Can Obama buck the trend?

Photo: AFP

The news for Obama is bad but that of the trend is not. The US Senate has scrapped Obama's jobs bill. Two of his own Democrats joined Republicans to vote against it. There are 53 Democrat Senators to 49 Republican. It was skating through the thin ice anyway. The 60-vote supermajority mark required for the bill to advance in the chamber was a steep call.
A procedural opportunity exists though, for the Senate majority leader Harry Reid to bring back the bill in the Senate. Obama says: "It's not the end of the fight." It surely is not, because he has a whole war before him and hopefully, the ammunition, to fight it.
The Republicans' unabashed priority is to ensure single-term presidency for Barrack Obama. That's why the $447 billion job creation proposal to benefit 14 million unemployed in the US doesn't find favour with the GOP. After all, why would they be an accessory to giving Obama a reelection on the platter? If that is the foremost Republican agenda, clearly they are drawing the battlelines not so much on principles as on an ulterior single-minded objective which is to see the back of him.
To be the devil's advocate, this fits into the "smear and fear campaign against Obama calling him a Muslim, foreigner, terrorist, woman hater, anti-American, anti-Semitic, racist and all other hate-based nonsense," expletives of the extremist fringe. Mainstream America is not with them.
Some of those issues or their variants had stalked the Obama campaign for presidency in 2008 but couldn't stop him walking into the White House. Three factors made a difference for him the last time over: one, his superb oratorical skills and confident intellectual jabs; two, his world vision for repairing the neo-con-wreaked damages on the global stage; and third, a certain melting pot idealism streaking through the US consciousness, with prejudice to colour overcome. Would he be second time lucky given the odds stacked against him?
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is a counterpoise to the pro-right anti-taxation, anti-spending Tea Party movement that curried favour with Conservatives, i.e. the Republicans. The OWS' catch word of 99% raw deal recipients as against 1% beneficiary elitist millionaires and billionaires is taking hold of American imagination. President Obama was quick to dub it as voicing the "broad frustrations." This rhymes in with his "look at underdog me." The OWS and perhaps it variant Occupy Congress (OC) is waging a war against the power of the corporate finance or political lobby. The Tea Party, even formal Republican detractors -- Alaska Governor Sarah Palin seen more as an 'entertainer' and less as a serious presidential contender withdrawing from the race -- have called the OWS as a class war. But the movement has already attracted a measure of both political and celebrity support.
President Obama says: "We can either keep taxes exactly as they are for millionaires and billionaires, with loopholes that lead them to have lower taxes, in some cases, than for plumbers and teachers, or we can put teachers and construction workers and veterans back on the job."
His opponents argue: "If he really wants to put people back to work he should declare a Reduced or Limited Tax and Regulation Holiday for the next five years or so. That would start a hiring boom in the private sector for sustainable job growth."
This is what the US Chamber of Commerce would like to see happen.
President Obama laments the focus on what has been left undone than what he has done: "Healthcare reform, repeal of the 'don't ask, don't tell' or the killing of Osama bin Laden." His efforts to revitalise the economy or his American Job Act are being glossed over, too.
Public interest being the pole star here, both Republicans and Democrats should be guided by the sole consideration of beneficial bipartisanship that serves the people more than combative non-cooperation, especially in the face of a stupendous global economic crisis. The challenge takes into its cusp the traditionally bigger economies more than the rest.
President Obama's approval rating among the Liberals at 67%, according to most recent Gallup poll, remains higher than among any other group. This is the potential electorate terrain he and his team should be cultivating to connect with the rest of the voting public.
Mitt Romney, viewed as the inevitable presidential hopeful from the Republicans at this stage, faces considerable obstacles to his nomination such as winning over social conservatives and Tea Party activists who have been ill-at-ease with the healthcare overhaul he championed as Governor of Massachusetts. His shifting positions on abortion and same sex marriage also evoke a controversy. Texas Governor Rick Perry, his rival, is considered an authentic Conservative which can cut ice to gain him Republican nomination.
An interesting sidelight: Obama and Perry are to star in the new comic books of the famous Blue Water Production. The number of prints in each case when decided would be an indicator of their respective charismas. However, between Barrack Obama and Michelle Obama, 35,000 copies of comic books about the former have been sold out since 2008 to 75,000 about the latter. Michelle is by Obama's side anyway.

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star. E-mail: [email protected]