Jack & Jill Politics

Good Afternoon, Everyone :)

After Some Sleep

It does help, after these frenzied few weeks. I think my reaction to the SOTU reflects a skewed perspective – much different than most people tuning in, who were the speech’s core audience. A big part of the speech was reminding Americans of the facts about Obama’s record – as opposed to the massive lies and distortions we keep hearing in the GOP debates. That’s new to many; and it’s impressive.

But since I wrote that argument and have been defending it for more than a week, I didn’t hear that part, or heard it and dismissed it as old news. It may be old news to me, but it isn’t old news to most Americans. So I was focused on policy specifics, which were indeed underwhelming, as others have noted, with a few possible exceptions (the task force targeting Wall Street corruption; the mass mortgage refi proposal).

And the focus entirely on getting the wealthy and successful pay more – outside the context of comprehensive tax reform – rubs me the wrong way. It puts Obama in the position of liberal crusader against the wealthy, rather than centrist reformer of the system.

Yes, I know he can’t reform the system with this GOP. But since they favor tax reform, that proposal would have put them on the spot. By all means, make it revenue-neutral and then in a second term raise the rates a little, if revenue continues to be a problem. I just think Obama needs a big centrist cause in the campaign as well as a few big liberal ones.

But we have entered a purely political season. And Obama is being purely political here – in a way he pledged not to be in 2008. It may be a master-stroke – since he sure has painted the GOP into a corner on fairness, and his arguments here have broad traction. And if he destroys the GOP this year – and he probably will if Gingrich is the nominee – then it may all come together. But it will mean a much more liberal Obama, which is why this centrist supporter gets a little queasy.

Still, the GOP asked for it. By denying him any cooperation, they have ceded policy to him. And if he wins, they will be on the ropes for a while. And that’s how Obama could truly become the liberal Reagan I spotted in 2007. Because he will not only shift the landscape toward more government intervention, he will have reformed the opposition party to reflect that change.

And who should really get a big part of the credit for turning America to the left? The Republicans who made Obama more liberal than he ever wanted to be. Congrats, guys. You may really be making history.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/01/after-some-sleep.html

Obama Delivers a Campaign Speech

By Jonathan Chait

The first two years of the Obama presidency were a frantic rush of policymaking with barely any concern for political messaging, which suffered as a result. Tonight’s State of the Union address was just the opposite. President Obama knows full well that Republicans in Congress will block everything. In the absence of policy, he is backfilling the political narrative.

Obama passed an economic stimulus quickly in 2009. This immediately exhausted Congress’s willingness to spend any money on the economic crisis. Because no further action has been possible since then — and, to be fair, the administration only came to fully realize further action was needed over the last year — Obama alienated the public by talking about priorities other than the economic crisis. This time he began with the crisis and rattled off a long list of what are surely poll-tested solutions, some sensible, some not.

Likewise, the financial bailout, authorized by the Bush administration, came to hang over Obama, and polls showed that most people incorrectly thought Obama and not Bush came up with the bailout. So this year’s speech was full of tough talk on Wall Street, touting the Dodd-Frank regulations and urging even more. (“It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no cop-outs.”)

That was the defensive portion of the politics. Vast portions of the speech were devoted to setting out a favorable contrast with Mitt Romney. Obama praised the auto bailout, and noted that some (i.e., Romney) had argued in favor of letting General Motors fail. Obama cited Warren Buffett and his principle that millionaires should never pay a tax rate lower than their employees. On housing, he insisted, “responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.” (Romney has advocated letting the housing market bottom out.) And even on foreign policy, he proclaimed, “Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” This is not just a rebuke to Romney’s attacks on Obama’s foreign policy but an attempt to turn them into evidence of Romney’s lack of qualification to conduct foreign policy — a classic technique of an incumbent president against a challenger lacking foreign policy experience, one Obama has barely touched until now.

Not just the specifics but the general theme was designed to probe Romney’s weaknesses. Obama’s political team believes the dapper, well-born corporate raider will have trouble connecting with the white working class, which has otherwise been a demographic weakness for the president. Hence his relentless focus not just on economic fairness and shared prosperity but on manufacturing, community colleges, and a wide swath of economic proposals offering concrete benefits to precisely this group.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/obama-delivers-a-campaign-speech.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nymag%2Fintel+%28Daily+Intelligencer+-+New+York+Magazine%29

January 25, 2012 12:35 PM 

What’s with Romney’s Swiss bank account?
 By Steve Benen
 

Probably the biggest surprise in Mitt Romney’s limited tax-return disclosure was the revelation about a Swiss bank account. Given the bigger picture — including Romney’s cash in the Cayman Islands — this new angle isn’t helping the Republican’s campaign.

According to the former governor’s aides, Romney had $3 million in his Swiss account, held at UBS. Brad Malt, who helps oversee Romney’s investments, said told reporters yesterday, “It was a bank account, nothing more and nothing less.”

