Moody’s chief economist says President Barack Obama’s plan would put 1.9 million people back to work.
But that misses the point of what is going on now: ideology, the “we want our political sports team to win this one” attitude, preventing the other sports team from scoring a point, and upcoming elections make it highly unlikely Obama will get enough of this in place to provide relief to a chunk of America’s suffering unemployed.
When people say Obama needs to or will act like Harry Truman the dirty little secret is this: only Harry Truman could act like Truman. Can Barack Obama now re-define himself as a relentless political fighter and likely winner? Increasingly — to strip it all away — he is being seen in his political battles as weak, a caver and in 2012 a likely loser.
So the plan may be solid but politics and ideology trump (excuse the word) all. Can Obama work within this context — and is political team smart enough to anticipate what they will face? It’s laughable to hear Obama’s opponents accuses him of Chicago style politics. Chicago style politics doesn’t isn’t usually accompanied by the chant of “Patty cake, patty cake..”.
On the other hand, Obama’s speech played well with independents. First Read:
Democratic pollster Geoff Garin yesterday conducted a dial test [in Ohio] …of 32 swing voters to gauge the president’s speech for the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA Action. Consider the source, of course, but Garin said Obama’s speech tested well among the respondents. “Many respondents came into the room feeling discouraged, dispirited, and disappointed, but in last night’s speech they saw the Barack Obama they had hoped they were electing in 2008,” Garin said in a memo to reporters. “Their simple message to President Obama is: Keep it up. They saw the speech as a beginning, and they want the President to continue pressing the case for the agenda he laid out before Congress.” In an email to First Read, Garin even compared the speech to Obama’s Iowa J-J address in Nov. 2007. To be sure, the president has had other speeches score well, but what’s hurt the White House is staying focused on selling its message around the country for a sustained period of time.
Obama’s problems are this:
1. Yes he delivers a good speech.
2. He doesn’t do sufficient follow through.
3. His lofty and fighting speeches don’t match his increasing image as a caver not a compromiser.
4. His speeches have now hit a law of diminishing returns because his content may be good but if he doesn’t fight for what he detailed in ringing speeches, why bother paying attention to or getting excited about the great speeches?
How much of this plan will he fight for and will he hold the GOP acccountable for parts they reject?
Instead of being “another Truman” can Obama become “another Obama” — one that is talked about for years as a positive, fighting Presidential type?
It won’t be easy since as The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder points out the GOP has created a political trap for Obama where appearing reasonable in this toxic polarized climate makes him appear wimpish:
The GOP has created a political feedback loop that is calculated to destroy President Obama’s credibility as a change agent. They’ve figured out that when government is gridlocked and sclerotic, even silly and absurd, no one in Washington comes out smelling like a rose. No one seems reasonable, because nothing gets done. The reasonable man just looks weak.
A Washington Post poll in August found that 78 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country’s political system is working, and almost as many have little or no confidence that Washington can solve the country’s economic problems.
So what’s Obama to do? When it comes to Congress, the answer is: not much. If he decides to change course and do the Full Paul Krugman–propose a huge new government-spending plan, a trillion-dollar stimulus–Keith Olbermann might be happy for a day, but that’s about it.
If he turns ruthless on Republicans, he risks losing his role as the voice of reason, a role he is trying so hard to build in the hopes it will pay off when there’s a Republican nominee to draw a contrast with.
The jobs speech may well be the last event of political significance that the president participates in from Washington, aside from his State of the Union address in January. His travel schedule will ramp up dramatically after the United Nations General Assembly closes in late September, and he’ll set a campaign pace that will punish even the hardiest of Secret Service agents. If Dodge ain’t working for you, you get out. So look to the president to take his case to the people that the reasonable man deserves a second term.
Don’t hold your breath expecting for Obama’s plan to be enacted. You’ll turn blue.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.