Connecting Dots: Obama seeks big picture to frame an agenda

By Rick Klein:

The latest change from a transformational president: It’s a new-old message, on an old-new topic, backing up a campaign directed by a new-old-new strategist. Ready to fight? Now it just all has to fit together — and work against a changed electoral landscape. President Obama’s challenge has rarely been said to be the ability to think big. But that’s where he finds himself as his State of the Union approaches.   He’s got lots of smaller items out there, from the economy to health care to education to national security and beyond. Yet he’s lost something big in making those sales — and making everything into a coherent whole.   Since health care was so easy, how about a little budget-balancing recession-ending job-creation? (And can the pause button apply to health care for a week or two without the tape wearing out altogether?)   (Hear from the president himself on Monday: ABC’s Diane Sawyer sits down with President Obama for an exclusive interview, with the first parts airing on “World News” Monday night.)   As for what’s next for a president at a crossroads: “President Obama will propose in his State of the Union address a package of modest initiatives intended to help middle-class families, including tax credits for child care, caps on some student loan payments and a requirement that companies let workers save automatically for retirement,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in The New York Times.   “By focusing on what one White House official calls ‘the sandwich generation’ — struggling families squeezed between sending their children to college and caring for elderly parents — Mr. Obama hopes to use his speech on Wednesday to demonstrate that fche understands the economic pain of ordinary Americans. … One advantage of the president’s proposals is that they might appeal to people who are struggling financially without looking like the kind of broad expansion of the federal government that is making many Americans uneasy.”   ABC’s Jake Tapper has more details on items to be discussed Monday by the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families, including tax cuts and student loan relief.   More pieces: “If anything, an unfinished agenda from 2009 will grow larger as, in addition to tackling health care and unemployment, the president presses for a bipartisan commission to tackle the budget deficit against resistance from Republicans,” Jonathan Weisman writes in The Wall Street Journal.   The stakes: “With congressional support eroding, his popularity falling and his renomination of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke potentially in trouble, President Obama faces an even more daunting task to save his entire domestic agenda — convincing millions of angry Americans that his economic policies will bring them a brighter future,” the Los Angeles Times’ Don Lee and Jim Puzzanghera report.   They continue: “What has led Obama into trouble is not so much the quality of technical advice he has received as it is the political failure to convince voters that he’s doing everything possible to ease their pain.”   James Carville, to George Stephanopoulos, on “GMA” Monday: “I think he’s done a lot of different things, many of them good. But it’s not coming across to people that it’s a coherent strategy to deal with the economic realities that we have right now…. He’s got to give the American people a little bit clearer sense that he has a strategy to deal with this. I think that’s one of the problems that he’s having right now, that it seems very, very ad hoc.”   Is the Democratic majority at risk? “You have to think that unless something is done to change direction, I think everything’s at risk.”   Jobs, jobs: “[Democrats] are hoping Obama can use his national platform to reorient the legislative agenda toward job creation, motivate their depressed ranks and improve their 2010 re-election prospects,” Roll Call’s David M. Drucker and Jennifer Bendery write.   Whatever happened to health care.,, “Stung by a Republican win in a special Senate election in Massachusetts and the loss of their critical 60-seat majority, Democrats are putting a new stimulus and jobs bill on the legislative front burner, temporarily bumping health care reform aside,” McClatchy’s Les Blumenthal writes. “Senate Democrats are expected to unveil their $170 billion or so package this week.”   Even if health care is treated as secondary — it’s still critical: “People will never know what’s in that bill until we pass it, the president signs it, and they have a whole new range of protections they never had before,” WhiteHouse senior adviser David Axelrod told ABC’s Terry Moran on “This Week.”   David Plouffe, now current and former campaign guru, to ABC’s Jake Tapper on “GMA” Monday: “The health care plan has become a caricature. And if we walk away from it now, everyone who supported it is going to have all of the downside and none of the upside.”   Unless it’s time for the president to pick up the fight: “I want him to issue a call to arms… A lot of us are waiting for him to join the fray and lead the fight,” Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., told Tapper.   Or re-think it all, post health care: “I think he’s allowed the left wing to pull him too much in that direction,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.   Harold Ford Jr., still mulling a Senate run: “The message these voters sent was clear,” Ford writes in a New York Times op-ed. “With one out of five Americans unemployed or underemployed, President Obama and the Democratic Party need to shift attention away from health care and toward a bold effort to create jobs, improve the economy and rein in the size of government.”   All things, to most people: “Populist or professor? Contrite or uncompromising?
