Mr. Obama emerges in this volume as an oddly passive chief executive whose modus operandi was to sketch out overarching principles, "wait until others had painted in those outlines with hard proposals" and then "step down from his above-the-fray perch to close the deal".
No, McKelvey says: "I don't see much in the way of hard proposals for reinstituting discipline coming from either side of the aisle".
As Southern California emerges from a recession that hit architecture firms and architectural ambition particularly hard, proposals for large-scale projects including the Millennium Hollywood towers, an expanded Union Station and a new LACMA by Peter Zumthor have appeared, producing both anticipation and opposition, and now occupy the gray area between concept and execution.
Before agreement was possible, a hard proposal had to be on the table.
"They're talking about the problem and they're looking for solutions, but there's really no hard proposal on the table," said Hall, "so while this is informative and helpful, they're not dealing with some proposal where they're close to working on something".
"They're talking about the problem and they're looking for solutions, but there's really no hard proposal on the table," said Hall, "so while this is informative and helpful, they're not dealing with some proposal where they're close to working on something". Congress is a long way off, Hall said.
For Sen. Barack Obama, the same financial crisis that could elevate him to the White House will also provide him with suitable cover to forgo his harder proposals.
First the government appointed Lord Marshall - who, as chairman of British Airways, lobbied hard against proposals to tax aviation fuel - as head of its energy tax review team.
The future of Medicare, of course, will be a major issue, and Democrats are hitting the Romney-Ryan ticket hard for proposals that will "end Medicare as we know it".
The CBI said the bonus cap would hit the UK hard: "The proposals will damage the competitiveness of the EU's financial services industry, hitting the UK particularly hard, at a time when growth should be the key priority".
Contending with sharp internal splits about how far to go in cutting spending and a reluctance to show their hand, Senate Democrats have not made public any specifics on their ideas for cuts, frustrating Republicans who see themselves as making hard, substantive proposals with no corresponding effort in the Senate.
