This Is Not Class Warfare. It's Math*

*President Barack Obama

President Obama outlined his deficit reduction plan this morning. The details of which we posted last night. It seems Democrats have responded enthusiastically to it and the threat of a veto over a package that does not include revenues. Later in the day the White House also threatened a Veto on a House bill to eviscerate pollution regulations at the EPA.

Progressives and liberals are applauding,saying the President now is standing for something. Now, wait a minute. In roughly three hours, Don't Ask, Don't Tell will be history. I was frustrated by President Obama's dance on this and concerned by his desire to get it withdrawn by Congress. But he stuck it out and worked on getting it appealed. And we could work down through his administration. No, the Affordable Healthcare Act did not have a single payer option but Obama achieved what no President had done by passing a national healthcare bill. The stimulus bill was too small but all his critics said that would not pass either.

What has changed are his tactics. He is no longer hoping for a compromise from congressional Repoublicans. He returning to defining the political debate and not reacting as he did after the 2010 elections. Even then, he squeezed out a deal with the GOP, which they thought reduced government funding but which instead increased it. He could have continued to finesse such deals except for the debacle over the debt ceiling issue. This single event destroyed the trust of the American people both in Congress and in the President. Congressional approval ratings don't exist anymore and the President's took a major hit. So the President decided to specifically declare his version of an American Jobs Act and his own Debt Reduction Act.

Gop-leaning Politico claimed today's speech was a sop to his base in an attempt to solidfy his fracturing support. But the analysis doesn't add up. Sure, it was that. But everything he asked for was supported by over 60% of all Americans, and the majority of all independents. The President is--to say the least--getting his mojo back.

Now we have Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune calling for Obama to step aside for Hillary Clinton. We have James Carville saying President Obama should panic and fire everyone. Mark Penn, Hillary's campaign manager, lamenting that President Obama has gone left when he should be in tghe center and should not invoke class warfare. Ralph Nader is trying to recruit someone to primary President Obama to keep him honest.

To his credit, President Clinton defended President Obama in a way where he avoided all of the questions that could be misconstrued as soliciting critical answers. Clinton gave a full-throated endorsement of the Jobs Plan and the Deficit Reduction program. Likewise, so did Howard Dean and other ranking Democrats.

What has been most impressive on the Democratic side has been a unity of messaging that has been sorely lacking throughout the whole Obama presidency.

So how are the prospects for the Presidency in 2012? His approval rating for this far in his Presidency run above the average for Ronald Reagan's first term. As he has flirted with the high 30s in recent weeks, he should be significantly behind the GOP frontrunners. Instead, according to a variety of polls, he is either tied, slightly ahead, or only slightly behind Mitt Romney, and in all polls significantly beating Perry by over the margin of error. This shouldn't be. Except the Republican field is so weak and I would also add the abysmal approval rating of the Republican House as a major factor.

In Pennsylvania, President Obama has a 44% approval rating. However, he beats both Romney by 10% and Perry by 15%. This might explain why the Governor wants to change the way the electoral votes will be divided. As projected, if Obama won, he would end up with 12 less electoral votes than in 2008.

The Republican strategy from Day 1 of the Obama Presidency was to turn him into Jimmy Carter. So far, he hasn't complied. On national security, there are no flies on this man. And now with his economic plan, there is no indication he is succumbing to a national malaise. In fact, Jimmy Carter himself believes President Obama will be re-elected as does President Clinton. They say this with an eerie sense of confidence, which no one else I know has.

For the past two weeks, I have been swamped by a flood of e-mails from conservatives who are riding a triumphalist tide believing Obama is going to be crushed. And all these people are supporters of Rick Perry because we need a "real conservative" in the White House. George W.,according to these people, was not a true conservative.

It would be easy to dismiss these as partisan rantings but the polling of the American people on the issues did not show up in the 2010 elections so I'm hesitant in believing they will in 2012. There is no polling to back up the view that a conservative is what the American people want. In fact, the extreme positions of the GOP candidates are not mirrored by any popular opinion. Instead, they seem to be alienating the people who might want an alternative to President Obama.

While Republican reaction to the President's deficit reduction plan is predictable. It is all geared to make him look impotent in the face of glacial opposition. But their own positions on these matters are incoherent and obvious to anyone. If the survival of America depended on a $1 surtax on everyone, they would let the country die instead of passing the tax. Since the 2010 election, there has been no bills from the House, which would create 1 job even with the wildest imagination possible. Even the deregulation of the Burmese python trade. In fact, the Republicans frankly do not care about employment and never have, except their own and that isn't very clear either.

What President Obama has done with both his Jobs Act and the Deficit-Reduction Plan has drawn a clear line between two opposing views of government. What we should be concerned about is that almost all the economic plans put forward by the Republicans from Paul Ryan's budget plan to Mitt Romney's would vastly increase the country's debt without even the side benefit of creating jobs. Perhaps, we have been too conditioned by the Republicans in believing deficits don't matter. In the latest poll, only 6% of Americans believe the deficit is an important issue. So flip forward and one can readily imagine a new Republican President simply forgetting the whole thing as with Reagan and George W. Bush. Except we can't.

At least President Obama has placed a coherent plan on the table and given it some muscle by threatening to veto any nonsense that neglects additional revenues. He has about three more days of time to carry his messge forth before we are forced to listen to the next Republican debate.