Not surprisingly, there are additional questions about why, exactly, Romney had $3 million stashed in Switzerland.

Martin Sullivan, contributing editor of Tax Analysts, a nonpartisan research organization, said he was surprised Romney had a Swiss bank account since such accounts were sometimes used to hide assets. “Why would somebody who knows he’s going to be so visible screw around with a Swiss account?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAR6SWhbnQ8&feature=player_embedded

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/whats_with_romneys_swiss_bank034990.php

found this over in the comments at Washington MOnthly:

zeitgeist on January 25, 2012 12:55 PM:

someone (a 527 – it couldn’t be the official Obama campaign or DNC) needs to do a commercial that starts with grainy video of Romney doing the “Obama wants to turn the United States into Europe!” line.
then do a screeching stop. And say “Apparently Mitt Romney didn’t think there was anything wrong with Europe when he was investing $3 million in Swiss accounts [show map of location of Switzerland] instead of investing it in the United States. But Mitt Romney says we can’t expect the “job creators” to pay more taxes — why not, if they are creating jobs in Switzerland, not helping Americans with good jobs here? Tell Mitt Romney to do the patriotic thing and put his money where his mouth is — here in America.”

He’d scream about being called unpatriotic, but I guarantee you his numbers would drop (even farther than they already have.)

I love it!!!

make that ad!!!

2012 House GOP ‘agenda’: More investigations, more obstructionism
The Washington Post says House Republicans have settled on an agenda for the coming year:
Girding for President Obama’s effort to paint them as an obstacle to recovery, House Republicans have crafted a minimalist agenda that is designed to turn the November elections into a referendum on the White House’s stewardship of the economy. [...] [M]uch of the GOP agenda for the next 10 months is about holding up a political mirror to Obama, trying to expose any failures of his administration. Boehner has instructed his committee chairmen to expedite all oversight investigations of the administration to highlight any policies or regulations that have hindered the economy.
So the “Republican plan” is basically Republicans saying “we have no plan.” Their entire plan is to call Obama names, and then schedule some investigations in which they can call Obama names, and frame it all as leadership. Which is exactly what they’ve been doing for the last few years as well, so I guess they didn’t spend a lot of effort on it.
It is a tiny bit surprising that Boehner and the others are continuing to be quite so forthcoming about the entire Republican agenda being to come up with ways to make Obama look bad, as opposed to, say, fixing the economy or cutting unemployment, but again: It’s what they did last year too. They’re nothing if not agonizingly consistent.
A report from last week did a better job of capturing the generic, vacuous nature of the GOP “plans”:
The 242-member House majority met behind closed doors for the first time this year, coming off a bitter defeat in the payroll tax fight at the close of 2011. Party leaders emerged from the meeting proclaiming that the conference was united around the belief that President Obama’s policies have failed, though they have to settle on their own strategy for the coming election year.“Our members are united around the realization that the policies that have been promoted by this administration have not worked,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said.
Yeah, that’s real genius at work there. It took a 242-person meeting for them to decide they still don’t like the idea of a Democratic president and aren’t going to give him any credit for anything, ever. Which they knew before, so now they’re going to double down on it.
Get ready for this to be the worst year yet, in terms of congressional incompetence and dysfunction. By the end of the year, these people will have made Caligula’s horse look like a model statesman.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/25/1058087/-2012-House-GOP-agenda:-More-investigations,-more-obstructionism?detail=hide&via=blog_1

LOL

found this in the comments at Balloon Juice:

Martin – January 25, 2012 | 7:04 pm · Link

This is a really interesting dynamic going on. The GOP rails against Obama waging class warfare, when Obama is the one with the bigger billionaire on stage.

Should Romney win the nom, I guarantee there will be this line in the debates from Obama: “Class warfare comes up a lot by Governor Romney, but when Warren Buffet looks at his 15% tax rate he thinks he should be paying more. When Gov. Romney looks at his 15% tax rate, he thinks he’s paying too much. That speaks to Gov. Romney attitudes about class, not mine.”

January 25, 2012

President Obama’s Winning Style

President
Obama gives the Republican candidates a run for their money in terms of
style. His fashion choices are radically chic yet subtle — the perfect
balance of elegance and confidence. The dark navy suit fits him to
perfection with a sharp shoulder and a tapered and elongated silhouette.
The proportion of the lapel matches the tie width to a mathematical
degree and is accentuated by just a hint of a shirt cuff. The saturated
light burgundy tie with geometric print projects strength and a cool
factor. The generous four-in-hand knot alludes to a sophisticated,
worldly politician. Nicolas Sarkozy’s got nothing on him. Obama makes
the right choice by not wearing a pocket square, instead choosing to
embellish the lapel with an Amerian flag pin. The hint of gray hair only
adds to his movie star looks and athletic physique. Simply put: He
dresses like the most powerful man in the world.