Obama’s Job Speech: Not Left Or Right

22 August 2011 |permalink | email article

John Cassidy, The New Yorker’s economics reporter, wrote that the “real barrier to a meaningful jobs program is not the markets or the ratings agencies but the GOP. If the Republicans were to vote down a jobs bill, however, it would hurt not only the economy but also, potentially, their own prospects.” But for Obama, a Democratic president who has disappointed legions of supporters, “campaigning as someone who fought to create jobs, rather than as a copycat budget cutter, would seem a winning strategy.”

On Sunday David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign strategist, talked generally about the president’s tardy job speech which better damn well take place Sept. 6, the day after Labor Day—focusing more on job creation than deficit reduction. Axelrod mentions extending the payroll tax cut, as well as rebuilding the country’s roads and bridges. It copies what FDR’s New Deal did in the early 1930s in putting millions back to work. But, in 1937, Republicans convinced FDR to scale back the program. Today the notion of a massive second stimulus bill terrifies Republican leaders and makes one wonder how they will react when pet projects begin in their own congressional districts.

Searching for King Kong

Nothing Jon Huntsman said in his interview with ABC News Sunday did much to convince viewers that he will move up in opinion polls before the first frost in New Hampshire. … .Indiana Gov. Mich Daniels, who took a 2012 powder, said, on “Meet the Press,”, “the more the merrier,” and little more. … Ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani is still pretending but former NY Gov. George Pataki could decide to announce as early as next week. … Karl Rove, “Bush’s Brain,” told his Fox News patron he now thinks Sarah Palin may enter the race during her coming Iowa visit “as a candidate, not a celebrity.”

Quotable

“If anything, he {Rick Perry] embraces the tendency of journalists to portray him a political extremist and a boob. His refusal to respond to a reporter’s question about whether he was, at least at that moment, carrying a concealed weapon –“that’s why it’s called ‘concealed’” – is the kind of banter that one expects from Saturday Night Live skits, not the evening news.”—Ann Marie Cox, The Guardian.

“Huntsman’s strategy, as has seemed obvious from the start, is this: Huntsman for President—in 2012. As he surely understands. 2012 is not his year. There’s no way that Barack Obama’s Ambassador to China is going to win over the Tea-maddened Republican Party of the Palin-Bachmann era. Nor are the twitching remnants of the old Dole/McCain GOP likely to ditch the quasi-moderate ex-governor who is first in line in favor of the quasi-moderate Mormon ex-governor who’s trying to jump the queue—Hendrick Hertzberg, The New Yorker.

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