Common Sense Comes to Washington

Even before his press conference and his speeches in Indiana and Florida, polls showed how much the America people trust President Barack Obama. In the new Gallup Poll, Obama had an approval rating of 67%, with only 25% disapproving. Democrats in Congress got 48/42 and Republicans got only 31% approval, with 58% disapproving--so how that's Party of No thing going?

A CNN poll shows Obama with even higher approval--76%--and Congress with disapproval almost that high, due mainly to Republicans. Three-fourths said Obama was doing enough to cooperate with Republicans, but only 39% thought the Republicans were doing enough to cooperate with him. 64% thought the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act will help the economy.

Then came the two out-of-Washington experiences--speeches in Elkhart, Indiana and Fort Myers, Florida, both hard-hit by the economic freefall, and neither area gave Obama a majority of their votes. Yet people lined up in both places, and the Republican Governor of Florida introduced President Obama and endorsed his economic recovery plan.

At his press conference, President Obama talked about what he learned in Indiana several times in his prepared remarks. He came back to it relentlessly in his answers to questions. For example:

So what I'm trying to underscore is what the people in Elkhart already understand, that this is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession. We are going through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We've lost now 3.6 million jobs, but what's perhaps even more disturbing is that almost half of that job loss has taken place over the last three months, which means that the problems are accelerating instead of getting better. Now, what I said in Elkhart today is what I repeat this evening, which is, I'm absolutely confident that we can solve this problem, but it's going to require us to take some significant, important steps.

His aide David Axlerod said in an interview that the President gets thousands of letters by people hurt by this economy and reads some every day; he said the purpose of the trips to Indiana and Florida was partly to get the reporters out of Washington so they can hear what the real problems of real people are.

The prime-time press conference was amazing to watch and listen to. Not since FDR have we had a President who has had to deal with an economy like this, and not since FDR have we had a President who can be this lucid, honest and respectful, and communicate directly to the people whose lives are at stake. In Florida, his one-on-one encounter with a homeless woman showed the compassion that is too often forgotten in Washington. More than anything else, President Obama communicates his focus--and it's on the American people.

In answers to questions in his news conference, the President quickly dispatched the main Republican arguments. "Some of the criticisms really are with the basic idea that government should intervene at all in this moment of crisis. Now, you have some people, very sincere, who philosophically just think the government has no business interfering in the marketplace. And, in fact, there are several who've suggested that FDR was wrong to interfere back in the New Deal. They're fighting battles that I thought were resolved a pretty long time ago."

And I'm happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans. What I won't do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested, and they have failed. And that's what part of the election in November was all about."

...what I've been concerned about is some of the language that's been used suggesting that this is full of pork and this is wasteful government spending, so on and so forth... But when they start characterizing this as pork, without acknowledging that there are no earmarks in this package -- something, again, that was pretty rare over the last eight years -- then you get a feeling that maybe we're playing politics instead of actually trying to solve problems for the American people...

But my bottom line is, are we creating 4 million jobs? And are we laying the foundation for long-term economic growth?

This is another concern that I've had in some of the arguments that I'm hearing. When people suggest that, "What a waste of money to make federal buildings more energy-efficient." Why would that be a waste of money? We're creating jobs immediately by retrofitting these buildings or weatherizing 2 million Americans' homes, as was called for in the package, so that right there creates economic stimulus. And we are saving taxpayers when it comes to federal buildings potentially $2 billion. In the case of homeowners, they will see more money in their pockets. And we're reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the Middle East. Why wouldn't we want to make that kind of investment?"

On Tuesday, the Senate passed its version of the recovery bill. The Senate and House versions have to be reconciled by a joint committee, then both houses must vote again. Though economists warn that the Senate bill is too small and too skewed towards tax cuts, they also warn that delay is very likely to be disastrous. Senator Barbara Boxer appeared on Rachel to explain that the Senate is incomprehensible at best, but that getting in the neighborhood of $800 billion into the economy is the priority. Other observers suggest that some elements eliminated from the House bill may get into the final version, while others will likely wind up as separate bills.

Also on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Geithner outlined what the federal government wants to do to heal the financial sector. The generally favorable reception at first turned sharply down as the stock market did. The Washington Post coverage is highly negative Wednesday, but it was one of their business guys I saw praising the plan on TV, and saying that Wall Street is not going to be pleased with any plan that doesn't involve the federal government dumping truckloads of money on Wall Street. A financial crisis to them, he said, means problems with buying their fourth home.