Needing a Rebound, Obama Cranks Up the Populism

(Jan. 22) – Since his party lost the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, pundits have been proclaiming President Barack Obama in need of a new message. As this week drew to a close, he offered some samples of what it will sound like.

Turning up the volume on the fiery populist rhetoric he's been deploying against the Wall Street "fat cats" that have become a favorite target, Obama said he will not stop fighting to create jobs, reform health care and straighten up the financial world, despite his party having lost its 60-seat supermajority in the Senate.

"If these folks want a fight, it's a fight we're ready to have," Obama said Thursday as he announced new restrictions that would prevent banks from becoming so big that they will require massive bailouts should they falter in the future.


On Friday, the president traveled to Ohio, where he told an audience at a town hall meeting that his administration "won't stop fighting to protect you from the kinds of deceptive practices we've seen from some in the financial sector."

The president added, "I'm not going to walk away [from health care reform] just because it's hard. We are going to keep on working to get this done – with Democrats, I hope with Republicans, anybody who's willing to step up. Because I'm not going to watch more people get crushed by costs or denied care they need by insurance-company bureaucrats."


Obama's proposed banking restrictions have not gone over well with some Republicans. Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey told The Wall Street Journal, "This renewed focus on financial-services reform by the Obama administration is clearly a transparent attempt at faux-populism, in light of the outcome of the Massachusetts Senate race."

Many of Obama's critics on the left have said that the Massachusetts election needs to serve as a presidential wake-up call. Robert Kuttner, co-founder for The American Prospect, put it this way in a column at The Huffington Post: "Obama needs to stop playing inside games with bankers and insurance lobbyists, and start being a fighter for regular Americans. Otherwise, he can kiss it all goodbye."

It would seem that over the last two days, the president has taken the "fighter" part to heart.