SPIN METER: Obama disconnects rhetoric, reality |
He is waging a campaign, one in which nuance and context and competing responses don't always fit in if they don't help make the case.
For example, when Obama says his jobs plan is made up of ideas that have historically had bipartisan support, he stops the point there. Not mentioned is that Republicans have never embraced the tax increases that he is proposing to cover the cost of his plan.
Likewise, from city to city, Obama is demanding that Congress act (he means Republicans) while it has been clear for weeks that the GOP will not support all of his bill, to say the least. Individual elements of it may well pass, such as Obama's proposal to extend and expand a payroll tax cut. But Republicans strongly oppose the president's proposed new spending and his plan to raise taxes on millionaires to pay for the package.
The fight over the legislative proposal has become something much bigger: a critical test of the president's powers of persuading the public heading into the 2012 presidential campaign, and of Republicans' ability to deny him a win and reap victory for themselves.
"He knows it's not going to pass. He's betting that voters won't pick up on it, or even if they do they will blame Congress and he can run against the `do-nothing Congress,'" said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning and Development.
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