JONATHAN COHN SEPTEMBER 16, 2011
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A week after introducing his jobs proposal, President Obama has hit a few obstacles. Republican leaders are criticizing the proposal more loudly than before. A failed green energy investment has much of Washington thinking scandal. And the polls still look pretty grim.
So what’s Obama doing now? Exactly what he was doing before: Campaigning loudly, and insistently, for the jobs bill.
That’s a really good thing – although he's going to need some help. And he's going to need it soon.
The speech Obama gave last Thursday was everything it needed to be. It was bold, with Obama using it to introduce a jobs program large enough, and sufficiently well designed, to reduce unemployment. And it was straightforward. Obama made it clear he wanted action, now – repeating the phrase “pass this bill” over and over again.
But Obama (almost) always gives good speeches. The most important, and most unexpected, development was what Obama did after the speech. He went on the road, conveying the same message, in Richmond, Virginia and then Columbus, Ohio – not coincidentally, near the home districts of Eric Cantor and John Boehner, number two and number one leader in the House Republican caucus. Speeches can’t alter the public debate. But sustained, focused campaigns can. That's how one begins.
And it's still going. Next week Obama returns to Ohio for yet another speech – this time in front of a bridge. And it’s not just any old bridge. It’s the Brent Spence Bridge, a high-traffic, double-decker span linking Ohio and Kentucky. Officials have declared it “functionally obsolete,” making it a perfect illustration of the need for infrastructure investment. Oh, and did you notice the location? Steve Benen did:
...that the bridge starts in Ohio’s 8th congressional district (home to House Speaker John Boehner) and ends in Kentucky (home to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell) makes it a nearly perfect example. By making infrastructure investments — investments that used to enjoy bipartisan support before the GOP slipped into madness — the Obama administration can repair the Brent Spence Bridge, putting locals back to work, and improving local transportation and commercial needs.
More impressive still was the aggressive posture the administration maintained, almost without exception, for the week. On several occasions, reporters asked the president’s surrogates whether he would sign portions of the bill. They refused the rhetorical bait, and said only he wanted the whole bill to pass – and to pass now. Of course, Obama would sign portions of the bill. And he would compromise too. I’m virtually certain of that. But it appears he and his advisors believe they gain nothing by conceding ground now.
But it won’t be enough. The only hope for getting something through Congress -- or making an effective political statement, if the Republicans block action – is to apply pressure. And that pressure needs to come from at least two other places.
One is the grassroots. Obama’s performance over the summer – and, to some extent, from the beginning of his presidency – has frustrated and depressed supporters, who wanted him to be more aggressive. Well, now he’s being more aggressive. Are they making phone calls and emails to Congress? Are they getting involved in campaigns? As Greg Sargent notes, Moveon.org has gotten behind the effort (being led by Senator Jeff Merkley) to tie the super-committee effort to job growth. That's a good start -- but only a start.
The other source of pressure should be the establishment – in particular, the media and business establishments. The broad, although hardly universal, consensus in both worlds is that this country needs a short burst of stimulus spending, to boost growth, followed by a lengthy dose of steady deficit reduction, in order to bring the budget into balance. It’s the approach both Ben Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve, and Doug Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Office, have implicitly endorsed in the last few weeks.
But where are the coalitions of business leaders, whose livelihoods depend on growth, clamoring for this? And where are all the fiscal scolds, whom Obama has tried so hard to please by demanding (unlike the previous administration) that Congress pay for new initiatives and that long-term deficit reduction remain a goal? By refusing to engage more forcefully, and more pointedly, they empower and reward the Republicans who brazenly risked the nation's credit rating -- and who refuse to contemplate tax increases, making deficit reduction impossible as a practical matter.
Maybe all of these people will speak out soon. Or maybe they’ve started to speak out already, and I haven’t noticed it. This much I know: Obama is doing his part to focus the debate on jobs, to pass legislation that can boost the economy, and to frame a clear political choice for the voters. In short, he’s leading. But even the best leaders need help from some followers.
18 comments
Hmm. It would be nice if he could turn on an insta-march on Washington. Of, let's say, the unemployed march for the right to a fair job. Or just unemployment benefits. It's hard to organize these people, but this is something that unions and OfA could presumably do. It's just that they try hard to get people together for things like the One Nation March and then not millions of people show up and it doesn't get reported on since it's not the Tea Party. I mean, even the Stewart/Colbert march, which had in excess of 200,000 (more than the Tea Party's) got scant coverage. If that's not bias, i don't know what is.
