Fired Up! Ready To Go!

Before we get too out in front and have to comment on Obama's jobs speech, let's just say that I was delighted to see the old Barack Obama emerge at the AFL-CIO's Labor Day celebration in Detroit. He was the campaigner of old with the cadences that brought him to victory. Watching him reminds one of why he won in 2008. You have to like the guy. In fact, a staggering 70% of the American people "like"the guy. One can't underestimate what that means for his political capital as he faces a very tough re-election.

One thing that struck me about the Labor Day celebrations was that we have read article after article that labor has abandoned President Obama and several analyses of Richard Trumpka's deliberate distancing the AFL from the Democratic Party. You won't know it from the reception the President received. Spontaneous cheers of "Four More Years" interrupted his speech. I wondered whether this was coming from the Teamsters, who were once Nixon backers. You don't have this reception unless there is a real spark between the President and the audience. You can't drum this up, although political campaigns must do that.

The real hit of Labor Day for me was the Teamster's Jimmy Hoffa speaking like a union leader of old saying the trade unions must "take out" those "sons of bitches" Tea Party crowd. Naturally, Fox News, the tea baggers and Republicans were offended. I received e-mails from the RNC trying to raise money off the comments. Demands were being made for Obama to denounce the comments. Carney sort of slid by this at a news briefing to say those were comments by the AFL, getting the identification wrong and not the President. Although one President did call his opponents "S O B's" and that was Harry Truman, who also campaigned in 1948 calling the Republicans "fascists".

Hoffa didn't back down in follow-up appearances on television and fired off a communique from the Teamster headquarters going even further about how he would defend the unions. The only better thing he could have done is run a semi over a bunch of teabaggers. That would have satisfied my boodlust.

President Obama's speech tonight was previewed in his Labor Day remarks. He will be asking for a continuation of unemployment insurance, a further extension of the payroll tax cut and a large amount for infrastructure work. The price tag for his proposals is a deceptive $300 billion, which looks large. Labor and others have urged the President to go Big because they know the Republicans will block anything he tries. Republicans know what's coming down the pike and demanded to see the President's draft ahead of time, which thankfully the President rejected.

I say deceptively large because a good portion of this are tax cuts. The President's stimulus package is always mentioned as large, but that too consisted of 50% tax cuts and he has never gotten credit for tax cuts. Instead, he is a big spending Democrat. If a Republican proposed the same thing, the tax cuts would not be counted as part of the cost. We've seen this in all the deficit reduction talks over the past year. Bush's tax cuts don't affect the deficit--except for about $350 billion a year.

I hope President Obama has more ammunition in his holster because the array of things he is proposing--while meaningful and helpful--will not satisfy the American people. Polling shows that the American people are overwhelmingly supportive of his proposals and much less so of Republican ideas. What has been leaked out so far reminds me of some of Clinton's speeches, which buried the larger idea under a string of little biddie initiatives.

The other problem Obama and the nation have is that there are very few initiatives that can have an immediate impact on creating jobs. And certainly not by election time. What they could do is change the discussion away from deficits to jobs and provide a psychological boost to the country and the markets.

hate to be gloomy but the news from Europe worsens, despite the newswires. Whether in six months or a year, there will be serious economic dislocation on the continent that will trigger another recession and maybe even a Depression. This will sorely challenge our political system, which recently has shown a fragility I haven't seen in my lifetime.

Here's hoping Obama hits this one out of the ballpark.

Isn't it strange how often since the beginning of the campaign in 2008 everybody marks one occasion after the other as a "Do or Die" moment for President Obama. Can he go to Iraq by himself? Can he really draw a great crowd in Berlin? Can he answer the 3am call? Can he really withdraw from Iraq? Can he really pass healthcare reform or his presidency is over? Can he get Kagan or Sotomayor confirmed? Can he deal with the BP oil spill? Can he get the New Start Treaty passed or will he face a diplomatic disaster?

Or the flip side of this is to minimize anything President Obama accomplishes. How about killing bin Laden, "Oh, he wasn't that important", a conservative told me. How about passing the Affordable Healthcare Act? But it didn't have the public option and was a giveaway to the health insurance companies. How about withdrawing from Iraq? But he's leaving some troops there. How about the repeal of DADT? But he's not for same sex marriage. How about ending torture? Well, he hasn't closed GITMO. On and on and on.

You know what? President Obama will walk away from the Presidency, get a nice chunk to write his memoirs and he'll be fine. If he only serves one term, as Andrew Sullivan pointed out the other day, he will still be transformational.

The question is what will we do to stem the tide of the new authoritarianism in the United States? Who will rid our Kingdom of the Koch brothers?