President Obama looked straight into the TV cameras Tuesday night to talk to the American people. But Obama, a bold practitioner of microtargeting, had his eye on a much smaller group of voters. While his prime-time press conference in the East Room drew millions of eyes and ears, he knew it was the closed-door meeting scheduled for today with Senate Democrats that could have a far greater impact on the success or failure of his $3.6 trillion budget, and his broader agenda.
In case there was any doubt, he repeatedly emphasized Tuesday night, he intends to pursue both a costly, long-term economic recovery plan and an expansive legislative package. In doing so, however, Obama is focused more narrowly on bolstering support within his own party than reaching out to Republicans, a party he dismissed this week as lacking direction and driven mainly by its opposition to him.
Obama's honeymoon isn't over, but it's ending.
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are threatening their first open revolt of Obama's young administration. Amid murmurs that the president is biting off more than he can chew, Senate leaders announced shortly before his press conference that they'll scrap his signature middle-class tax cut, health care expansion and other costly priorities from the budget. Sixteen moderate members of the caucus have formed a working group that is increasingly critical of Obama's deficit spending.
From his opening remarks, Obama spoke directly to those Democrats, and their issues, selling his hard-driving agenda with a decidedly soft pitch. He used language designed to appeal to an increasingly divided group that, while supportive of some Obama spending priorities, is wary of potentially crippling deficits. He talked about a budget that "will build our economic recovery on a stronger foundation." He touted investments in renewable sources of energy that "will lead to new jobs, new businesses, and less dependence on foreign oil." He said he wants to invest in schools and teachers "so that our children have the skills they need to compete." All of this while, he said, he plans to cut the deficit in half by 2012.
"This budget is inseparable from this recovery," he said.
Asked to square the difference between his deficit projections and those from the Congressional Budget Office -- a point of concern cited by Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. -- Obama again read straight from his party's political playbook. "If we don't tackle energy, if we don't improve our education system, if we don't drive down the costs of health care, if we're not making serious investments in science and technology and our infrastructure, then we won't grow 2.6 percent, we won't grow 2.2 percent," he said, citing the growth estimates of both his administration and the CBO. "We won't grow."
But alas, Obama seemed to acknowledge, he is ultimately a realist. As Democrats on the Hill start to take a knife to his budget, Obama started to show his hand. He suggested that some of his budget priorities (the middle-class tax cut and market-based cap on carbon emissions) are on the table, while making clear that he'll fight for his broader agenda. "We never expected when we printed out our budget that they would simply Xerox it and vote on it," Obama said. "The bottom line is that I want to see health care, energy, education and serious efforts to reduce our budget deficit."
Despite a rough month, Obama is still a popular president, especially within his own party, and in a position to make such demands. But while his overall poll numbers remain strong (a new CBS poll shows his job approval rating, 64 percent, is actually up slightly from last week), they do appear to be drifting back down to earth. For the first time since his inauguration, one survey this week, conducted by Zogby International, shows more respondents rating his job performance as "fair" or "poor" (50 percent) than "excellent" or "good" (49 percent). His honeymoon isn't over, but it's ending. On Tuesday, he seemed to have recognized that his window of opportunity to enforce party discipline was also closing.
Tuesday evening was a sober performance, more professorial than punch-drunk. That tone has worked for him in the past with the general public. The question now is whether it will persuade his former Democratic colleagues in the Senate.
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