the end of 2009. However, many economists and key congressional leaders view highway, bridge and other public works projects as vital job generators. With an estimated loss of more than a quarter million construction jobs in 2008 alone, major roadwork projects could help with an economic comeback..

Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn.,  chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has pledged to include “significant infrastructure investment” in any lame duck session stimulus package. However, the slow start of the debate over the national surface transportation law – the “Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users,” better known as SAFETEY-LU — with its complex funding challenges, will likely push this issue into the new year.

Rail and Transit Support Strong

Obama and Biden strongly support Amtrak and have called for development of high-speed freight and passenger rail. They also support providing a connection to rural and underserved communities by rail. Further, Obama has promoted improving metropolitan planning of public transit systems to both ease congestion and improve access to low-income individuals.So far, they have not offered any specifics on legislative or programmatic initiatives.

In her role as chair of Environment and Public Works Committee and an active member of the Commerce Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., figures to be a key player in the future of freight and passenger rail.  Her home state has approved a ballot initiative calling for the development of a $44 billion high-speed rail system connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles.  The project is considered one to watch and dovetails with Boxer’s push to get rail safety and technology improvements all along the West Coast following the MetroLink accident in September.

Air Traffic Control Modernization A Priority

It is surely foreboding that Wall Street Journal reporter Scott McCartney’s Election Day column was titled, “A Flier’s Plea to our New President.” His request was to do what virtually all parties agree is a top transportation priority for Obama and the 111th Congress: modernize our nation’s air traffic control (ATC) system. In his campaign policy positioning, Obama put ATC modernization at the top of his list of priorities citing the need to implement the stalled NextGen satellite-based ATC navigation project.

However, any policy changes around modernization of ATC will have to involve newly emboldened transportation unions, including the National Air Traffic Controllers union and Teamster-allied PATCO. Labor and trade issues further complicate this situation.

The Obama administration’s opposition to outsourcing overseas could stymie movement on liberalization of foreign investment in U.S. airlines and outsourcing of maintenance work to foreign repair stations. This calls into question the likelihood of full implementation of the Bush administration’s Open Skies bilateral agreement with the European Union.

Messaging For Priority

For transportation companies and interests – not always considered the most green elements of our economy – it will be important to communicate efficiency and conservation benefits in advocacy or advertising campaigns. It also will be essential to demonstrate how bridge repairs, public transit, freight rail or ATC modernization are smart and cost-effective policy decisions that support Obama’s long-term energy plans as the new administration and Congress assess their spending priorities.

During one of the presidential debates, Sen. Obama proved a stark contrast with Sen. McCain by declaring health care to be a right of all Americans. There is no question that the Obama administration will strive to deliver on that promise. But the complexity of making health care accessible and affordable to millions of Americans, coupled with the need to find the money pay for it, argues that comprehensive health care reform will take some time to develop and move through the legislative process.

A Peek at President Obama’s Agenda

Wide support exists for expanding health information technology, improving prevention and management of chronic diseases, encouraging workplace wellness and school programs to fight childhood obesity, and increasing the number of primary care providers. Setting national standards and helping reduce health disparities may also become bigger issues. However, it is unclear whether the Obama administration and a Democratically-controlled Congress will move ahead with health care reform piecemeal or wait and wrap everything into a comprehensive package.

Other parts of Obama’s health care agenda will face a tougher bi-partisan test. Prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage based on medical preconditions, legalizing drug reimportation, requiring pharmaceutical companies to disclose drug pricing, and lifting the current ban on Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices  — are all on Obama’s health care agenda.

Approximately 46 million people in America have no health insurance coverage.  President-elect Obama’s ambitious plan is to offer affordable, portable coverage to those who are not covered by their employer or who do not qualify for government programs.  Employers would need to “pay or play,” meaning that they would need to provide health insurance or pay into a national insurance fund. All children would be required to have health insurance purchased by their parents. A national health insurance exchange is proposed to help people and small companies find and compare insurance policies on their own.

Once again, initiatives that are budget-neutral or budget-cutting will gain the most traction. The cost of the new Administration’s health care coverage package will compete with other large national priorities and will be huge hurdle to overcome.

Women’s Health Will Take Priority

One area likely to see policy change is women’s health. In issues ranging from emergency contraception to sex education to redefining common contraceptives as forms of abortion, the Bush administration was often guided by socially conservative and religious views rather than science and medical expertise. Women’s health stalwarts such as Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) will likely push for greater funding of family planning and comprehensive sex education.  Expect to see mandatory coverage of contraceptives in line with other prescription drugs back on the legislative burner.

But don’t expect any further movement on Mike Leavitt’s “conscience clause” regulation he has promoted as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. That regulation would permit health care providers to deny medical services they find religiously objectionable.  Look for Susan Wood, former director of the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health, to make a comeback in the Obama administration. She resigned following a flap over the agency’s refusal to make a decision on the over-the-counter application for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive.

