Obama strategy: Target Congress

January 1, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Chicago Tribune

HONOLULU, Hawaii

Heading into the new year, President Barack Obama will insist that Congress renew the payroll tax cut through the end of 2012 but will otherwise limit his dealings with an unpopular Congress, and instead travel the country to deliver his re-election message directly to voters, a White House aide said.

“In terms of the president’s relationship with Congress in 2012 — the state of the debate, if you will — the president is no longer tied to Washington, D.C.,” said spokesman Josh Earnest in a press briefing in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The assertion is striking given that Obama, as president for nearly three years, is both the symbol and personification of the federal government. It also offers a glimpse into an Obama re-election strategy that will target a “do-nothing” Congress much in the style of Harry S. Truman’s re-election campaign in 1948.

With most legislative cliffhangers behind him, Obama does not consider the rest of his policy agenda to be a “must-do” for lawmakers, Earnest said.

Rather, the White House believes Obama is well-served by continuing to distance himself from a Congress often blamed for Washington’s gridlock and infighting.

As the year unfolds, Obama will roll out more initiatives designed to boost the economy and assist struggling families using executive authority, the White House aide said. Obama already has unveiled 20 such measures under the new slogan “We can’t wait.”

Earnest said that the White House goal is to contrast the image of a “gridlocked, dysfunctional Congress” with “a president who’s leaving no stone unturned to try to find solutions to the difficult financial challenges and economic challenges facing this country.”

Obama also will make the case for passage of his $447 billion jobs package, most of which Congress has rejected over the past three months.