Obama to reignite fireside chats

(AP photo)

Campaigning in Manchester, N.H. today, Barack Obama unveiled his plan to make the federal government more transparent, including national broadband town hall meetings -- he's calling them "21st Century Fireside Chats" -- that he says his Cabinet will hold with the American people.

Obama also proposed a new centralized database of lobbying reports, congressional ethics records, and campaign finance filings available on the internet; more sunlight on lobbyists seeking government contracts and presidential pardons; and establishing a "contracts and influence" database showing what federal contractors spend on lobbying, contract details, and contractor performance.

"The American people want to trust in our government again -- we just need a government that will trust in us," Obama said, according to his campaign. "And making government accountable to the people isn't just a cause of this campaign -- it's been a cause of my life for two decades."

Obama has been a leader on ethics reform in the Illinois Senate and in the US Senate, and he has trumpeted the fact that he doesn't take money from PACs and lobbyists. That hasn't always been the case, though, as the Globe recently reported.

Read Obama's full ethics proposal here.