- chaitless
September 16, 2011 at 7:13am
Agree. An under-discussed but key problem has been lack of vocal support (post-inauguration) for the president on any number of issues, ceding ground to opponents. Circa February 2009, I recall feeling that I worked hard to elect Obama (and, by extension, his team), so they should just get moving and leave me be. I now strongly regret this mistaken notion, perhaps shared by others at the time, and its logical aftermath, today's bitterness that, darn it, the administration didn't get more done. Obama isn't perfect, but I stumbled too. One fix is to stand with him now, loudly. So here goes: I support the president and his jobs plan!
- Wonderland
September 16, 2011 at 8:17am
The more important question for me is: where are the Democrats? The only loud voices I hear within the party are the ones that are trying their best to whine the bill to death. Which makes me wonder what their own jobs plan is. The party, or much of it, complained the president hasn't led enough with Democratic flavored bills. Now that he's put out a decent jobs bill, almost none of the party leaders are standing with him. They are standing on the sidelines as usual. It seems to me that Democratic leaders think the president should be a one-man gang. We, myself included, have knocked the president for not being partisan enough. Could it be that not being overly partisan is a general Democratic problem, not Obama in particular problem? I think it is in the party's DNA. And, by the way, where is the vice president? He has pulled a near-disappearing act since inauguration. Shouldn't he be the administration's hammer on partisan issues?
- scrubby
September 16, 2011 at 8:44am
Totally agree with you, Wonderland.
- maxhencke
September 16, 2011 at 8:55am
I agree with all of the above, and would further add that when Obama urges us to call or write our elected legislators to badger them into supporting the bill, he's not pushing off his "responsibility to lead" onto us, as some pundits seem to believe: the legislature works for us, not for him.
- austinexpat
September 16, 2011 at 10:34am
Agreed. The attitude of many Democrats reminds me, unfortunately, of the response by many in the Middle East after Obama's big speech in Cairo a couple of years ago. He emphasized that most of what needed to be done had to be done by people in the region. The responses I heard & read afterward seemed to put the burden on Obama to "fix the Middle East"!?! A president can do certain things. The rest of us need to pressure Congress, contribute to campaigns based on support of the Jobs bill, etc.
- bjones
September 16, 2011 at 11:04am
I'm not sure why Democrats in leadership or the grassroots would want to put muscle behind this effort. The majority of the jobs proposal consists of tax cuts. Obama has "gone big" and become "aggressive" by pushing a proposal that kow-tows to Republican views. It's not just that the jobs proposal is rightward leaning, it's that I don't even think it'll do much long-term good. It's another short-term stimulus that doesn't tackle the overhang of household debt clearly enough. Obama has a much bigger problem than obstructionist Republicans. He has a problem with listless Democrats. He is not engaging Democrats, and therefore won't be able to make progress against Republicans.
- polcereal
September 16, 2011 at 11:16am
poicereal: I would agree that this is not the stimulus we would want, but it's one that Republicans who are not actually nuts have no reason not to support, and this is it's a plausible win for Obama. He needs that win, and I will be supporting this in any way I can (although, frankly calling my representative to suggest he do anything except exactly what Boehner tells him to do is about as useful as asking my dog to file a patent for me).
- IowaBeauty
September 16, 2011 at 12:55pm
Yeah this is too little, too late to give liberals a sense that it's a "new Obama" who will actually defend liberal interests and promote good policy instead of pre-negotiating them away. He's spent almost three years attempting to be "post-partisan" only to see the hand he extended in friendship cut off by the Tea Mob, much as we all said they would. The right doesn't respect concilliation. That's a liberal/leftist value. The right respects power and authority and sees one who tries to be reasonable as weak. Obama's a smart guy but interminably careful and slow to change his thinking on pretty much anything, which plays directly into the hands of the reactionaries who switch emotional gears so fast and with so little reason that a thinking person can't keep up. He's just not the kind of person you send to deal with radicals and it's shown for his entire term so far. Moreover, it's pretty obvious to me that he's only gotten more aggressive because we're entering an election year and he knows he needs to start energizing his base. But will his base have such a short-term memory that they will forget his weak-kneed performance? We're not primarily emotionally driven and we don't drop recollections down the memory hole if they become inconvenient for Rupert Murdoch. And those further on the left never forget anything. Good luck with that. The only thing now that can potentially save his bacon is if the radicals nominate someone just as outwardly brazen, blustering and logic-challenged as the rank-and-file. Thankfully, it seems like they will in the form of Rick Perry. I'll vote for Obama because I'll be damned if I'm going to just stand here and allow the right to claw us back 100 years or more but it sure won't be because I still think Obama's the best person for the job.
