Memo Pad

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Obama's New Square Deal

December 7th, 2011 8:13 pm E. J. Dionne

WASHINGTON — President Obama has decided that he is more likely to win if the election is about big things rather than small ones. He hopes to turn the 2012 campaign from a plebiscite about the current state of the economy into a referendum about the broader progressive tradition that made us a middle-class nation. For the second time, he intends to stake his fate on a battle for the future.

This choice has obvious political benefits to an incumbent presiding over a still-ailing economy, and it confirms Obama’s shift from a defensive approach earlier this year to an aggressive philosophical attack on a Republican Party that has veered sharply rightward. It’s also the boldest move the president has made since he decided to go all-out for health insurance reform even after the Democrats lost their 60-vote majority in the Senate in early 2010.

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  • rustacus21

    …gaining steam, politicians are finding themselves increasingly behind the “curve” & following, rather than “representing” the “lead” of the people. This is what campaigns are all about. Gleaning the mood and attitude of the populous. In his Osawatomie, KS speech, President Obama put an articulation to the chorus of voices comprising the “Occupy” initiative. I compare it to an “initiative”, b/c upon closer scrutiny, participants of this “movement” are the voters that will make the difference in every election that requires a Progressive/Liberal re-invigoration of Constitutional principles, where they were previously denied. And which brings up another question, as to why Liberals & Progressives so afraid to declare themselves so, when the Constitution is just that? Conservatives, in all of their nation-wrecking glory, are unashamed to pronounce themselves as such, in spite of the miserable record of failure from 1 end of their 30 plus years in the leadership role of govt, to the other. Progressive/Liberals on the other hand, have led the way after each Republican-manufactured crisis, bringing the nation back to solvency & prosperity, only to be destroyed again, by Conservatives. Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, John Kennedy, and now President Obama, have carried the weight of the free world admirably and it’s time the nations majority coalesce into the unyielding & formidable voting bloc necessary to install a government that understands Democracy AND capitalism – NOT just & ONLY capitalism, for the sake of capitalists. We’re finding that as it was in the time of T.R., the rich still have no appreciation, patience nor respect for Democracy. It’s time they receive a longer term lesson this time around…

  • gotedge

    As a squeezed member of the liberal middle class who always paid taxes early, dealt with others as individuals regardless of their social status and expected little in return save the basic safety net built for my retirement years built over the past century, I found the Tea Party an anathema. Having spent some time in other countries, I could have sworn I was listening to the head of state of an Arab Emirate who, with benevolence, tells his subjects what is good for them and moral for them while violating every credo of his beliefs at a gaming and whoring establishment in Nevada.

    I looked back to the definitions of democracy I learned as a child post WW II. They didn’t sound anything like what the doctrinaire Republicans are spouting. What I heard lately were candidates invoking their church and their God as the all-knowing center of my universe. What I saw was big business running amok and profiteering becoming worse than in the post-Civil War era.

    I thought for the past three years that President Obama had abdicated. No word came from the White House putting right to these wrongs. I heard no indignity at the nerve of these brigands who were co-opting the Constitution of the USA, a document which produced the greatest democracy even seen on this earth.

    Why, I ask, would a bunch of no-nothings be allowed to steal what our forefathers worked so hard to create–a land where the least of us was respected for his beliefs and was free to practice them as long as they didn’t interfere with his neighbor’s rights to practice his own. Let me see? Women had no right to control their bodies. Gay people had no right to exist. Poor people had only the right to remain silent. Non-Christians better watch out and better not shout because Santa Clause wasn’t about to allow them equality. I was beginning to believe that someone dropped Syria and Nazi Germany into a blender and this abomination is what emerged.

    Thank you, Prresident Obama for finally speaking for me and for all the millions of others who made up the backbone of this country, asked for little in return and silently and patiently waited for someone to recognize that someone was stealing the nation that we fought for and abided for.It was in defense against the rapacious, the bigoted and the creul that the Constitution was written. The true wealth of this nation is in our diversity, not in Donald Trump’s nor even Warren Buffet’s wallet.

  • BrianJ.Gould

    Geez Mr. President, it’s about time. But make no mistake about it, it is a class war. Only until recently the middle class has been attacked repeatedly on every front and barely whimpered under the withering assault. That’s why these sociopaths on the right have become so emboldened to do the demented things they do. They got no resistance. Well taken to it’s logical conclusion there would be a bloody revolution if that were to continue. Time to restore balance and engage in mutual sacrifice so we can reap mutual benefit. Either that or we can descend into the hell that tyranny inevitably brings.

  • prairiepatriot

    Rick Perry has at least one good suggestion; a part time Congress who is required to get a job when not in Washington. Good luck finding one!

  • mconzemius

    How can Pres. Obama call himself a populist when he’s taking more money from Wall Street banks than all eight Republican candidates combined? Obama’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department is a weak-kneed joke. No war criminals (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) or Wall Street criminals have gone to prison. AG Holder lied about his awareness of Fast and Furious. Holder is a puss and Obama is a wimp.

    Draft Hillary Clinton in 2012! I’m proud to say that my husband and I caucused for Hillary in Iowa City on Jan. 3, 2008 and I wish all the sexist “progressives” in Iowa had done the same. Party Unity My Ass.

  • Jay Magoo

    Obviously, the word has gone down in Fox News and all of the other corporate and right wing news organizations, “discredit Occupy Wall Street in any way you can.” So all those so-called journalists, talking right-wingnut heads, and scribes of the right wing who tried to convince us that the Tea Party was really and truly grass roots, are now dragging out all the anecdotes that show the OWS people are not to be taken seriously. Their only problem they have is that there are far, far too many of them, and instead of going away, more and more of them are coming out. It’s beginning to appear that the OWS story, as we used to say in the news biz, “has got legs.” Obama seems to have recognized that. Where will it go from here? I began asking that back in September, and I’m still asking that.

  • BrianAnderson

    Sounds great!! Too bad obama doesnt plan on doing a damn thing to impliment it. Obama has been a liar and a let down to the libs and progressives from day 1, from his foreign policies to his blaitant attack on civil rights to privacy. He has taken more money from wall st and banks than ALL REPUBS TOGETHER, and if u think for 1 milisecond he plans on attacking the hands that feed him, yall are dumber than the republicans, which are CLUELESS. As a democrat, I am TOTALLY DISGUSTED with obama, his lies and his love affair with the banks and wall st. He sabatoged his own chance for a healthcare that included public option, as he will do the same thing here. This way it “looks” as if hes on our side but failed cause of the republicans. Ill say this, our parties last hipe was Hillary… Now its RON PAUL, hes not republican, not a dem… And quite frankly our only shit at a new govt thats not corperate socialism, not owned anf operated by wall st, banks, big pharma, or insurance racketeers. I only hope enough level headed progressives like myself, see obama fir the pig-liar hr is and throws their support behind a man that the fed, the banks and wall st HATES WITH A VENGENCE, RON PAUL 2012, and new democrats in ALL HOUSE AND SENATE RACES, its time to clean house, and remove thr liers people.

  • kentw

    Yes, the President gives a good speech. When it comes to action, he falls short. For example, members of his administration work to discourage state Attorneys General from investigating Wall Street banks and seem to want to give these same banks immunity without even an investigation. That does not put the President on the side of the 99%. Every thief would appreciate similar consideration. Our country needs more than progressive talk; some progressive action would be a welcome change.

  • jdhcs

    I, for one, loved it. The man has a compassionate soul which is more than we can say about the right wing Tea Party. What he needs to do now is sock it to the right (who have become more absurd and vile with every passing month), and not let up on them. We are a great country! Let’s not let the right wingers sully our appearance.