The Executive Branch is a co-equal branch of government. This involves many mechanisms that keep this country moving, that the people complain about being too ineffective but really take for granted, and that the GOTP want to cut but won't say so.
This is why the President needs an implementation team to go over every responsibility of the Executive Branch and make them all run like clockwork.
His legislative team can spend the next two years coming up with whatever items they like, and it won't matter. This Republican Congress will throw them all away regardless of need or policy, because of their "OMG OBAMA TEH SOCIALIZMS" problem.
But get administration folks out of Washington to steamline and increase effectiveness of executive offices and programs, and voters might start seeing the value in having a government around. Build credibility, build trust, and tell people about what you're doing and why.
In my mind, it works something like this:
"Hello, I'm a from of the US Department of Education. The President wants me to take a first-hand look at your lowest performing schools, so we can see what we can do to turn them around. Test scores never tell the whole story."
That's where good policy will meet good politics, as promised in 2008.
.