- tealeaves
September 16, 2011 at 12:58pm
Iowa: I have to disagree about Obama needing this win (even granting that it's a plausible win and a good bill, both of which I dispute). What he needs is a strong loss. He needs to take a clear, left-of-center stand, defend it, and watch the Republicans blow it up. Only that will he re-energize the base and clearly show the American people that he's capable of fighting for something. Unfortunately, the way the jobs bill is constructed shows that Obama still thinks he can compromise into something good.
- polcereal
September 16, 2011 at 2:16pm
Nicely put, tealeaves. Obama would be a great president if he had a reasonable opposition. But they aren't, so he isn't. It was Obama's level-headedness, his cool, rational deneanor, the opposite of the angry black man cartoon, that made him acceptable to enough of the general electorate, including enough older white voters, to win the last election. Ironically, that same lack of heat is what is now losing him support from those who voted for him last time, and renewed scorn & derision from the opposition. Maybe there's time for him to gin up enough passion to again bring the support he needs to the polls in 11/12 - I just wonder if he has enough coal in the tender to stoke the fire for that long.
- Haole45
September 16, 2011 at 2:20pm
The right, for a change, are right. There is no point fighting for this extension, especially because recovery next year will happen all on its own with or without stimulus. Yes, the unemployed and underemployed will suffer a while longer, but will be rewarded the more for suffering a while longer because the national debt won't increase. The debt has gone as far as it can go without more severe consequences which, one way or the other, will happen a few months/years from now. I hope I've made myself clear. I'm not so sure, but I hope you get the general idea.
- Tgossard
September 16, 2011 at 2:23pm
What he needs is a strong loss This is nuts. Most Americans just want the economy to get better, and will hold Obama accountable for it one way or another. They're not impressed by valiant losers. Obama, like America, needs the economy to get better. The rest is theater and pyschological satisfaction for junkies.
- RerunStubs
September 16, 2011 at 3:31pm
I want the economy to get better too, but I don't think an extension of tax cuts and slow-moving infrastructure projects is the best way to tackle it.
- polcereal
September 16, 2011 at 4:29pm
What is the best way, polcereal?
- vanwurs
September 16, 2011 at 4:53pm
Polcereal: "What [Obama] needs is a strong loss. He needs to take a clear, left-of-center stand, defend it, and watch the Republicans blow it up. Only that will he re-energize the base and clearly show the American people that he's capable of fighting for something." I couldn't disagree with you more even if I tried. What would be the benefit of such a loss? If you want to advance progressive policies, at least understanding how politics actually works:
- wkwami
September 16, 2011 at 5:28pm
Leadership fuels confidence, and Obama is not even leading what is left of the Democratic Party. Trying to pull a fake Truman1948 by conjuring up a "do-nothing" GOP congress is not going to work. When GE closes a factory making incandescent light bulbs (200 jobs lost in Winchester VA) and builds a factory in China to make the mandated fluorescents because the mercury is too toxic for US regulations, then you know something is really wrong. as to an alternative to tax credits, Obama needs to push pre-emptive reform of PPACA, and deal with the housing crisis, and find a way for the near zero interest rates to pass through to stable mortgagees and credit cards. I scratch my head at why my credit card rates are 11% for purchases and 19% for cash advances when my credit score is so good. ah, yes, Bank of America needs profits from me. cynicism implied.
- K2K
September 16, 2011 at 8:55pm
Thanks for the link, wkwami. I think some people on these boards need to read lesson #5 real close. Lesson #9 is a little iffy, for me. But the conclusion definitely had the best bit of them all...
No one is always “left” or always “right” on every single issue, unless he or she is incapable of thought.
I can think of no better way to describe what the Tea Party looks like, and I'm amazed that the liberal, kvetching party wants to emulate it.
- GSpinks
September 20, 2011 at 4:19pm