White House paints rivals with tea party brush

Michele Bachmann's win in the straw poll of the Republican Party faithful in Iowa — the first voter test of the 2012 presidential campaign — had to be good news to a White House battered by a downturn in the economy and an uptick in war casualties.


The Minnesota congresswoman's win in the nonbinding contest, which historically has not been a major factor in picking the GOP nominee, nonetheless helps her chances of becoming the party's standard-bearer, given the Tea Party movement's muscle flexing in this political season. Bachmann is a leader of that kamikaze wing of House Republicans.


Although the Tea Party movement's approval rating has been in a steady decline, it still holds great sway over the GOP. The no-compromise stance it forced on congressional Republicans during the debt debate has pushed the movement onto the tundra of U.S. politics, a position from which Bachmann cannot mount a successful assault on Obama's presidency.


If the Tea Party wing's stranglehold on the GOP propels Bachmann to the party's presidential nomination, something many pundits think is still a long shot, Bachmann will be soundly defeated in the general election and drag other Republicans down to defeat. In such a campaign, voters will be constantly reminded that Bachmann opposed raising the debt ceiling at a time when many Democrats and Republicans said doing so would court economic catastrophe.


Tying a political opponent to a not-so-popular person or movement is a hit-or-miss strategy, said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign ran ads against "DoleGingrich." The goal was to link Republican nominee Bob Dole to Newt Gingrich, then the embattled House Speaker, and now a presidential candidate.


The tea party could be a tougher target, Pitney said. "A diffuse movement with no clear leader does not arouse the same kind of emotion," he said.


Mike DuHaime, who managed Republican Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign, said the Democrats' tactic might succeed so long as Romney and the other Republican candidates seem to be toeing the tea party line.


"The strategy is sound for the Obama team because they would love the campaign to be about the challenger, no matter who it is," DuHaime said. "To the extent that our candidates continue to essentially march in lockstep with each other on major issues, it will be easy for the Obama campaign to paint them all with the same brush."


Obama had a rare direct brush with a tea partyer this week while shaking hands in Iowa. Activist Ryan Rhodes complained about reports that Vice President Joe Biden had said tea partyers acted "like terrorists" in the debt-ceiling showdown.


Obama said Biden "was objecting to us almost defaulting" on U.S. debts. When Rhodes persisted, Obama told him "it doesn't sound like you are interested in listening."


Earlier, the president portrayed himself as a pragmatic problem-solver who might appeal to independent voters wary of the tea party's conservative fervor.

Obama pushes economic compromise as his bus tour nears end

Peosta, Iowa -- A day after pledging to send Congress a job-creation package next month and daring Republicans to block it, President Barack Obama provided little insight Tuesday into what form that plan might take.

Instead, on the second day of his bus tour of the upper Midwest, in his remarks to a gathering of small-business owners, community leaders and rural development experts at a small college, the president largely outlined the same blueprint for boosting the economy as he had in stops the day before.

The proposals included extending a payroll tax cut; spending money to repair the nation's roads and bridges, and the ratification of pending trade agreements.

And he continued to suggest that Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way of economic growth.

"We could do even more if Congress is willing to get in the game," Obama said. "There are bipartisan ideas -- common-sense ideas -- that have traditionally been supported by Democrats and Republicans that will put more money in your pockets, that will put our people to work, that will allow us to deal with the legacy of debt that hangs over our economy."

But the question remains whether there will be more to the president's plan than he has detailed in public -- and whether he will throw down a gauntlet by formally submitting it to Congress, a tactic the White House has resisted in the past.

In a statement Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Republicans were waiting to act on pending trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea -- but complained the White House hasn't sent them to Capitol Hill.

His remarks Tuesday echoed comments a day earlier when he slammed partisan politics and called on lawmakers to prioritize economic growth.

The Midwestern bus tour aims to promote the administration's rural economic development initiatives. The president said he will release a detailed plan to boost the economy, create jobs and control the country's deficit when Congress returns to Washington in September.

Obama began his tour with a town hall meeting at a riverside Minnesota park in Cannon Falls. His trip to Peosta followed stops in Minnesota and Iowa on Monday.

Republicans have blasted the Midwest swing, calling it a campaign event thinly disguised as an extended public policy discussion.

"He's spending taxpayers' dollars on a bus tour disguised as some kind of economic event for the country when we all know that it's a campaign event paid for by the taxpayers," Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus said Monday

The first family is scheduled to depart for a vacation in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on Thursday.

Two Democrats Survive Recall in Wisconsin

Wisconsin — Two Democratic Wisconsin state senators targeted by Republicans survived their elections Tuesday, ending a tumultuous summer of recalls spurred by anger over how lawmakers reacted to Gov. Scott Walker's proposal curbing collective bargaining rights of public workers.
The recall elections in Wisconsin drew national attention with money pouring in from outside groups on both sides to influence the outcome. It's estimated that total spending may break $40 million on the nine recall races combined.
Democrats saw the recalls as a first step in an effort to roll back the sweeping gains made by Republicans in the 2010 elections in Wisconsin and other states. In the Midwestern state last November, Republicans won a U.S. Senate seat, the governorship and majorities in both chambers of the Wisconsin state legislature.
Walker insisted that curbing government employees' bargaining rights was necessary to reduce the state's budget deficit. Democrats claimed the state's new Republican governor was engaged in a power grab targeting labor unions whose support is essential for Democrats' election prospects.
The recalls resulted in Democrats picking up two seats through the nine recalls but were unable to wrest majority Senate control away from the Republicans, who now hold a narrow 17-16 majority. Before the recalls, Republicans had a 19-14 edge in the chamber.
The two senators facing recall Tuesday were among the 14 senators who fled the state in February in opposition to the Republican governor's proposal which passed despite their absence and has been held up by the state Supreme Court.
Democratic Sen. Bob Wirch of Pleasant Prairie defeated Kenosha attorney Jonathan Steitz, and Sen. Jim Holperin of Conover beat Republican Kim Simac of Eagle River, who is a supporter of the grassroots conservative tea party movement which supports small government and low taxes.


Recall supporters forced the elections to decide whether to unseat the Republicans for voting for the collective-bargaining bill and, in the case of the Democrats, for trying to block voting by leaving the state.


Last week Republicans maintained control of the state Senate, winning four of their six recall elections. Democrats gained two seats in those races, falling one short of the three seats they needed to flip the Senate.


One Democratic senator successfully defended his seat last month.


The outcome of the final two races leaves Republicans with a 17-16 majority in the Senate. Mr. Walker has said he plans to focus his efforts this fall on bills that can win the support of 20 or more senators.


With Republicans holding a one-seat lead, "we're going have a very different situation than in the past, because suddenly every member of the caucus has more power," said Sen. Dale Schultz, the only Republican to vote against the collective-bargaining bill, in an interview.


Mr. Schultz has been traveling the state with Democratic Sen. Tim Cullen, asking voters about issues they can work on together, Mr. Schultz said. The two senators, both considered moderates, did not face recall challenges.


Wisconsin, which has 10 electoral votes, went strongly for President Barack Obama in 2008 but swung to complete Republican control of the state legislature and governor's mansion in 2010.