President Obama channels Elizabeth Warren in Kansas speech

[babylonsister]

President Obama channels Elizabeth Warren in Kansas speech
Posted by Chris Cillizza at 03:52 PM ET, 12/06/2011



In a nearly hour-long speech that had a distinctly political feel to it, President Obama borrowed rhetorically from Massachusetts Senate candidate — and liberal heroine — Elizabeth Warren to make his case on the economy in Kansas today.

Warren, who helped Obama create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, drew national headlines earlier this fall when she insisted that “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own” as a way to rebut charges that Democrats were engaging in class warfare (The video of Warren’s remarks has been viewed more than 807,000 on You Tube.)

There were echoes of that we-are-all-in-this together economic philosophy everywhere in Obama’s speech today.

“This isn’t about class warfare, this is about the nation’s welfare,” he said at one point. At another, he insisted that “rebuilding this economy based on fair play, a fair shot and a fair share will require all of us to see the stake we have in each other’s success.”

This focus on fairness is part of a broader Democratic messaging strategy aimed at turning the economic debate in 2012 from one that asks the question “are you better off than you were four years” to one focused on inequality and how how entrenched (Republican) interests are doing everything to widen the gap between the haves and have nots.

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