More speeches, photo ops, and minor policy modifications will not save the flailing Obama presidential campaign. He needs to produce a drama, an event that will highlight the core of his message in ways that will deeply speak to the public and stay with it. I am not speaking of drama for drama's sake, to grab headlines, but for a showdown on a very real issue. In effect the number one issue: the way the gridlock in Congress prevents the economy from recovering, by not enacting the jobs bill and blocking a deficit cutting deal.
To proceed, Obama should pull a Truman. In 1952 the United States economy was threatened by a strike by the steel workers, whose employers refused to make a deal. (In those days, steel was a crucial commodity for a well functioning economy.) When the strike dragged on and on, President Truman invited the head of the steel workers union and a representative of the steel industry to the White House. On arrival they were told "this is not a social visit." Truman informed them that he would keep them in the White House until they struck a deal. It was reached the same day.
Read the rest at The Huffington Post.
Somehow, the notion of the President forcibly sequestering the rest of the nation's leaders doesn't sound very democratic. Plus, I wonder how the markets would react to the prospect of all of the nation's leaders being sequestered in the White House, indefinitely and incommunicado. I assume that you were speaking tongue-in-cheek.
Anyway, the President has tried to set up summit-type meetings with the opposition in the past, and has been rebuffed (I am speaking of the President's botched efforts to set up a meeting with Speaker Boehner some years ago). How much civil engagement is still possible in Washington?
Posted by: Bronx Knight | July 19, 2012 at 10:30 AM