Renovation Time, Transparency at FDA

The FDA has seen more than its share of criticism from the Democratically-controlled Congress. But Republicans have also voiced concern over the agency’s handling of food safety and other issues. An overhaul of the agency is likely with an emphasis on transparency and accountability. For a new FDA head, Dr. Steve Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic is considered a possibility, someone who can strike the delicate balance of working with pharmaceutical companies while serving as a watchdog. The new Congress is expected to increase oversight of potential conflicts of interest between the agency and industry sponsors. There will be more congressional pressure on FDA to hold industry to account for commitments to ongoing research and to increase enforcement on direct to consumer (DTC) advertising.

Transparency will be a health care buzzword in Washington in 2009. In addition to conflicts of interest and oversight of food and drug safety, transparency also means cost savings. Government negotiation of drug pricing, pharmaceutical intellectual property and patents, and the pathway for follow-on biologics are all likely to be hot topics. These are all ways to potentially drive costs down in the health care system. While the early days of the new Congress will be dominated by approving Cabinet appointments for the new administration,  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will be under pressure to move the major pieces of legislation , including the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Now for the Who

President Obama’s transition team will quickly get to work building a health care team to support HHS Secretary nominee Tom Daschle. Obama’s staff already includes Dora Hughes, a physician who has been the architect of the senator’s prevention legislation. And his cadre of advisors is a “Who’s Who” of the health policy cognoscenti – including David Cutler, Austin Goolsbee, Tom Daschle and Paul Krugman. This group is heavy on economists, as economics will play a key role in any large-scale health care legislation.  The crystal ball is hazy, given the economic situation. But what is crystal clear is that the cost of doing nothing is higher and unsustainable. For these reasons, we will see a busy agenda in 2009 for health care policy but nothing as daunting as failed Clinton administration efforts in 1994 to remake the health care system.

After both party nominating conventions and with less than two months until Election Day, here are nine things we now know about the candidates running for president and vice president:

• Sarah Palin can “field dress” a moose
• Barack Obama is not a Muslim
• John McCain owns a lot of houses, he’s just not sure how many
• Joe Biden’s son is a lobbyist (the lowest form of life in this year’s election narrative)
• Sarah Palin is married to the “first dude”
• Barack Obama now wears a flag pin, but didn’t for a while
• John McCain has seven top advisors who were “Washington lobbyists”
• Sarah Palin’s 17 year-old unwed daughter is pregnant
• Sarah Palin’s husband had a DUI arrest 20 years ago (okay, I think we actually may already know too much about Sarah Palin)

These trivial tidbits of information have two things in-common – each has received extensive coverage in the mainstream media (and unending attention in the blogosphere) and none of them have anything to do with the candidates’ ability to lead the country.

This dynamic is by no means unique to the 2008 election and it is the subject of quadrennial hyperventilating by pundits wringing their hands over the state of America’s democracy.  But the disconnect between what matters and what is covered has never been as pronounced, or as damaging, as it is this year.

With two wars, a deepening recession, a health care crisis, global warming and $4/gallon gasoline all awaiting the next president and an American electorate that overwhelmingly feels the nation is “on the wrong track,” what passes for political discourse is a discussion of flag pins and lobbyists.  Something has gone seriously amiss.

As always in politics, there is plenty of blame to go around. 

Certainly the candidates and their campaigns play a major role in trying to focus attention on the trivial and deflect attention from more difficult or controversial issues.  There is also always the hope that one of these trivial issues will take hold in voters’ minds and play a pivotal role in determining the outcome (think about Al Gore’s sighing during the first debate against George Bush – meaningless until the conventional wisdom took hold that it was a sign of Gore’s unrepentant arrogance).

Among losing campaigns there is always a tendency to blame the voters, and it’s probably true that voters get the politicians and campaigns that they deserve.  That said, by all indications voters this year are looking for concrete solutions to the very real problems the country faces.

Finally, there is the media.  In an election that has generated so much interest for so long, there is tremendous competition among media outlets and the digerati to be the source of political information. 

One would hope that this competition would result in a better product.  Instead this competition has led to a significant “dumbing down” of the campaign coverage; a race to the bottom to see who can uncover the most innocuous but potentially salacious details about the candidates, their families, advisors and pets.

The mainstream media appear to believe that the way to beat back the onslaught of the blogosphere is to emulate them – focus on the trivial, the prurient, the outrageous rather than the substance.  This is a battle that the mainstream media simply cannot win.

