This soon in the game [alert: standard disclaimer], no one can knowingly predict the electoral outcome of the president's jobs plan. But one thing seems unmistakable from the outline below, from Bloomberg News: In 2012, the White House will rely far more on its denunciations of do-nothing Republicans than it will any significant uptick in the economy.
President Barack Obama plans to propose sparking job growth by injecting more than $300 billion into the economy next year, mostly through tax cuts, infrastructure spending and direct aid to state and local governments....
Almost half the stimulus would come from tax cuts....
Obama’s jobs plan follows the contours of his $830 billion 2009 economic stimulus package.... Still, tax cuts would account for a larger portion of the proposal he will lay out this week.
That's the skinny, anyway, as presented by White House aides "to columnists on Tuesday in the Roosevelt Room, and then to a gathering of top Democratic strategists," reports Politico. Some tweaking will no doubt ensue, perhaps even an honorable-mention surprise or two. But huge? Big? Bold? Such adjectives likely won't be leaping from Friday's editorials.
If congressional Republicans valued intelligence over doctrine and abusive politics, they'd pass every line, every word, every syllable of Obama's proposal. Then, in late 2012, with unemployment still pegging aggressively above 8 percent, the GOP could say: We passed precisely what he asked for. And see?
But just as surely as Sarah Palin is playing her gullibly hopeful crowd, congressional Republicans don't value intelligence over doctrine and abusive politics. The president's script tomorrow night might as well be flaming as he reads from it. Thus Obama's rhetoric-over-results strategy is more than just obvious; it's compulsory.
So, will Obama rhetorically be able to generate sufficient enthusiasm among his base to offset results-disappointed independents? Therein lies the long-term question. In the short run: Will Rick Perry emerge from tonight's deck a grinning -- or gloomy -- joker? And the answer to that question will largely determine the answer to the first.