Apologies to Neil Diamond, but I couldn’t help but think of his “traveling salvation show” when President Barack Obama came to town last week.
He was here to spread the word. His scary sermons of a potential economic “catastrophe” evaporated as quickly as your 401(k) once he landed here. This was the Obama who preaches hope, not fear.
With a $787 billion economic stimulus bill in his pocket, he promised we were at “the beginning of the end” of our nation’s dark hours.
Hallelujah. Where’s he been?
Meanwhile, across town, on the steps of the state Capitol, conservatives, not known for their protests, held a revival of their own — a revival of their old, conservative, small- government, spend-thrift selves.
Hallelujah. Where have they been?
After wandering in the desert for two years, they have found their voice, and now they’ll rev up their own small-government salvation show, much like Obama, who is on a permanent campaign.
Why else would you spend thousands of taxpayer dollars — not to mention belch more carbon into the atmosphere to jet out here — for a bill-signing that could have taken place in Washington, D.C.?
Obama (who, during the campaign, told us “change doesn’t come from Washington, it comes to Washington”) will be getting out of Washington a lot as he attempts to convince Americans that he’s turning around the economy.
And he has only 15 months in which to do it.
Voters will form their opinions about the economy and how it will affect their voting in May 2010, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said this past week. She was in town to speak at a luncheon sponsored by The Bell Policy Center.
Unexpected events, such as last September’s market freeze, can alter voters’ perspectives later in the campaign, but historically the strength and performance of the market and economy in May of an election year has the most impact on the outcome.
Obama, obviously, isn’t up for re-election until 2012, but he needs to reverse the tide of midterm elections, where the president’s party generally loses seats. He needs Democrats to retain control of Congress.
And Americans, Lake said, don’t know much about the Democrats’ economic philosophy.
You’d think after last week’s massive stimulus bill was signed into law, they’d have a pretty good idea, but Lake insists, “We haven’t come up with our three sentences, like the Republicans have.”
Republicans have mastered bumper-sticker economics: Small government. Tax cuts. Job growth.
And that brings us back to those Republicans on the state Capitol steps, railing against pork. The scene played out in various forms across the country as part of a GOP effort to get their mojo back.
They face an uphill climb. With banks freezing and foreclosures mounting, the GOP’s theory of “less government regulation is in disrepute” with Americans, Lake said. Their brand is tarnished.
Yet they, too, have 15 months to convince us Obama’s economic fix isn’t working. This may not be Obama’s economy, but it’s his fix.
Still, as Obama once said, these are “just words.” No permanent campaign — no words — can convince voters the economy is getting better if it’s not. We’ll feel it. We’ll know it.
So, as we wait for this recovery, a majority of Americans now think their children won’t be better off than they are.
We need a leader who can make us believe America’s best days are still ahead, even as we navigate these choppy waters.
No party — no president — will be able to sell us economic salvation if a majority of us think the American dream is dead.
Editorial page editor Dan Haley can be reached at dhaley@denverpost.com.
