I can’t help thinking this bus tour thing isn’t working out so well for President Obama. He says he’ll have a plan to fix the economy next month, though. More on that in a second.
Meanwhile, Politico has a great description of the leader of the free world bounding out of his sleek, black bus:
Emerging from the bus for his first event, Obama lit into Romney, accusing the former Massachusetts governor of ditching his commitment to health care reform to run in the conservative GOP primary: “You got a governor who is running for president. … It’s like [he’s] got amnesia.”
He even mimicked Romney: “Oh, this is terrible! This is going to take away freedoms!”
The audience was largely supportive, but there were murmurs of concern about the jobs crisis and the president’s willingness to accept some changes to entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid.
The president highlighted the contrast between himself and the GOP:
“[There are] two contrasting visions that are going to be presented in the next year-and-a-half,” Obama told about 500 supporters in rural Iowa against the backdrop of a red barn. “I’m on a side that says we live within our means … and invest in jobs. The other side says we are going to make sure those who have benefited the most will pay the least. That’s their vision, [to] dismantle Medicare and turn it into a voucher system.”
As for the plan the president is going to unveil next month, three years into his presidency, he appears to be focusing primarily on saving one job in particular:
In response to a question at a town hall in Decorah, Iowa, Monday evening, President Obama said that when Congress returns in September, “I’ll be putting forward…a very specific plan to boost the economy, to create jobs and to control our deficit. And my attitude is get it done.
“And if they don’t get it done,” he continued, “then we’ll be running against a Congress that isn’t doing anything for the American people and the choice will be very stark and very clear.”
I can predict that the plan, when presented, will be the same old same old: higher taxes (“revenue”) and lavishly dumping taxpayer money on government intervention into what should be the private economy (“investments”).
If you want to see how to really improve the economy (and get an S & P upgrade in the process) look at what has happened in Ohio and Florida.
The tour makes the country wonder: Whatever happened to the eloquent Barack Obama of 2008? I mean, folks, this guy can’t even handle a relatively tame question from a tea party member. Tea partier Ryan Rhodes merely wanted to know how the president felt about reports that Vice President Biden had called the tea party members “terrorists.”
As usual, the POTUS’s response was self-referential:
“Now, in fairness, since I’ve been called a socialist who wasn’t born in this country, who is destroying America and taking away its freedoms because I passed a health care bill, I’m all for lowering the rhetoric,” Obama said….
Rhodes added that Obama brushed him aside. “Then he said, ‘We can’t have a conversation because you’re saying I called you a terrorist,'” recalled Rhodes. “The fact is it demonstrates the deep divide that he is unwilling to negotiate without going after the other side. The whole day was about going after Republicans and talking about how unreasonable they are.”
Frankly, I can’t wait until he gets to Martha’s Vineyard. America needs a vacation…from him.