I spent Sunday night connecting resistors to an arduino board at TechShop. I initially had grand visions of remote control cars and a robotic beer catapult. After 6 hours I had 2 blinking LEDs and I’d singed my hair on a soldering iron. My point: You have to start somewhere.

This brings me to Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. Having been a speech writer, I know that this address was meant to prepare Americans for what is expected to be a 2yr journey out of the worst financial crisis since the 30’s. Newspapers are likening Obama to Lincoln, especially given the fact that he was sworn in on the latter’s bible. But I’d have to argue the new president is more like Franklin D Roosevelt. 

Sworn in during the Great Depression, FDR introduced the New Deal in his first 100 days in office. In his inaugural speech he said, “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.”  Obama’s “new era of responsibility” sounds eerily similar.

We are no longer fans of the Obama sports franchise, we’ve just volunteered as concession workers, janitors and water boys. Maybe the new US president isn’t going to be the laugh riot we first thought he’d be, but if he takes a page out of the FDR playbook, we might just see the end of this slump.