by Jules Witcover

It may be locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen. But President Obama has finally stopped playing nice with his Republican opposition in an effort to revive the fervor of Democrats and independents who elected him nearly two years ago and to prevent a GOP takeover of Congress in November.

This new strategy got underway seriously shortly after Labor Day, when Obama went to House Minority Leader John Boehner's home state of Ohio and tore into the Republican for offering "just the same philosophy we already tried for the last decade ... that led to this mess in the first place -- cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations."

Two weeks later, when Boehner and other House Republicans issued their "Pledge to America" -- essentially a stop-Obama blueprint -- the president repeated the same allegation, that the GOP was promising more of the same Bush administration policies.

Since then, the president has been hitting the campaign trail with a vengeance, hoping to fan the fading embers of the firestorm he ignited in 2008 that put him in the Oval Office on a pledge of basic change.

Obama's barnstorming hit its visible peak the other day at the University of Wisconsin in Madison before an estimated crowd of more than 25,000, which surpassed the screaming throng at the same place that was a highlight of his 2008 campaign. He invoked a familiar war cry by saying again he was "fired up" and telling the audience that they had to be ready to go again in the coming congressional elections.

Then, after a stop in Des Moines (where his Iowa presidential caucus victory had sent him on his way in 2008), Obama continued on to Richmond, Va. There he took on Boehner's chief deputy, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, in his own district, challenging him on his advocacy of extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Obama coupled his attack with prodding admonitions to the faithful to break what polls say is "an enthusiasm gap" between them and the Republican base heading into the November voting. He told the Richmond crowd that if they still really wanted change in Washington, "don't sit on the sidelines ... don't give up."

With the national unemployment rate stuck at 9.6 percent and insufficient evidence that Obama's stimulus policies have been producing results, it's an extremely hard sell, particularly to Democratic liberals who have been disappointed in the president's priorities. While most of them supported his successful health-care reforms, they argue now he should have focused first on job creation, and that he should be doing more of it now.

Many of the same 2008 Obama stalwarts are dismayed as well with his late 2009 decision under pressure from military leaders to accept a surge of 30,000 more combat troops into Afghanistan. These Democrats are chagrined, even though the mission has been refocused on rooting out al-Qaida there and in Pakistan rather than continuing Bush's nation-building goals.

Obama's earlier efforts to rally the faithful by blaming Bush for the economic hole in which the country finds itself seemed not to get much traction. The Republican leaders reminded voters that Obama was in the Oval Office now, where the buck always stops.

But lately, by having Obama throw up the prospect of a return to the Republican policies of loose Wall Street regulation and two wars paid for through deficit spending in a GOP victory next month, the Democratic strategists hope to reawaken their slumbering 2008 base.

In a campaign in which most of the demonstrating has been dominated by tea party rallies and the recent Glenn Beck quasi-religious revival meeting at the Lincoln Memorial, some Democratic activist groups are at last bestirring themselves.

They have scheduled a rally of their own on the Mall tomorrow (Saturday) called One Nation Working Together, professing to have 400 self-styled progressive organizations involved, including labor, civil rights, human rights environmental and anti-war elements.

With only a month to go until Election Day, Obama's counterattack may prove to be too little and too late. But at least it is presenting to the faithful the man they voted for in 2008, trying to rekindle the old flame.

 

Available at Amazon.com:

The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama

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

Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War

 

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