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Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- While lawmakers in Washington debate some of the most costly spending plans in history today, President Barack Obama is leaving town.
His calculation: The best way to win support for his economic stimulus and bank-rescue programs is to return to a campaign-style format to draw the connection between the votes in the capital and the depressed precincts of Elkhart, Indiana, and Fort Myers, Florida.
With this swing, Obama is seeking to dial up pressure on Congress to keep the stimulus package from losing elements he views as crucial for getting the economy back on track.
Elkhart County, where Obama travels today, has seen its jobless rate more than triple, to 15.3 percent, in just a year as its recreational vehicle industry has been slammed by the recession and high gas prices. In Fort Myers, where he goes Feb. 10, the unemployment rate has risen to 10 percent from six percent in a year because of soaring foreclosures and sinking tourism.
Tonight, in another effort to speak directly to the public, the president will hold his first prime-time news conference at 8 p.m. EST.
Just as Ronald Reagan went straight to the public to win support for tax cuts, Obama is trying to generate backing for his program by rallying Americans.
Stirring Up Constituents
“Obama is hoping similarly to move inside-Beltway opinion by arousing constituents outside,” said Rogan Kersh, associate dean of New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service.
“Photos of huge, cheering crowds will remind fence-sitting legislators how Obama got to the White House in the first place,” said Kersh.
Both Indiana and Florida helped propel Obama to the White House, and he is returning there to try to generate support for his financial-rescue plans as the Senate prepares to vote Feb. 10 on its version of a spending plan that could top $800 billion. The U.S. House has passed an $819 billion stimulus plan and the differences between the chambers must be reconciled before any legislation would land on the president’s desk.
“Americans need jobs, and the best way to get this economy kick-started again is through a recovery and reinvestment plan that will save or create millions of them,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in an interview yesterday.
Republican Arguments
While the president’s approval ratings are close to 70 percent, much of the public has been persuaded by arguments from congressional Republicans that the stimulus package is loaded with projects that won’t spur economic growth, according to Charles Jones, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
So Obama is trying to command attention. In both the town hall and news conference, he will highlight the depths of the economic distress many Americans are feeling, difficulties that he will argue the stimulus package would ease.
The jobless picture across the nation reflects the strain of the recession. On Feb. 6, the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent in January from 7.2 percent in December. Payrolls fell by 598,000.
Elkhart is a place in need of help. Elkhart County’s 15.3 percent unemployment rate is up from 4.7 in the last year. The city of Elkhart is even higher, at 18 percent, according to Mayor Dick Moore.
Shovel-Ready Projects
“Everyone knows that with an 18 percent unemployment rate in the city of Elkhart, we need this stimulus package,” Moore said in a telephone interview. “There’s no pork in this proposal. We’ve got 17 projects that are shovel-ready. What a great idea it is to be able to jump-start these programs and at the same time create jobs.”
The city of 52,000 people in northwest Indiana, located 109 miles from Chicago, has prepared its own wish list of projects should it receive money from the stimulus plan. Though Obama won Indiana, Elkhart County voted for Republican John McCain, 55 percent to 43 percent.
Just three weeks into his presidency, Obama is facing partisan strains.
“The most damaging thing that has come out of the White House was basically a line of argument that says, ‘We want bipartisanship and the reason the Republicans should vote for us is because we won the election,’” said Vin Weber, a Washington lobbyist and former Republican member of Congress from Minnesota.
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat, said that Republicans were voting against the plan as a strategy rather than on the merits. “I question whether or not with some of these folks there is good-faith intent,” he said in an interview. “Because I think he has made a Herculean effort to be bipartisan.”
E-Mail Campaign
Obama is also using his public approval to communicate directly to Americans and not in the frame of a public debate with Republicans. In addition to the town-hall and news conference, he is employing a new political group, Organizing for America, to generate support by leveraging the group’s 13-million person e-mail list to promote Obama’s policies.
Last weekend, the group facilitated 3,000 house gatherings to get people engaged in discussions about the stimulus plan, and he sent his radio address via e-mail to his mailing list.
“One power that the president traditionally has in moments like these is to go into the states and legislative districts and light a fire under constituents to make sure their congressmen and congresswomen support the White House,” said Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University in New Jersey.
“He clearly lost some momentum,” Zelizer said. “Conservatives did a better job than expected in depicting this as a huge piece of pork-barrel spending that will do little for the economy.”
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To contact the reporters on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at Jgoldman6@bloomberg.net Catherine Dodge in Washington, at Cdodge1@bloomberg.net
I wonder how much public support can he gain as he turn on his election machine once again.