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info@cassidy.com

As a result of the new Obama lobbying rules, numerous groups are pursuing aggressive maneuvers to avoid lobbying registration requirements.  See today’s Blog of Legal Times story.

Here’s a recent GAO Report on States’ Use of Recovery Act Funding for Highways and Transit.  The quick and dirty summary:

Three-quarters of Recovery Act highway funds have been obligated, and reimbursements from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) are increasing. As of November 16, 2009, $20.4 billion had been obligated for just over 8,800 highway projects nationwide and $4.2 billion had been reimbursed nationwide by FHWA. States continue to dedicate most Recovery Act highway funds for pavement projects, but use of funds may vary depending on state transportation goals. Almost half of Recovery Act highway obligations nationally have been for pavement improvements—including resurfacing, rehabilitating, and reconstructing roadways. About 10 percent of funds has been obligated to replace and improve bridges, while 9 percent has been obligated to construct new roads and bridges.

Gerry Cassidy, the Founder and Executive Chairman of Cassidy & Associates, discusses America’s infrastructure crisis and the importance of the upcoming debate on transportation.

Check out Cassidy CEO Marty Russo’s latest contribution on whether the defnition of lobbying should be expanded over at the National Journal Under the Influence Experts blog.

Chris “The Fix” Cillizza has an interesting piece on the ways in which the Obama Administration has stepped up the usage of social media tools to move their key messages.

Related:  TPM has an interesting piece on the ways the State Department is using social media to advance their public diplomacy objectives.

Google has paired with the NY Times and the Washington Post to experiment with a new online news presentation format.

It’s currently still in Google Labs.  Here’s an example centered on Washington Post coverage of health care reform.

There is perhaps nothing so irritating as the habit of the media to over-hype a new trend, tool or phenomenon in the beginning, only to set themselves up to do a story a few months later about how whatever the “it” thing was has not lived up to “expectations.”

Business Week has a piece up entitled, Beware Social Media Snake Oil, which follows a similar path.

Perhaps it would be better to simply keep in mind that social media is a set of tools.  Used well, it can help achieve some pretty remarkable results.  However, it requires a thoughtful strategy and the resources necessary to implement that strategy.

Viewed as an end in itself, social media, like so many other things will likely yield only disappointment.

A new Brookings Institution study entitled “Invisible: 1.4 Percent Coverage for Education is Not Enough”  by Darrell West, Russ Whitehurst, and E.J. Dionne finds that only 1.4 percent of national news coverage from television, newspapers, news Web sites, and radio dealt with education. This paucity of coverage is not unique to 2009. In 2008, only 0.7 percent of national news coverage involved education, while 1.0 percent did so in 2007. This makes it difficult for the public to follow the issues at stake in our education debates and to understand how to improve school performance.

A former Democratic advocacy operative who recently joined Cassidy & Associates offers his unique insight into the healthcare debate on Capitol Hill as it recently intersected talks on immigration reform.

Albert Morales, former Deputy Director of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) American Majority Partnership and now vice president at C&A, is featured in the newest episode of C&A’s online series, Boardroom Perspective. Morales discusses recent action on Capitol Hill questioning whether undocumented workers should be covered in the healthcare reform package now in the Senate.