Obama takes rescue plan to the masses

Washington: President Barack Obama retreated to the familiar tactics of his presidential campaign after a choppy start in trying to persuade Congress to embrace an economic stimulus plan of more than $800 billion.

He mobilised an army of people in the American heartland who cheered at scripted applause lines with the ways of Washington as an all-purpose villain.

Then he used his first primetime news conference on Monday night not so much to present new arguments or numbers as to invoke the plight of Elkhart, Indiana, a recession-ravaged town of 52,000 people with an unemployment rate that has more than tripled in a year to 15.3 per cent. He visited there Monday and adopted it as a symbol for his appeal.

"What I'm trying to underscore is what the people in Elkhart already understand, that this is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession," Obama said in his hour-long news conference, one of eight times he mentioned the town.

His shift from the negotiations to campaign-style stumping was designed to build public support and keep pressure on lawmakers to finish work on the president's plan. The House passed an $819 billion package of tax cuts and spending without a single Republican vote. The Senate on Monday night cleared the way for a passage on Tuesday of its $838 billion version of the plan with support from only three Republicans.

In Elkhart and in Washington, the president painted a dire picture of the economy. He called the recession a "full-blown crisis" and warned "the problems are accelerating instead of getting better."

"It is only government that can break the vicious cycle, where lost jobs lead to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs," Obama said. "And breaking that cycle is exactly what the plan that's moving through Congress is designed to do."

Republicans were quick to criticise his efforts. "The legislation moving its way through Congress bears little resemblance to what President Obama described at Monday's press conference," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. "The spending bill written by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is filled with unnecessary and wasteful programmes that will saddle future generations with massive debt."

While pledging anew his determination to continue working with Republicans, the president also signalled his impatience with their criticism.

"When it comes to how we approach the issue of fiscal responsibility, again, it's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they've presided over a doubling of the national debt," Obama said. "I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility."

He is also trying a conciliatory approach. He was scheduled to make his pitch in Fort Myers, Florida, later yesterday where he was to be introduced by the state's Republican governor, Charlie Crist.

The southwest Florida city, like Elkhart, is emblematic of the economic crisis. The unemployment rate has risen to 10 per cent from 6 per cent last year, according to the Labour Department. On February 12, Obama will make a similar public appearance in Peoria, Illinois, home base for Caterpillar Inc., which announced last month it is cutting more than 22,000 jobs.

Obama's news conference, broadcast live on major broadcast and cable news channels, was "highly forceful and successful and should help the president with the American people and the Congress," said Allan Lichtman, a political history professor at American University in Washington.

"He did not shrink from the magnitude of the crisis, but like FDR expressed confidence that the problem could be solved with decisive action."

Part of that solution is in the stimulus plan, according to Obama. A Senate vote set for late yesterday sets the stage for negotiations with the House on final legislation. Obama and congressional leaders have set a deadline for the end of the week.

After weeks of employing various, mostly unsuccessful, strategies to win bipartisan congressional support, Obama and his aides are now going over the heads of lawmakers, using the language and style he used to win the White House.

That's what he should have done in the first place, rather than getting bogged down in negotiations with Congress, Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University in Houston, said.

"Obama needs to show that he's a leader of a movement, that a change isn't just having a black man in the White House, that we really are in an era of clean government and progressive reform," Brinkley said.

Obama's aides cite a February 6-7 Gallup poll released Monday that shows 67 per cent of the public approves of the way the president is handling the stimulus debate and only 31 per cent approve of Republican efforts.

In Elkhart, Obama outlined the tangible benefits for residents of the town who are out of work.

"Now, I know that some of you might be thinking, "Well, all that sounds good, but when are we going to see any of this here in Elkhart? What does all this mean to my family, to my community?" Obama said.

EPA

Case study

President Barack Obama speaks at a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Indiana, on Monday. Obama is seeking public support for his economic stimulus plan by taking to the road to visit hard-hit areas of the country.