Rather than trying to outshout the bloggers, the media might find their vanishing relevance restored by focusing on the substance of the campaign.  Reporting and analyzing the very real differences between the McCain and Obama approaches to taxes, health care, energy policy and Iraq would not only provide a public service, but re-establish the media as a trusted source of important information. 

Each campaign has spelled out specific policy proposals in all of these areas.  The problem is no one is reporting on the policy differences, so it’s hard for us humble voters to find them behind all the noise created by flag pins, lipstick on pigs and field dressing a moose.

After all the hype surrounding the YouTube/CNN Democratic presidential debate last month and in anticipation of the Republican YouTube debate in November, the New York Times asked seven “experts” to offer suggestions on truly ground breaking ways to integrate new media with the presidential debates. The piece “Changing the Terms of the Debate” is definitely worth checking out in today’s Times www.nytimes.com.

The experts’ views range from the very serious (and very complicated) to the humorous and slightly absurd.

Personally, I thought the best proposal comes from former NBC Nightly News Anchor Tom Brokaw (not exactly top of mind as a “new media guru”). Brokaw suggests a mixture of new technology with the traditional mother’s milk of politics – no not money — but the double martini.

I’m not sure any of the suggestions will dramatically lift the level of our democracy or even improve our political discourse, but they at least provide food for thought.

What do you think of the experts’ ideas? How else should the power of social media be harnessed to improve the way we vet and select our presidential candidates?

It was hyped as a revolutionary new way to engage presidential candidates in a “people’s debate” – sure to transform American democracy (of course it seems like everything related YouTube is hyped as revolutionary).

So in the end did the Democratic Presidential debate sponsored by YouTube and CNN last night in South Carolina really revolutionize our democracy? Probably not, but it marked the first time (at least in my memory) that eight presidential candidates were asked a question by a talking snowman (about global warming of course).

And while CNN selected the questions that were ultimately asked from more than 3,000 videos submitted, it marked the first time that voters were central players in a presidential debate in place of the usual cast of pundits and talking heads.

This marks probably the biggest accomplishment of this “revolutionary” debate. While Anderson Cooper “moderated” the debate (it did need a little star power after all), he was never the headliner – either in the pre-debate hype or the post-debate coverage.

Frankly, the candidates also played second fiddle to the questioners who were by far the most compelling part of the show.  The snowman, the lesbian couple from Brooklyn, the cancer patient – all brought important issues to life in a way that traditional presidential debate formats never have.

But I’m left with many questions:

What does the future of political candidate debates hold? Is this the beginning of a revolution or just an interesting detour?

Are the candidates up to really communicating in a way that will work in the social media space? They’re certainly trying hard. Is it working? Who’s doing it the best? Who’s the worst?

And finally, why is Mike Gravel running for President? Who told him it was a good idea and why did he listen?

Let me know what you think.

Fascinating piece by Del Quentin Wilber in today’s Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com about how airlines are trying to inject themselves into their disgruntled customers’ online discussions.

This demonstrates the new communications reality that corporations now face – their reputations are made or broken by stakeholders of all shapes and sizes – customers, employees, activists, regulators, shareholders, retirees – who interact with each other, but not necessarily with the company.

It is the discussions these stakeholders are having that drive corporate reputation today.

As Wilber reports in the Post, a disgruntled elite customer of Continental Airlines aired his displeasure at having been denied an upgrade (a feeling I understand all too well) in an online forum of elite flyers, www.flyertalk.com. Continental, apparently understanding the power of this conversation (especially among their best customers), routinely monitors the discussion and had one of their customer service agents explain in the forum that indeed the flyer had been erroneously denied an upgrade. He was given a free upgrade and measures were taken to prevent the snafu from recurring.

The situation was quickly defused and Continental likely retained the business of the individual passenger, and also demonstrated its concern and responsiveness to an entire group of elite flyers in a very authentic way.

But what happens when these discussions take place and corporations either don’t know about them or are unwilling or unable to engage? Nothing good.

Interestingly, Wilber reports that United Airlines worries about the anonymous nature of the online world and rather than engaging in the top forums, has created its own, tightly controlled forum of 200 elite United flyers. A United spokesperson is quoted as saying the controlled forum is “a very rich way to get data.”

Sounds more like traditional consumer research designed to help a company shape its messages, but not build its reputation.

Strong corporate reputations are based on many factors – including obviously quality products, customer service, management, financial performance, etc. But increasingly perceptions of these factors are being driven by stakeholder conversations. Identifying the most influential conversations and participants and then engaging with them in a transparent, authentic way are the keys to success.

Those companies that take the plunge will be rewarded. Those who continue to talk at their stakeholders instead of with them will ultimately be punished.

Our airline example bears this out. The 2006 J.D. Powers survey of more than 9000 U.S. flyers gave Continental the top rating for customer service with United checking in near the bottom at number six out of just eight.