Honing the Obama Pitch
Jules Witcover

For some time now, President Obama has been playing the blame game to explain the economic hole in which he finds himself, and the country with him. How successful he is by the time of the November elections will determine the course of his next two years in office.

For most of this summer, the president has focused the blame for the stagnant economy and high unemployment on former President George W. Bush. He railed against him as well for his invasion of Iraq at a time we hadn't finished the war we had to fight in Afghanistan.

The complaints were certainly legitimate. The faulty regulation of Wall Street under Bush robbed American investors of billions and gouged unaware home buyers. And the launching of a war of choice was based at best on faulty intelligence, and at worst on mindless connivance.

But as Obama continued to sing that song, the Republican leadership in Congress, rather than attempting to defend Bush, increasingly pointed out the obvious: Bush was no longer in the White House. And as Obama's tenure grew to a year and a half, they reminded voters that he had been in charge long enough now to "own" both headaches.

Bush himself, never known in the White House as a second Silent Cal Coolidge, pretty much receded into the woodwork during this time, rather than defending his eight-year occupancy. In so doing, he did nothing to feed the argument about the past that Obama sought to feed.

Obama had at first pointedly counseled his party to avoid rehashing the past. He rejected demands from congressional Democrats and liberal activist groups for a thorough investigation of the Bush years, including how and why we got into Iraq, saying the Democrats needed to look forward, not back.

Part of that advice was in keeping with Obama's ambitious if naive hope to bring real bipartisanship back to Washington after years of partisan stalemate. But it didn't take long for the Republican leaders in Congress to make clear they wanted no part of it.

The Democrats soon tagged the Republicans as the Party of No for their obvious and orchestrated obstructionism, using the threat of filibuster in the Senate on legislation large and small. And although liberal Democrats squawked long and loud, Obama persisted in gestures to demonstrate continued willingness to do business with the opposition party.

In recent weeks, however, the president has begun to broaden his pitch from blaming the absent Bush to blaming the still-present GOP congressional leadership. Neither of its pillars, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner, is a particularly charismatic figure, and each exudes a grudging aura of combativeness. If going after them rather than after Bush is quite like shooting fish in a barrel, they do make an easy target.

In Detroit and again the other day in Chicago, Obama honed his campaign message more against the Republicans in Congress still in office, and for the most part marching in lockstep behind McConnell in the Senate and Boehner in the House.

In the auto capital, the president built on his argument not only that the Republicans got the country's economic car "into the ditch" in the Bush years, but also that now those remaining in Congress have refused to lend their shoulders to pushing it out.

"So after all us huffing and puffing we finally get the car out of the ditch," he said in Chicago. "And what do they say? 'Give us the keys back.' Well, you can't have the keys back. You got us in the ditch in the first place." He reminded his audience that "when you want to go forward, what do you put the car in? 'D.' When you want to go backwards, what do you do? You put it in 'R.' "

In as much as Obama is campaigning against the "Rs" in Congress in the approaching fall elections, his blaming them rather than Bush for not helping to get the economy back on the recovery road seems a sensible political switch. It calls on GOP incumbents seeking reelection to defend their "no" votes, rather than the man who is no longer there.

Available at Amazon.com:

The Feminine Mystique

The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy

The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics

Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks

The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House

Read the latest political news.