Recently both First Lady Michelle Obama and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis went to the key swing state of Florida to blast the president’s adversaries. For the first lady, Obama’s opponents were concerned only with “the few at the top” and care little for racial, gender, or class justice. For Solis, the sexually derogatory term “tea-bagger” summed up the wave of 2010 that for a while stopped Obama’s attempts to borrow more money in order to stimulate the moribund economy. Apparently Harry Truman’s unforeseen win in 1948 against a “do-nothing Congress” is the new model.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the Obama administration’s lone Republican, embraced a similar strategy this week. He charged that the 2010 midterm elections — the largest correction in the House since 1938 — brought in a group of nihilist Republican congressmen who “made a decision right after the election — don’t give Obama any victories. The heck with putting people to work, because we can score points.”
