Dems want jobs speech to contrast with GOP

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The tiff over the timing of President Barack Obama’s jobs speech to Congress offers little hope that Republicans and the White House will find common ground on how to reduce the nation’s painfully high unemployment. In fact, some Democrats say it’s time Obama stopped trying so hard to negotiate.

On matters large and small, Obama has yielded to House Speaker John Boehner in a string of concessions that have unnerved Democrats and emboldened Republicans. A chorus of Democratic voices is demanding that the president abandon his attempts at being a compromiser and instead lay out an ideological vision that distinguishes him from Republicans and becomes a template for his re-election.

Obama had asked Congress to convene a joint session next Wednesday so he could announce his jobs agenda. Boehner objected, telling the president it would be better if he came the next night. Republicans were irritated that Obama wanted to speak at the same time Republican presidential candidates would be debating in California — and sharing TV time with him.

In the end, Obama accepted Boehner’s invitation to speak at 7 p.m. next Thursday, early enough to avoid yet another conflict — with the opening game of the National Football League season.

Obama must create a clear contrast between what he wants and what the Republicans want, Simon Rosenberg, president of the liberal-leaning think tank NDN, wrote this week. “If the president is to win the election next year, he will have to first win the economic debate with the Republicans, something, to date, he has not done.”

Democratic strategist James Carville was even sharper, decrying the spectacle of the president being forced to change the day of his address to a joint session of Congress after Boehner took issue with Obama’s initial request.

“The last thing that the White House needed was to appear to cave in to the speaker, and that’s what happened,” he said Thursday on ABC.