Obama has come out swinging a second time! First was the announcement last week of his American Jobs Act. Yesterday he announced his proposal for deficit reduction. And he said what needed saying: there must be increased revenues and more fairness in the tax code.
Both of these tax measures have strong support among voters.
So where are the Congressional Democrats?
Hiding out in their cloak rooms? Or - like Senator Robert Casey of Pennsylvania - expressing doubts about Obama's legislative "packages"? Where the hell are the Congressional Democrats and the Democratic talking-heads? Why aren't they cheering for Obama?
Do Sen. Casey and his ilk really think they can get re-elected next year unless Obama does well? Unless enthusiasm for Obama is running strong in November 2012, Casey and a lot of other Democrats in Congress are toast because Democrats won't turn out at the polls in sufficient numbers. So why aren't Congressional Democrats in Obama's corner giving a shout-out for his proposals?
The only one thus far to show up in Obama's corner is Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. At least he's the only one I saw in the hours following Obama's speech yesterday. In those hours the GOP chorus dominated the news cycle with chants of "class warfare" and other nonsense. The Silence of the Democratic Lambs was thunderous.
So who is in Obama's corner?
We are. And WE are the ones who count!
The 2012 election will be about turnout. It always is. And it will be us, not Casey or Schumer, who turn out the voters. (Lots more about that in later postings.)
Obama has now set the course of the election campaign by announcing the American Jobs Act and the deficit proposal. He has trapped the GOP into either going along with his ideas or looking like what they really are: opposed to the needs of the people.
Good fighter that he is, he nevertheless needs us in his corner to carry the water. The Congressional Democrats are a stumblebum bunch who can't even find the buckets! They are hopeless and helpless in matching the concerted chants of the GOP. But aside from Ted Kennedy - God rest his sweet soul - Obama had nobody but us in winning the nomination in 2008. And we were enough. Obama ain't gonna walk that lonesome valley by himself in 2012.
We are still here. And, like Obama, we too are fighters.
Have the Democrats in Congress forgotten how to read polls. Everyone — Democrats, Independents and even rational Republican voters — supports these proposals. Everyone except the TeaParty and the GOP in congress because they are so afraid of being primaried by the crazies on their right.
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