President Obama, reluctant populist (Politico)

January 25, 2012

By Glenn Thrush

Barack Obama has always been a reluctant class warrior, but his State of the Union address showed he’s staking his reelection on an economic populist message more raw than anything he campaigned on four years ago.

Huey Long he ain’t: When he’s made the case for income equality — and he’s done so often over the years — he’s addressed the issue in rational, reasonable, nonconfrontational terms, with a post-partisan emphasis on “we” rather than “us vs. them.”

But if Obama’s 2008 success was rooted in an uncanny ability to tap the anger of voters without projecting anger of his own, he struck a far more visceral tone Tuesday in his State of the Union speech, demanding that millionaires and billionaires pay more in taxes and haranguing the House GOP for gridlock.

“Now, you can call this class warfare all you want,” Obama said, responding to a GOP line of attack — and to Mitt Romney’s stump speech, which accuses him of wealth envy. “But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense. …We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich.”

Read the whole article >>

 

Tags: ,