BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
Random Thoughts

The Keystone Pipeline is a project of a Canadian company intended to double the amount of crude oil brought into the United States, creating tens of thousands of jobs, decreasing our dependence on Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil, and maybe even reducing the cost of energy. The pipeline would extend from Alberta, where oil is being extracted from oil or tar sands, through the American Midwest to refineries in Texas. It’s a private project but it is international and therefore needs approval of the State Department.

The project caused consternation among environmental groups and some of the communities along the path of the pipeline, particularly in Sand Hills of Nebraska. The solution for the local residents of the Midwestern states is to relocate parts of the line and increase safety to ensure, as best as possible, that the pipeline is as environmentally safe as a pipeline can be, balancing their concerns with the economic benefits.

The only solution acceptable to the more extreme environmental organizations is killing the project outright. Well that was until President Obama stepped in.

Wait. I’m sorry. The President didn’t step in. Presidential Candidate Obama did.

The President should have let the State Department decide the matter. Or the President should have trumped State, taken a bite out of the bullet and made a definitive decision to let the pipeline go forward or stop it. Candidate Obama put the decision off until after the 2012 elections. He put the Federal Government in the position of making no decision, the worst decision of all, and in doing so he told the Canadians to shop elsewhere for a market for their oil. The decision was a brazen concession to political factions that delivered the goods for him in his 2008 campaign. The decision wasn’t disguised or covered up or clouded up so it appeared it was something it wasn’t. It was a brazen, in your face rejection of what was clearly in the interests of the country—a final definitive decision for or against the pipeline—in favor of the interests of his re-election campaign.

House Republicans intend to put the pipeline project back in the pipeline for approval next week. Congress ought to approve it and force the President to act presidentially.

SPEAKING OF THE YEAR-ROUND CAMPAIGN…

It was noted recently (I don’t recall where) that President Obama has had more than three times the number of fundraisers that Bill Clinton had and about twice the number that George Bush had in the pre-election year of their bid for a second term. It was also noted that Obama has visited swing states significantly more times than President Bush. According to the Republican National Committee, President Obama has been in them in excess of 40 times, 11 times in Pennsylvania alone

It should also be noted here that President Obama did what I have never known another President to do. He used—not abused—the great honor granted Presidents by the Legislative Branch of government to address a Joint Session of Congress for purely, not partial, but purely partisan political purposes.

The President stood at the podium in the House chambers last September and attempted to bring public pressure on the Congress to pass a job creation bill that hadn’t even been introduced yet. He admonished the Congress to pass the bill 17 times in less than 30 minutes. The ‘pass it now’ sloganeering folded nicely into a new campaign theme he unveiled a short time later:  “We Can’t Wait.”

There is simply no way anyone can describe that speech as consistent with the conduct of his duties as President of the United States.  The jobs bill was dead on arrival and everyone knew it. It was a political ploy to draw attention away from the failure of the President and the Congress to come up with job creation legislation and do something about the debt crisis that was contributing to the economic slump. It was in response to his dismal polling numbers and the growing threat to his re-election. Every President has used presidential addresses to drill home a partisan political point, but rarely is a historical presidential venue like that used exclusively that way. President Obama, again was brazen about it. He didn’t even bother to use one of his celebrated basketball head fakes. He just drove straight for the basket.

The speech and his jobs plan, the pipeline decision, the whirlwind campaign travel and fundraising fetes, and his absence without leave status during the deficit reduction talks, reinforce the notion that President Obama has changed the paradigm for governing and campaigning.  He has led us into a murky, foggy atmosphere in which you can’t tell the difference between the two. It is in that fog where politicians no longer feel obligated to govern; they only have to campaign, ensure their re-election so they can govern better at some future time after the next corrective election. The circular logic applied here is that if they get re-elected or elect more people who share their views, that in itself is good for the country and therefore good governance.

President Obama’s new strategy of full-time campaigning illustrates that point and the problem it produces, but he is my no means the only practitioner. A large number of members of Congress are doing exactly the same thing—giving up on governing and campaigning full time.

Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.