Lost in the 21st Century

An interesting perspective….

The president also is striving to be Washington’s adult-in-chief, talking up the need for bipartisan negotiations and the potential for agreement across party lines. He’s ceding the politics of defiance to the Republicans. This could well be because his approval ratings have ticked upward since he hammered out the bipartisan tax-cut deal with the Republicans in December. He seems to be content to let the Republicans be the food-fighters, so he can position himself as a rise-above-them leader—which, presumably, will enhance his appeal among independent voters.

But there’s something else: recent public opinion polling. At a retreat of Democratic senators last week, Democratic pollster Geoff Garin presented bad news: Republicans had gained the edge in the debate over government spending. Voters, especially independents, he told the Dems, care first and foremost about improving the economy, but they believe the better way to do so is by cutting spending, not investing. That is, many voters have accepted the GOP’s fundamental talking point.

If that’s true, Obama and other Democrats facing reelection in 2012 have to be careful about coming across as opposing spending cuts. Garin’s polling, according to Bloomberg, did show that voters do not fancy spending cuts in law enforcement, education, and medical research—actually the sort of cuts House GOPers are pushing. This might suggest that Obama could score politically by confronting Republicans over these cuts (in similar fashion to the way President Bill Clinton won the showdown with the Newt Gingrich-led Republicans in the 1990s over GOP-desired spending cuts). But this polling also indicates that voters view spending cuts in general as the path to economic recovery and trust the Republicans more than Obama when it comes to dealing with the budget deficit.

So Republicans could be vulnerable politically if voters come to believe they are cutting too much, but Obama and the Democrats could lose out, if voters (especially indies) don’t believe they are truly committed to spending cuts. Consequently, Obama has a fine line to tread. He must oppose the Republicans’ deep cuts without doing so in a way that would cause voters to question his commitment to more prudent cuts. Such a stance demands political finesse. The GOP, though, has a rather simple message: government spending is bad for the economy, so cut, cut, cut, and cut again. The Obama argument is three-fold: some government spending has to be decreased; much spending is necessary (though it can be spent more efficiently); and in several areas, the government must spend more for a future payoff. In the budget fights ahead—if the tussle does boil down to bumper sticker versus nuanced explanation—the adult in the room may not have the advantage.

via Obama and the GOP’s Spending Cuts: Where’s the Outrage? | Mother Jones.