I agree that President Obama may be an outlier. But strange as it may seem the way to counter an outlier is not to go off and become an outlier one’s self but to return to the center. The really hard work involved in stopping a possible extremist is to return to the context of an ordinary person, to begin from that person’s perspective and to get them to think through where they are. Once that is done the outlier more often than not destroys himself.

While political systems work it is not productive to operate outside the system. In fact you will find that extremist organizations work to destroy the center in order to have their chance. It’s quite well established now that the Communist Party, not Ferdinand Marcos, threw the hand grenades that wiped out the opposition in 1972, but Marcos probably tacitly approved. It gave him a chance to declare an emergency, which in turn gave the Communists their “revolutionary situation”.

The most telling blows against the current administration have been from ordinary people without a shred of clandestiness about them. Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin, Scott Brown. And the biggest issues have been breadbasket, heartfelt ones: jobs, health care, safety.

That’s not to say that politics happens by itself. But the dramatic grows from lots and lots of undramatic preparation. The legwork, the persuasion, the networking. This accumulates until something unusual happens. The current administration spends the whole day looking for magic bullets and neglecting the fundamentsl. It will be their undoing.

Here’s my fearless forecast, the further down the current administration plunges the more chancy its actions will be. It will be looking for magic when what it wants is hard work, common sense and strategic constancy. More and more the real problem may be creating a consensus to step into the policy vacuum if they melt down. The special people will find there’s an unexpected amount of silent competence among ordinary schlubs.