With his party’s poll numbers flagging and crises testing his own leadership, President Obama said Wednesday that November’s elections will amount to a referendum on whether voters want to go back to the policies of the Bush administration or stick with his vision of change.
In a starkly political speech at Carnegie Mellon University, Mr. Obama patted Democrats on the back for supporting his stimulus bill and other policies he said are leading to a recovery — while Republicans “sat on the sidelines and shouted from the bleachers.”
Touting positive signs of an economic recovery, he also tried to rally core Democratic voters ahead of the election by reminding them how angry they were at his predecessor, President George W. Bush - a key factor in what some analysts expect to be a base-turnout election.
“As November approaches, leaders in the other party will campaign furiously on the same economic argument they’ve been making for decades,” Mr. Obama said. “We already know where their ideas led us. And now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future.”
Analysts described Mr. Obama’s lengthy remarks, in which he repeatedly accused Republicans of political maneuvering, as a declaration of the White House’s strategy heading into November.
“This was a huge speech and it seems to me what you’re starting to hear is governors, members of Congress [and Mr. Obama] all starting to speak with the same voice, creating a clear narrative for 2010 and it’s all about going forwards or going backwards,” said Sean Gibbons, director of communications for Third Way, a progressive think tank.
Republicans say Mr. Obama, at 16 months into his presidency, now owns the economy and that voters should see better results from about $1 trillion committed to recovery programs. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, called the speech proof that Mr. Obama has “run out of excuses for his broken promises on the economy.”
“The president diminishes the office of the president when he resorts to straw-man arguments that willfully mischaracterize the views of others,” Mr. Boehner said. “All of the president’s talk of post-partisanship, reaching out and finding common ground reminds us that the country deserves better than his hyperpartisan speech today.”
Democrats face an uphill battle by all accounts. A Gallup poll released Wednesday shows Republicans lead the party in power by a margin of 49 percent to 43 percent. The numbers mark the GOP’s largest lead to date this cycle.
Gallup says such early generic ballot numbers can give a reliable indication of how the pendulum will swing this fall. For example, in June 2006 Democrats led Republicans 51 percent to 42 percent ahead of that fall’s midterm elections, during which the party took control of both chambers of Congress.
In the past year and a half, Mr. Obama has won passage of a health care bill and an $862 billion stimulus package, and is pushing Congress to act on a financial regulatory overhaul. But the victories didn’t win over the public and other challenges have arisen: The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, oil continues to gush from a burst well in the Gulf of Mexico and the administration continues to grapple with security crises ranging from the attempted Times Square bombing to Israel’s raid of a Turkish ship headed for Gaza.
Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said Mr. Obama’s best hope for the fall is to throw out as much red meat as he can to coax supporters to head to the polls in what is traditionally a low-turnout election.
“This is a competition between Democrats and Republicans to see who can get more of their base out,” Mr. Sabato said. The White House is “trying to close the enthusiasm gap by reminding Democrats how much they hated George Bush.”
As for how long the “blame Bush” story line will hold, Mr. Sabato said it depends on the audience.
“Look, he’s been in office for a year and a half and the entire term is only four years - it’s a stretch,” he said. “You can blame your predecessor for a year; it’s been a year and a half. My sense is that for anyone outside the Democratic base this has very little resonance.”
While Mr. Obama has pointed to four consecutive months of job growth and other indicators that the country is turning around, Republicans have continued to hit him on his health care overhaul, which polls show most Americans opposed, and record-breaking spending figures. Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said Mr. Obama is “pushing the panic button” by trying to frame the elections as a referendum on Bush policies as opposed to his own.
“He owns a lot of the problems that are occurring today and the Democratic Party would rather have voters angry at Republicans, but it doesn’t work that way when you’re in charge,” Mr. Bonjean argued. “The economy has not made a comeback, and what really matters is whether people are feeling the effects of the economy or not.”
There was at least some good news for the White House on Wednesday as the Labor Department reported that April unemployment rates fell in more than 90 percent of the country’s 372 biggest cities.
When it comes to crises such as the oil spill and the Middle East conflict, Mr. Gibbons said, Mr. Obama has little control over many of items that pop up before him. But he said the administration has racked up several key accomplishments, including the health care bill and a likely victory on financial regulatory reform.
“In terms of their agenda, they’ve pretty much executed according to a plan in a deliberate and thoughtful way,” he said.
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