I caught a little bit of President Obama’s address on the economy this afternoon and was struck by this particular passage:

What we need is not a three-month plan, or even a three-year plan; we need a long term American strategy, based on steady persistent, effort, to reverse the forces that have conspired against the middle class for decades. This has to be our project.

When Obama said we didn’t need a 3-year plan, I thought he was going to say we needed a 5-year plan a la Joseph Stalin. Well, if there is going to be concerted effort “to reverse the forces that have conspired against the middle class” then look out for a 21st century version collectivization. Obamacare only but scratches the surface. Let us not forget that Obama has long wanted to “fundamentally transform” this country.

Towards the end of a speech that lasted more than an hour, Obama stated:

I have now run my last campaign. I do not intend to wait until the next campaign of the next President before tackling the issues that matter. I care about one thing and one thing only, and that’s how to use every minute — the only thing I care about is how to use every minute of the remaining 1,276 days of my term — to make this country work for Americans again. That’s all I care about. I don’t have another election.

The election might have ended more than eight months ago, but the campaign to fundamentally transform is far from over. As long as there are Republicans, the 1% and George Zimmerman to be villified, Obama will be engaged in one kind of campaign or another in his final 1,276 days in office. All of which means that the next 1,276 days won’t be much different from the first 1,637 days of the presidency of Barack Obama.