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Politico...
President
Obama frames 2012 campaign
By Glenn Thrush & Carrie Budoff
Brown
6/29/11
One
of President Barack Obama’s 2012
themes will likely revolve around what his aides call “the contrast” —
a
portrayal of Obama as a responsible, moderate adult harassed by
infantile
Republicans who favor the wealthy.
During
his East Room press conference
Wednesday — his first since the kickoff of the 2012 Republican campaign
— Obama
drew that comparison in the starkest terms to date, likening veteran
politicians
in their 40s, 50s and 60s to his young daughters, Sasha and Malia.
The
girls, he said at the end of an
otherwise sleepy session, “generally finish their homework a day ahead
of
time,” unlike the grousing Hill Republicans he described as dragging
their feet
in striking a deal on reducing the deficit and extending the debt
ceiling.
“Leaders
are going to lead, … that’s
why they are called leaders,” he added, making an unmistakable
reference to
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor
(R-Va.),
who withdrew from the negotiations with Vice President Joe Biden last
week.
Those
cracks, along with Obama’s tart
suggestion that Congress scrap its cherished July Fourth vacation, do
nothing
to endear him to GOP House leaders who have balked at his calls to
accept tax
hikes on the rich.
“It’s
time for the president to stop
lecturing and start doing his job,” responded Cantor spokesman Brad
Dayspring.
Another
GOP aide was more blunt. “It’s
counterproductive schoolyard crap. … [It’s] awfully childish for the
‘adult in
the room,’” the aide told POLITICO.
But
in the risk-vs.-reward calculator
that is Obama’s brain, the possible short-term blowback on the debt
ceiling is
well worth the long-term gain of political leverage. The president’s
message
wasn’t aimed at Capitol Hill as much as toward a wider audience in
hopes of
gaining leverage over Republican debt negotiators and, eventually, the
GOP
presidential candidates using him as a punching bag.
“On
the debt issue, he did a good job
of framing the issue and contrasting his willingness to accept painful
cuts
with the GOP’s intransigence on revenue — even from, as he said,
millionaires
and billionaires and oil companies,” said Democratic strategist Paul
Begala, an
adviser to a PAC founded by two former Obama aides.
In
doing so, he made “the GOP look
weak and uncaring,” Begala added.
The
harsh tone of Obama’s remarks was,
in part, a reflection of his frustration with the stymied talks. But it
was
also a classic endgame gambit — a staking out of the toughest possible
position
to prepare his base for an eventual compromise.
Read
the rest of the story at Politico
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