President Obama will have a chance Wednesday to reintroduce himself to the nation when he delivers his first official State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress,” USA Today’s Mimi Hall writes.   On the White House schedule Monday: “Keeping focus on the economy, President Obama today will meet with the Middle Class Task Force at the White House. Set up a year ago this week, the task force has held 11 meetings around the county and at the White House,” ABC’s Sunlen Miller reports.   “The president will sit down with the middle class task force to, ‘discuss the administration’s commitment to investing in our middle class families who have been struggling in this economy,’ the White House says.”   Then there’s saving Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke — and he looks more savable than he did Friday.   “The political winds appear to be shifting in Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s favor, as the White House escalated efforts to win the 60 votes needed in the Senate to confirm him for a second term and Senate Republican and Democratic leaders predicted those efforts would succeed,” Sudeep Reddy writes for The Wall Street Journal.   “But despite a flurry of activity over the weekend, confirmation wasn’t a certainty. As of late Sunday, 31 senators were publicly committed to voting for Mr. Bernanke, with 17 opposed, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey.”   “The White House launched a furious campaign over the weekend to shore up support, fearing that a defeat would undermine the president’s credibility and throw into question how much sway he has with his party,” Neil Irwin reports in The Washington Post.   “To solidify Republican support, the administration used backstage assistance from some of the very executives with whom Mr. Obama has been picking public fights, including members of the Financial Services Forum, a nonprofit policy group for major financial businesses,” John Harwood writes for The New York Times. “The investor Warren Buffett and Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chairman of General Electric, helped contact senators, a senior official said.”    “The backdrop is posturing, expediency and parochial politics,” Bloomberg’s Al Hunt writes in his column. “The vote probably will be this week; it’ll be one of those unusual occasions that cuts across ideological and party divides and separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls.”   Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, announced that he’s a “no” to reconfirm the man first named to the post by his friend former President George W. Bush: “I think it’s a fluid, fluid thing,” Cornyn said on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” Sunday. “People are still digesting what they’ve been told by the voters in Massachusetts, and how that taps into the national mood and their own prospects in 2010.”   Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, on what would happen if Bernanke is rejected: “I think the markets would view that as a very troubling thing to the economy as a whole. But, as I said, I don’t think they should be uncertain. I think they should be confident because we are very confident he will be reconfirmed,” Geithner told Politico’s new “Inside Obama’s Washington” video series.   Debt commissions are suddenly sexy in Washington: “Just as President Obama and Congressional Democrats are trying to create a bipartisan commission on reducing the debt, some well-known former elected officials and veterans of past administrations are announcing their own task force on Monday, underscoring the mounting concern over the nation’s fiscal future,” The New York Times’ Jackie Calmes writes. “The blue-ribbon group of 18 to 20 members will be led by Pete V. Domenici, a Republican former senator from New Mexico who for years was the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Alice Rivlin, a Democrat and former budget director for both Congress and President Bill Clinton who is also a former vice chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.”   The Debt Reduction Task Force launches with a 10:30 am ET press conference Monday, at the Bipartisan Policy Commission in Washington.   As for that landscape — Chris Cillizza, at “The Fix” blog, reports: “Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry is expected to announce his retirement tomorrow morning, according to three sources briefed on the decision. Berry will become the sixth Democrat in a competitive seat to leave in the last two months but the first to announce his retirement since the party’s special election loss in Massachusetts last Tuesday.”   That makes it 14 House GOP retirements, to 12 Democrats and counting. Says a Democratic official, on the Berry retirement: “With the strong field of Democratic candidates likely to come forward, Dems are confident that they will hold this seat in November. The candidates who are considering running are well-known leaders, with strong independent profiles, proven fundraising bases and are each proven vote getters.”   