The new, tougher Obama hits the trail in Ohio
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After a week of being battered on politics and policy, President Obama returned today to the campaign trail to push the new tone he is planning to give his administration.
A week before he gives the State of the Union speech, Obama travels to Ohio, a key state he carried in his presidential race, where he will push his jobs program, help for small businesses and the importance of green technology. The unemployment rate in Ohio is at 10.6%, above the national rate of 10%.
[Updated at 9:01 a.m.: Ohio reported this morning that its unemployment rate in December climbed to 10.9%, from 10.6% the month before.] Obama is scheduled to hold a town hall meeting at Lorain County Community College, near Cleveland, and many observers will listening for a new populist tone from the president in the wake of the GOP’s surprising Senate election victory in Massachusetts. With Republicans now having 41 senators, the political dynamic has changed – and not just on the issue of healthcare reform.
Democrats have put their spin on the GOP victory, arguing that both Obama and Massachusetts Sen.-elect Scott Brown rode the same wave of popular anger and frustration that had built up during the President George W. Bush’s administration. For Democrats, this is a continuation of the basic explanation of Obama’s first year in office: that everything was Bush’s fault and that the administration had to work full blast at fixing all of the foreign and domestic breakdowns.
Politically, it is also convenient for the Democrats, again aligning Obama with the need for political change. The president has signaled that will be the focus but the new enemy will be Wall Street, large banks and stratospheric bonuses and pay for financial executives.
“If these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have,” Obama said Thursday, unveiling bank-regulation proposals.
Outside the administration, some Democrats have argued that Brown’s victory is a blessing in disguise because it forced the party to shift its tone in time for midterm elections in which all incumbents see themselves at risk, even in normally safe districts. This school is hoping Obama becomes more forceful in dealing with problems such as job creation.
Obama will spend the day in Ohio, where there is an open Senate seat and the governor’s mansion and House seats are at stake.
-- Michael Muskal
