Just watched the speech. Man oh man...
He nailed Repub ass to the wall. They are trapped. Completely and utterly trapped.
Loved this part:
"I know that some of you have sworn oaths to never raise any taxes on anyone as long as you live! Now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle class taxes which is why you should pass this bill right away!"
I don't see any way out for the Repubs. I really can't imagine how they can weasel out of this.
I guess they will try to appear as if they are open to doing something and make noises about compromise blah blah blah, but frankly Obama is pretty well entrenched on the high ground here and no one is going to believe a damn thing they say. And the reason he is is because of how he has positioned himself up to this point. By bending over backwards time and again to try and compromise with the Republicans he has left no doubt in anyone's mind who is the reasonable person here.
If he had been staking out absolute partisan positions for the past two years, or had been as combative as he was last night for the past two years then nothing would not have gotten accomplished anyway AND he would NOT have been as effective as he was last night.
We are going to be seeing Obama's long term strategy paying dividends now. The Repubs are trapped and Obama is in win/win territory here. If they pass a bill, it helps the economy and that's only a good thing. Yes, it may help minimalize their losses in Nov. but even that's not a given. If they don't pass anything they are going to be slaughtered in Nov.
Quite simply he has brilliantly outmaneuvered the Republicans by keeping his eye on the long term goals. Yes, politically he has suffered as is shown by his approval ratings dip, but that is going to turn around now and there's not a damn thing the Repubs can do about it except whine.
I love the simple repetition in this speech and the urgency: PASS THIS BILL NOW!!!
It's powerful and effective and now he's going to hit the road with it and I expect some serious and disciplined message coordination amongs ALL Dems the likes of which we've rarely seen.
PASS THIS BILL NOW!!!
Indeed.