Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo is often quoted as saying, "You campaign with poetry, but you govern with prose." It was a line that Hillary Clinton used against Barack Obama during her presidential campaign, and now, we seem to be reminded of it nearly every day. Obama's people were great at campaigning but just can't seem to figure out that whole governance thing. There are swirling attacks on the Obama Administration from all sides, including their own friends: "Rahm Emanuel is too profane." "David Axelrod has forgotten how to communicate." "President Obama has morphed into Jimmy Carter." In his Sunday NY Times column, Frank Rich called the upcoming vote on health care an up-or-down vote on the Obama Presidency. I doubt it.

So here's my take on it: Running the United States is a really hard job and it takes a while to learn how to do it.

This has been true for a long time, but you have to go back to FDR and Abraham Lincoln to find a level of fundamental threat to our national well-being comparable to the one we face today. The national economy, global economic competition, China, Iran, the environment, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, world poverty, crumbling infrastructure; and did I mention terrorism? Perhaps we ought to cut these folks a little slack. Undoubtedly some will say that the White House is no place for on the job training. Unfortunately, it has to be. What other job prepares you for the White House? While running, say, New York City is difficult and complex, the New York City Council is not the U.S. Senate, and no neighborhood around here has ever been as ungovernable as the Middle East. Think of the John Kennedy we saw in April 1961 during the Bay of Pigs invasion and compare him to the leader we saw in the 13 days of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. Talk about on the job training. Obama and his team are loaded with talent, but the job they have taken on is beyond difficult; they did not create the multiple crises we now face, but they are actually trying to do something about them.

It is very fashionable to play Monday morning quarterback on the strategy for health care. There is no question that the message has been confused and the legislative process has looked more than ever like sausage making. This is clearly a case of interest group politics run amok. As anyone who has taken the time to study the health care proposal knows, it is a deeply flawed compromise. But those flaws are not fatal, and I have to believe that the Democrats have so much on the line that they will manage to complete the process and get the bill passed. The president has sent out a clear message that he wants an up-or-down vote on the bill and has successfully countered the Republican effort to delegitimize the Congressional reconciliation process.

I think that the bill will pass because the wavering Democrats fear one thing more than being attacked on a new health care law: the prospect that the debate will continue into the fall. Democrats, the President included, want desperately to turn the page. Immigration, climate and energy and, most critically, the economy need to be addressed. For the Democrats to hold their own in November, people will have to believe that the Great Recession is really over and that the President and the Democrats deserve some credit for getting us through treacherous economic waters.

Obama and his team will need to focus on a single message of economic revival this coming fall. They will need to learn how to convey that message through the confusing cacophony of the 24-7 global web-based news cycle. If there is one lesson I think the White House must master it is, ironically, how to use the Presidency to effectively dominate the new media news cycle. The American Presidency has more resources to accomplish this feat than any other institution in the world, but the global media is a moving target and is difficult to steer. It's not clear if this is actually an achievable goal, but if anyone can do it, it's President Obama.

Heading toward November 2010 and then 2012, President Obama must define and occupy the political center. He must portray his opponents as out of touch extremists. In the end, all of American politics is about defining and occupying the political center. Our political structure reinforces our centrist tendencies. A strongly ideological party could win 20% of the votes in every Congressional district in the country and still send no one to Congress. Third parties in presidential politics are discouraged by the math of the Electoral College. This is not a right or left wing country but a nation of pragmatic moderates.

President Obama shows every sign that he possesses this understanding and my guess is that, as he turns his attention from the prose of governing to the rhetoric of midterm elections, we will soon hear more of the campaign poetry we heard back in 2008. Barack Obama has been underestimated before, the perils of which his opponents seem to be more aware of than his friends.

AP - Scores of Islamic students staged protests outside Jakarta's parliament and in at least three other major Indonesian cities on Friday against President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to this predominantly Muslim country.

On Saturday, March 6, FOX celebrates 1,000 episodes of the venerable crime-fighting series "America's Most Wanted," and host and noted victims-rights advocateJohn Walshtakes the opportunity to make an in-person pitch toPresident Barack Obama.In July 2006, then-President George W. Bush signed into law the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act (H.R. 4472), which had among its sponsors Vice President Joe Biden, who was then the senator from Delaware.The bill is named after Walsh's son, who was abducted and murdered at the age of 6, more than a quarter-century ago. That event propelled Walsh, a Florida land developer, into the public eye and eventually led to him being named as host of "America's Most Wanted."According to Walsh, Congress has yet to fund the bill, intended to create a national sex-offender registry and pursue serious sex offenders who are not complying with legal requirements. The act does have its critics, who have concerns about its implementation and constitutionality.At the beginning of February, between trips to Haiti and Central America, Walsh spoke to Zap2it about his struggle to get the bill fully funded."There are 100,000 convicted, Level Three [offenders out there]," Walsh says. "It's not the guy that peed at Mardis Gras; not the 18-year-old kid that had sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend, consensual sex, and now the father hates him, so he has to register. It's not those guys, but the really bad guys, and it still isn't funded."They bailed out AIG; they bailed out Citigroup; they bailed out GM. And there's 100,000 convicted sex offenders and rapists of women, Level Three, in violation of their parole and probation, floating around this country, and they haven't allocated the money to the U.S. Marshals and FBI to look for them."So, that's on my mission, going to the White House in, I think, about two weeks, to try to say, 'How could this bill be passed by the House and Senate and not be funded in three years?'"According to Walsh, he had a Biden staffer with him in Haiti."I love Joe Biden," Walsh says. "He was a co-sponsor of this act. This congress is so busy bailing out everybody, and I said to his [aide], 'How could anybody be in this Rose Garden, sign this bill and not fund it? How could this congress, with all this bulls*** and all the money that they're bailing out everybody with, not fund the Adam Walsh Act?'"Well, Walsh got his chance to buttonhole the man at the top, on-camera, and on Saturday, "America's Most Wanted" viewers will get to see what Obama said.Follow Zap2it on TwitterandFacebookfor the latest movies, TV and celeb newsPhoto credit: FOX

Sen. Barack Obama may have a pretty nice lead going in the polls right now, but with less than a month to go, he's not looking to run out the clock just yet. In fact, his latest move shows he's looking to run up the score--and he hopes online gamers are, too.

Video game company Electronic Arts has confirmed that the Obama campaign has purchased advertising space in several of its most popular games for the Xbox, including "Madden NFL 09." The ads appear as billboards or stadium signs and are downloaded when players in key battleground states log in to play the games online. Of course, this isn't a route that the average small-business owner can afford to take, but the lessons to be learned are as obvious as some of John Madden's color commentary.

Stay Ahead of the Curve Election season never fails to bring us cool new marketing strategies. This is a perfect example. And it's as much about your image as it is about the message you choose to put out there. If you're portraying yourself as a business on the cutting edge, your marketing should reflect that.

Be Laser-Focused Sometimes winning an election is all about turnout. Obama will be depending largely on younger voters. EA's customers? They're males, age 18-34. If he can get them off the couch to vote, he'll be in great shape. If you can get your target market fired up, you're on the right track as well.

Be Nimble and Adaptable The coolest thing about this form of advertising (besides the whole video game thing) is that it could presumably be changed to fit whatever's going on in the campaign on a given day. You can do the same thing for your business with blogs, social networking sites and other forms of Web 2.0 marketing. Connect with your market by making them come back to see what happens next.