CNN: Elliot Spitzer- Bill Maher: 'President Obama Never Blames Republicans'

Source:CNN- Elliot Spitzer, interviewing comedian Bill Maher.

"Comedian Bill Maher says many Americans do not vote in their economic interest and discusses the possible reasons why." 

From CNN

Apparently Bill Maher is making the argument that President Obama should forget about 40% of the electorate and act more like a party leader like in Europe with their parliamentary systems where the Prime Minister or President there just runs to keep their party happy, because they know they don't need 50% or more to get reelected. 

The problem with that is that only 53% of the electorate voted for him in 2008. You can't screw off 47% of the electorate and just concentrate on 53%, because that would leave the President without a lot of room for error. And with an economy that will still have an unemployment rate of at least 8.5% unemployment going into the 2012 general elections and with no President ever getting reelected with an unemployment rate higher than 7%. (At least in modern times) 

The President is going to have to broaden his base, not to win everybody but to get as many votes as possible. He's going to have to lock down the Democratic Party and win the Independent vote to get reelected. And it's possible that the President could get reelected with a Republican Congress. Especially since 2/3 of the Senators up for reelection are Democratic seats. 

And I believe the chances are good better then 50-50 that Democrats will win back the House, but with this economy, thats not a guarantee. The biggest thing that President Obama has going for him right now, is his competition. (Or lack of it) Which doesn't highlight a strength of the President but the weakness of the Republican opposition right now. 

The Republican Party right now doesn't have a presidential candidate that can both win the nomination and the general election. Their best candidate in the general election is Mitt Romney, but both the Tea Party and Christian-Right really dislike him (if not hate him) and probably believe he's as bad as Barack Obama. Which is why Mitt Romney has been going out-of- his-way to look like a Religious-Conservative, with coming out for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. But its all politics, he's Northeastern Republican and they tend to be moderate-liberal on social issues. 

The President's biggest strength is Republican weakness. But this is what President Obama can do to win the Democratic Socialist-Left back or enough of them to get reelected, make the next fifteen months about jobs. Along with the Democratic Senate, all they should be doing right now is pushing legislation to create jobs. And the President and Congressional Democrats both have a jobs agenda to do this. Infrastructure, energy, and Free Trade which would all be a boost to our manufacturing industry, because we would need new supplies for our infrastructure projects, repairing old ones and building new one. 

A comprehensive energy plan would be a boost to our manufacturing industry because again the supplies that would be needed. There's three trade deals stuck in Congress right now: Central America, Columbia, and Korea, which is a bipartisan problem that the President should try to fix. That would be a boost to our manufacturing industry as well, because we would be able to sell more products in foreign markets. 

The next fifteen months should be all about jobs for President and the Democratic Senate and the House Democratic Leadership should be pushing a jobs agenda as well. And using that against the House GOP by telling then what have you done to create jobs and what are you going to do. It would also be a great campaign issue as well. 

President Obama is clearly not going to win everyone back, the entire Republican Party won't vote for him most likely. But he can't get reelected without the Democratic Party united behind him and voting for him. And then communicating a jobs agenda to enough Independents to win the election. And to do that going forward is has to nothing other than about jobs, pushing jobs legislation through the rest of this Congress. And going forward on the campaign trail.