A more combative Obama woos his base

What happened

President Obama launched an aggressive attempt to win back his disillusioned Democratic base this week, attacking his Republican rivals and portraying himself as a “warrior for the middle class.” In a series of campaign-style speeches in several Western states, the president sought to sell his jobs and deficit-reduction plans to the public, while trying to re-engage with the liberals, young people, Hispanics, and African-Americans who helped elect him in 2008. In a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Obama acknowledged that African-Americans had suffered unduly in the recession, but implored them to fight the Republicans and support his $447 billion jobs bill. “Stop complaining. Stop grumbling. Stop crying,” he said. “We have work to do.”

The president also went on the offensive against his Republican challengers, warning supporters that the GOP’s approach to reforming government would “fundamentally cripple America.” Since the day he took office, Obama said, Republicans have mounted a “constant ideological pushback against any kind of sensible reforms.” He also dismissed Rick Perry, the GOP’s leading presidential candidate, as a “governor whose state is on fire denying climate change.” Perry’s spokesperson said it was “outrageous” to use the Texas wildfires as a political weapon, and accused Obama of plotting to “take more money away from families by raising taxes.”

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What the editorials said

At last, some indignation we can believe in, said The Philadelphia Daily News. Obama’s fired-up rhetoric and newfound commitment to raising taxes on the wealthy sound “a lot more like the 2008 version of Barack Obama” than the triangulating compromiser who keeps caving in to intransigent Republicans. Clearly, the president has finally accepted that there is no common ground to be found with partisans whose only goal is to destroy his presidency, and he’s now fighting back.

No doubt it’s in Obama’s political interests to “be seen by his party’s purist base as a tough guy,” said the Chicago Tribune. But the last thing the country needs right now is more “election-cycle rhetoric.” The economy is in the doldrums, and deficit spending is racing down the tracks like a runaway train. The American people expect the president—and Congress—“to solve this unfolding crisis before it further dims America’s economic future.”

What the columnists said

Moving to the left won’t save Obama, said Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times. He thought his election as president meant that Americans were repudiating conservatism and clamoring for New Deal–style liberal reform. He was wrong. When Obama squandered $800 billion on a stimulus, and then shoved “Obama­care” down the country’s throats, he woke “the slumbering bear” of America’s innate conservatism. Obama’s fiery attacks on Republicans and the rich may appease his grouchy liberal base, but they will alienate the right-leaning moderates he needs to win.

Moderates care more about leadership than about ideology, said E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post. And that’s exactly what “the new battler in the White House” is hoping to project. His approval ratings have sunk because he looked too passive in his battles with the GOP. Now that the New Obama is showing “toughness and conviction,” he has a chance to win back independents. His only choice, in fact, is to go negative, said Thomas DeFrank in the New York Daily News. It’s now clear that he’ll run for re-election with unemployment near 9 percent. Shifting the focus of this election to the extremism of the GOP, and defeating it at any cost, might be his “last, best antidote to premature retirement.”

At least now we get to see the real Obama, said Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post. The centrist compromiser of the past three years was an act—a disguise. The “authentic Obama” is a class warrior, “a staunch believer in the redistributionist state,” where government enforces “fairness” by punishing those who are too successful. Now, to “rave reviews” on the Left, that Obama is back. “Good. There’s something to be said for authenticity,” especially with the 2012 election looming. “The country will soon choose, although not soon enough.”