* Dems ramp up push to sell “American Jobs Act”: Anyone who is still wondering whether Obama intends to go all in with his push to get his jobs plan passed as is — and not piecemeal — should be encouraged by the new ad the DNC has released today ratcheting up pressure on Congress to pass the bill.
The reason the public campaign for the American Jobs Act is so important is not just that it may increase the prospect for Congressional action on jobs, though that’s obviously critical. Rather, it shows that we may be witnessing a more fundamental shift in the White House’s approach to our current political reality — a recognition that it’s past time to attempt something dramatically new.
With Obama set to make jobs-tour appearances in Ohio, North Carolina and possibly Colorado and other swing states, the DNC’s new spot suggests that his political machinery is set to go full throttle to sell the plan:
The ads will run in select markets in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia — some of which are key swing states. It will also air in DC, suggesting that members of Congress are also the target audience.
* Will Obama stay tough? Here’s why that ad is important. As E.J. Dionne notes in a must read column today, Obama has offered sharp contrasts with the GOP vision before, only to revert to a compromising posture that led him to look weak and trade away core liberal priorities. But it’s critical that this time he proceed from the assumption that there
The central question — for his jobs plan and his future — is whether this time he sticks with an analysis of the nature of our political fight that sees it as it is, not as he wishes it were.
This is why it’s critical that Obama keep up this public fight — it will show a healthy recognition of political reality itself, which is that there simply is no ideological common ground between the parties on the core question of whether government can and should act to create jobs. Not backing down will make it more likely that the public, too, will gain a clearer understanding of the fundamental difference at stake — and the new DNC push suggests this is how Dems are coming to view the landscape.
* Will GOP try to deny Obama a victory on jobs? This quote in Politico will drive discussion today:
“Obama is on the ropes; why do we appear ready to hand him a win?” said one senior House Republican aide who requested anonymity to discuss the matter freely. “I just don’t want to co-own the economy by having to tout that we passed a jobs bill that won’t work or at least won’t do enough.”
* Where’s pressure on “super-committee” to focus on jobs? Meanwhile, the “supercommittee” is set to drag the conversation back to deficit reduction yet again. Dozens of business leaders and former government officials will release a letter today demanding that the Congressional super-committee go “big” and strive for deficit reduction that’s even more ambitious than its mandated $1.5 trillion. It will surely get lots of attention.
Which raises a question: Why is there so little discussion in the media of pressure on the supercommittee to make job creation a part of its mission? Is the problem that news orgs have failed to cover those calling for jobs to be part of its work, or is the problem that the left has failed to sufficiently organize behind a push to make that happen?
* Special election all about Obama’s stance on Israel? If Dems lose the bid to keep Anthony Weiner’s seat, as seems likely, many will cast it as more proof Obama’s Israel stance is costing him Jewish Dems, but as Ben Smith explains, this tidy storyline is complicated by the fact that the Dem candidate is Jewish and to Obama’s right on Israel.
* Loss of Weiner’s seat will bode badly for Obama: Chris Cillizza on why this loss comes at exactly the wrong time for Obama and his new jobs plan:
Losing a seat such as this one ... probably would have a chilling effect on the willingness of Democrats running in vulnerable districts and states to support any aspects of the president’s agenda between now and 2012. And that’s the last thing an embattled White House seeking political allies needs right now.
In fairness, this aide is not saying Republicans will deny Obama victory on a measure even though they believe it could help alleviate unemployment. He or she is saying
* Rick Perry, front-runner: Yet another poll, this one from CNN, finds that Rick Perry has surged past Mitt Romney (he’s leading 30-18) to become the GOP primary’s official front runner. Look for Romney to intensify his latest line of attack — that Perry’s hostility to Social Security will render him unelectable in a general election — at tonight’s debate.
* The incredible shrinking Michele Bachmann: Another key number in the CNN poll: Supposed political rock star Michele Bachmann, has actually fallen behind Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain among GOP primary voters, another indication that Perry’s entry has completely deflated the Bachmann balloon.
* Death penalty unlikely to be an issue in GOP primary: What does it say about today’s GOP that it’s all but certain that Rick Perry’s opponents won’t try to make an issue out of his cavalier attitude towards the possible execution of innocents? Stay tuned for more on this.
* The exploitation of 9/11: Paul Krugman goes there, reminding us of an aspect of 9/11’s legacy that many would like to forget: Its exloitation by the right as a wedge issue and fake pretext for the Iraq War, and the media’s enabling of that national travesty.
* And the latest fake evidence of a “liberal media”: Apparently some on the right, enraged by Obama’s claim that Lincoln was the “founder” of the GOP, think they’ve uncovered a media “cover up” in the fact that PBS published the prepared text of Obama’s jobs speech before updating it to reflect the speech Obama actually delivered. That really is quite a scandal!
What else is happening?
