Political Notebook

GOP senator ready to give on business-incentives measure

September 10, 2010

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WASHINGTON — Retiring Republican Senator George Voinovich said he plans to help push a package of small-business incentives through the Senate next week, a move that would give President Obama and congressional Democrats a key victory on the economy in the final weeks before the November midterm elections.

In an interview, Voinovich said he could no longer support efforts by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to delay the measure in hopes of winning the right to offer additional GOP amendments. Most of the proposed amendments “didn’t have anything to do with the bill,’’ anyway, Voinovich said, and amounted merely to partisan “messaging.’’

“We don’t have time for messaging. We don’t have time anymore. This country is really hurting,’’ Voinovich said. If a single amendment to reduce paperwork for business owners is considered on the floor, the Ohio Republican said, he would add his vote to that of 59 Democrats. That would give the majority party the 60 votes needed to overcome a possible GOP filibuster and move the package to final passage when Congress returns to Washington next week.

The small-business bill is a top priority for Obama, who has called repeatedly on Senate Republicans to drop their “blockade’’ of the measure.

— Washington Post

Obama planning big rallies to fuel fall campaign push

WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to return to the campaign trail in a big way this fall, with four major rallies planned in the crucial states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Nevada, as well as a “tele-town hall’’ in which he will talk to core supporters at thousands of events across the country and over the Internet.

The events are designed to evoke the good old days of 2008. To many Democrats and the liberal faithful, the sight of Obama in full cry back on the campaign trail is a glimmer of light in an otherwise dim season.

Obama’s appearance in Cleveland on Wednesday had the feel of a rally rather than the economic policy speech it had been billed as. In his address, he attacked Republican criticism of his economic policies. And, in a rejoinder to his party’s recent campaign struggles, he declared: “We campaign tough, we win tough, we govern tough.’’

That kind of campaigning is precisely what Democrats on Capitol Hill have been begging him to do.

They also say he is their best hope for revving up the party’s dispirited liberal base. But is any of this likely to help in November?

A lesson from not-so-distant history might give them some pause. In his memoir “My Life,’’ Bill Clinton recalled playing a similar role in the disastrous 1994 elections in which his party lost control of both the House and the Senate.

Clinton later regarded the stumping duties as a mistake: “My campaign riffs were effective for the party faithful, but not for the larger audience who saw them on television; on TV, the hot campaign rhetoric turned a statesmanlike president back into the politician the voters weren’t sure about.’’

Some Clinton-era veterans worry that Obama might be making a similar misstep now, and point to his decision to go to Cleveland, where House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio had given his own economic speech a week before.

“Did anyone in America even know that Boehner had given a speech?’’ one former Clinton White House strategist asked.

Obama slammed Boehner’s remarks, saying they offered “the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place: Cut more taxes for millionaires, and cut more rules for corporations.’’

Obama’s first rally will be on Sept. 28 in Madison, Wis., which will be focused on young voters. The other events will be in October in Philadelphia, an unnamed site in Ohio, and Las Vegas.

— Washington Post

Brown among busiest Twitter users on Hill

WASHINGTON — There was the barn jacket. And the truck. Few can forget the Cosmo spread. Now, he is making news with Tweets.

A recent analysis of social-media use by members of Congress found that the Bay State’s own Senator Scott Brown is among the top 10 most popular Twitter users on Capitol Hill.

Brown ranks fifth overall with 24,833 followers. In first place is Arizona Senator John McCain, who has a whopping 1.7 million followers.

Brown’s Tweets are fairly run-of-the-mill (“I will be watching the #RedSox game tonight in Boston,’’ and “Here is my full op-ed that appears in the WSJ today on a nuclear free Iran http://bit.ly/djpRdz #masen #iran’’), but they are generally more personal than those from many politicians, whose accounts are used by staffers to send out press releases.

The analysis, by Washington, D.C., public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, found that 62 percent of lawmakers have Twitter accounts. Interestingly, more Republicans than Democrats can be found in the Twittersphere. They also have more followers.

— Donovan Slack

Obama’s back-to-school speech set for next week

WASHINGTON — Marking the beginning of a new school year, President Obama will address the country’s students in his second annual back-to-school speech next Tuesday.

Obama’s address to the country’s youth last year was preceded by criticism from some conservatives, who said they feared the president would use the occasion to indoctrinate a captive audience of impressionable youths with liberal political thoughts.

Instead, the president offered the pupils a pep talk about trying hard, staying in school, and doing their best.

This year’s speech will be from Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Philadelphia, a 2010 National Blue Ribbon School, according to the White House.

— Mark Arsenault