COMMENTARY | The White House has requested a Joint Session of Congress to hear President Barack Obama present his new jobs bill Sept. 7 at 8 p.m. Eastern. This coincides with a Republican presidential debate scheduled for the same night.
The coincidence is even juicier due to the fact that Texas Gov. Rick Perry will debut at the debate. The White House denies there are any political considerations in choosing the time and place. Of course it does.
Obama is no doubt calculating that his speech on jobs will outshine the Republican debate in the news cycle to follow. That is predicated on the notion that his jobs proposal is going to be a dramatic departure from what has gone before and not, as many suspect, more of the same.
No doubt the Republican debate will be pushed ahead to later that night, which, as Hot Air’s Ed Morrisey suggests, will mean Obama has miscalculated. The first question the Republican candidates will be asked will be to react to Obama’s proposal. One suspects the reaction will not be to praise or endorse it.
This also may be part of Obama’s plan. He may well propose an outrageous doubling down of previous failed policies, such as more stimulus spending, and then dare Republicans to reject it. Then when they inevitably do that, he will run a Truman 1948-style campaign against a “do nothing Congress.”
There are a couple of problems with that strategy. The first is that Obama is not Truman. The second is that Thomas Dewey is not running for president in 2012.
Trying to do a Truman is a forlorn hope in any case. The sure sign that a candidate is in trouble is that, when noting that he or she is down in the polls, he or she tries to invoke Truman. Invoking Truman may be an attempt to try to channel his strength and undeniable feistiness. What it inevitably invokes, though, is the image of a desperate loser.
But just as Obama is running out of options, at least those he is willing to try, to fix the economy, he is running out of options for winning reelection. It may be politically impossible, but he is welcome to try.
In any event, House Speaker John Boehner has refused President Obama’s request and has suggested the following night, he says for security reasons.
Source: Obama Requests Joint Session Of Congress To Present Jobs Plan; Same Night As GOP Debate, Zeke Miller, Business Insider, August 31, 2011
Obama asks for prime-time joint session of Congress for jobs speech, Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, August 31, 2011
Letter from Speaker of the House John Boehner to President Barack Obama on the Request for a Joint Session of Congress, August 31, 2011