By another set up numbers — Gallup’s: “The 65 percentage-point gap between Democrats’ (88%) and Republicans’ (23%) average job approval ratings for Barack Obama is easily the largest for any president in his first year in office, greatly exceeding the prior high of 52 points for Bill Clinton… [I]f the current level of polarization persists through the end of his term, Obama would exceed Bush as the president with the most polarized approval ratings.”   A big recruiting week coming at the NRSC? “I think everyone needs to keep their eye on what’s happening, because I think there’s a lot more people interested in seeking opportunity for November 2010,” Sen. Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Sunday.   Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse, in The New York Times: “Republicans are luring new candidates into House and Senate races, and the number of seats up for grabs in November appears to be growing, setting up a midterm election likely to be harder fought than anyone anticipated before the party’s big victory in Massachusetts last week.”    Delaware, too? After considerable confusion, it turned out Vice President Joe Biden was asking a Delaware columnist to “talk Ted [Kaufman] into running, if Beau doesn’t.” But that still means Democrats are looking for a back-up plan should Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden choose not to run for his father’s old seat.   Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., gets the primary he’s been expecting: “Former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth says he is planning to run against John McCain for his U.S. Senate seat,” the AP’s Amanda Lee Myers reports. “Hayworth, a Republican, told The Associated Press late Friday he stepped down as host of his radio program on KFYI-AM, a conservative radio talk show in Phoenix. Legally, he would not have been able to remain host of the program and be an active candidate.”    On health care — Paul Begala is begging: “Pass the Senate bill, please,” is the headline on his Huffington Post piece. “You’re going to get the attack anyway, you may as well get the accomplishment. I don’t mean to be rude, but if health care is the kiss of death, you’ve already been kissed,” he writes.   A challenge to Obama from a different direction… Richard Socarides, on “don’t ask, don’t tell”: “What is especially troubling … is Mr. Obama’s oversensitivity to a dwindling minority of bigots on this issue. Hundreds of military careers have been destroyed on his watch for no valid reason,” he writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Many wonder when their president will show the same kind of concern for the constitutional rights of gay American service members as he has for enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay. Many wonder what the administration’s willingness to treat gay Americans as second-class citizens says to Uganda and other countries that are considering laws that would subject gays to imprisonment and even death.”   It’s on — already — in New York: “Gov. Paterson’s campaign opened fire on Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Sunday after the Daily News reported he’ll soon announce he’s running for governor,” the New York Daily News’ Edgar Sandoval and Kenneth Lovett write. Paterson campaign manager Richard Fife: “Voters have had enough of Albany politicians winking at them while doing nothing to solve their problems.”   New at ABCNews.com Monday: “Twelve in ’12,” Teddy Davis’ handicapping of a dozen potential Republican presidential candidates in 2012.   Comings and goings — Ed Gillespie gets a new gig, in advance of nation-wide redistricting efforts. From the press release: “Heading into a pivotal year for Republicans at all levels of government, Ed Gillespie, former Republican National Committee Chairman and Counselor to the President, has been named Chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC). … Gillespie will provide strategic guidance on political and communication activities – with a particular focus on 2010 political redistricting efforts. In addition, former NY Congressman and State Assemblyman Tom Reynolds will serve as Vice Chairman and lead the redistricting effort.”
The Kicker:   “Hell, yes. I told him I’d give him my sixth-born grandchild.” — Vice President Joe Biden, inaccurately quoted as referring to efforts to get his son, Beau, to run for Senate, in a conversation with a Wilmington News Journal columnist.    “Oh hell yeah, man. I tell you what — I was joking if Beau didn’t run — I told him I’d give him my sixth-born grandchild. And you know, he said ‘I have enough of those.’ ” — Vice President Joe Biden, referring to efforts to get Sen. Ted Kaufman to run for a full term, in what he actually said to the columnist.   For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day: