Jake Tapper:
Plouffe Feels the Need to Tell Obama Supporters What the Stimulus Has Done
This evening former Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe sent an email to supporters of what's now called Organizing for America, asking them if they're "wondering what ...President Obama's stimulus bill -- has accomplished?"
If so, he tells them to look at this chart showing how job losses have steadily become less and less horrible.
That Plouffe feels the need to tell Obama supporters what the stimulus bill has accomplished speaks volumes about how successful the Obama administration's selling job has been (to say nothing of how Democrats feel the media has reported the stimulus bill's impact.)
As Tapper seems to suggest, perhaps if reporters spent more time covering the actual impact of policy rather than divining the political significance of fairly straightforward e-mails, political strategists like Plouffe wouldn't "feel the need" to moonlight as journalists.
Update (9:40 AM, 2/18/2010): To be fair to Tapper, he actually did file a solid report on Good Morning America documenting the substantive impacts -- positive and negative -- of the stimulus plan. His piece included the political point he made above, but only as one small aspect of the overall story, so he kept it in its proper context. It was a good report -- I wish I'd seen it before posting this, because it accomplished exactly what I'd been hoping more reporters would do. Another update (9:59AM): Tapper filed a second report on stimulus job creation for the evening broadcast as well.