September 13, 2010 - Huffington Post/Robert Kuttner Winston Churchill once said that you can always count on Americans to do the right thing--after they've tried everything else.
The Obama administration has kept progressive economic policies to be used as a last resort -- In Case of Emergency Break Glass.
Well, the emergency is here in the form of a protracted recession and a threatened mid-term election blowout. And sure enough, President Obama is discovering his inner populist.
Rejecting the advice of his departing budget director, Peter Orszag, Obama has insisted that the Bush era tax cuts, which expire this year, be extended for "only" about 98 percent of Americans, but not for households making over $250,000 a year. Hard to argue with that, but watch the GOP try. The more the Republicans hold hostage this plan for tax relief for millionaires, the more voters appreciate whose side they are really on.
Obama has belatedly proposed a $50 billion infrastructure program, to put Americans back to work. He should have proposed four times as much, and long ago, but it's a start.
He has begun smoking out Republican inconsistency and hypocrisy on issues like regulation of banks, where the GOP tries to be anti-Wall Street but also anti-regulation. And how can the right be in favor of both fiscal discipline and tax cuts for the rich?
The right may have peaked a little too soon. The Gallup Poll for the last week in August showed a ten point swing back to the Democrats in congressional match-up races.
How did this come about?
In general, voters unhappy with the recession are inclined to vote against the incumbent candidate, but so many of the Republicans are so crazy that voters may think twice about voting for them. The Tea Party is no longer that different from the mainstream Republican Party, and it doesn't speak for most Americans.
Obama has been uncomfortable in the role of partisan, but he has gotten off some good speeches since Labor Day--and not a moment too soon.
more:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/148167/time_to_fight!_9_things_obama_can_do_to_prevent_a_gop_takeover***********************************************************************************************************************************************
It's not all doom and gloom folks, we may just be surprised at how well Dems fare this November. The marriage between the wacko extreme right and the Tea Party clan may be just too damn crazy for middle America to stomach. :crazy:
Call it a win by default or design, but if President Obama takes a progressive message and hammers it the next 6 weeks; the messenger may actually resonate as loud as the message.
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