After three years being “nice” and trying to work with the Republican opposition, and being constantly rejected and repudiated, President Barack Obama is set to run a campaign reminding us of Harry Truman in 1948, when the odds were heavily against him, and yet he defeated not only Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, but also regained both houses of Congress for his Democratic Party!
Truman gave the Republican 80th Congress “hell”, campaigning against their negativism, and looking back, that 80th Congress accomplished more than the 112th Congress has done!
Even if one argues that the Senate is Democratic controlled, the reality is that the Republicans, utilizing the filibuster or the threat of it, and have effectively controlled the Senate as well as having actual control of the House of Representatives.
Obama’s change in strategy seemed to have started in Osawatomie, Kansas, when he invoked Teddy Roosevelt, who used the Presidency as a “bully pulpit”!
Obama will now combine TR’s “bully pulpit” with Truman’s “give them hell” and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s welcoming of the opposition of conservatives and the wealthy in his 1936 campaign. And Obama can also invoke FDR complaining about the Republicans attacking his dog Fala in 1944, as now they have attacked the fact that Obama spent an hour shopping for his dog Bo!
So, President Obama, use the campaigns of TR in 1904, FDR in 1936 and 1944, and Truman in 1948, and the GOP will not recover from such an assault!