Coming soon to your radio, television, Twitter feed, YouTube screen and Facebook wall: Pitchfork Barry, the People’s Friend!
Over the last week, the president has been flight-testing a populist pitch that tries to rekindle the loyalty and enthusiasm that propelled him into the White House. The tone might be new for the Cool One, but he’s following the oldest script in the Democrats’ canon: the Little Guy vs. Big Business, Main Street vs. Wall Street, Us vs. Them.
Pitchfork Barry rolled out his new image by proposing $90 billion in new taxes on 50 of the nation’s largest financial institutions – including many that profited from emergency government subsidies last year. “We want our money back, and we’re going to get it,” he railed, using the sort of incendiary language he was never taught at Harvard Law School.
That was only the beginning of the rebranding campaign. Banks, said the president, were guilty of making “massive profits” and paying “obscene bonuses” while “sticking the American taxpayer with the bill” for their greedy behavior and bad judgments. When he campaigned for Senate candidate Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, the First Populist cast her as a fellow gate-crasher: “She’s got your back, her opponent’s got Wall Street’s back. Bankers don’t need another vote in the United States Senate. They’ve got plenty. Where’s yours?”
In case there was any shred of doubt left, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Pitchfork Barry would travel the country this year, asking voters “whether the people they have in Washington are on the side of protecting the big banks, whether they’re on the side of protecting big oil companies, whether they’re on the side of protecting insurance companies or whether they’re on the people’s side.” Clear enough for you?
The question is, will the strategy work? Will it boost the president’s sagging poll numbers (his average job-approval rating has dipped under 50 percent)? Will it reassure fearful Democratic lawmakers and help them survive a gathering Republican tide in November?
Clearly, voters are upset with the big banks, and they should be. Paying out lavish bonuses just months after paying back government handouts is an act of supreme arrogance. But Obama’s populist plea didn’t work in Massachusetts, and it might not work in other places, either.
First, the Pitchfork Barry thing doesn’t feel quite right. Obama’s biggest political asset is calmness, not anger. He sells reason, not red meat. He He Hedoesn’t start fires; he puts them out.
More seriously, Obama is no longer an insurgent. He’s the essential symbol of national strength and prestige. It’s hard to oppose entrenched power when you are surrounded by Secret Service agents and fly around in Air Force One.
