President Barack Obama had a key line in his speech to Ohioans on Wednesday, touting his recess appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to the top spot of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform legislation. “Now is the time to do everything we can to protect consumers and prevent a financial crisis like the one we’ve been through from ever happening again,” Obama said. “And that starts with letting Richard Cordray do his job.”
The day after Republicans took their first step in their nominating process, seeing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney edge out former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (R) by eight votes in the Iowa caucuses, it was a clear message.
I’m doing my job, GOP. What are you doing?
The general election has to this point been obscured by the Republican presidential primary process, which has been extremely fluid. The daily changes in the race have made for continuous coverage the media, which has had a singular focus.
But the Obama stop in the most important of swing states serves several purposes. First, 2012 isn’t going to be framed around the GOP primary process — it’s much more likely to be a complex debate about how the United States structures its economy, which requires a little more discussion than who can promise to lower taxes the most. Secondly, the Cordary appointment is a direct shot across the bow of Congress, which is already seen as the roadblock. Third, the President is down among Ohio voters, but the state has recently become fertile ground after the massive defeat of anti-union legislation SB 5 and downward slope of Gov. John Kasich’s (R) approval rating.
The President gets to say he’s trying to enact the wishes of Americans in protecting them from economic harm when voters say that’s their biggest worry. Congress is stuck over a procedural Senate move in an attempt to weaken a law that enjoys broad support. Probably don’t need a focus group to determine who will win that battle. And then there’s 2012.
Republicans in the state haven’t had the best run of late. When they retook the Governor’s mansion, it was a major 2010 coup. But when they made SB 5, a bill designed to curtail public union rights to collectively bargin in the name of controlling state and local budgets, they kicked a hornet’s nest. The bill was crushed in a referendum vote, causing its chief proponent, Kasich, to become deeply unpopular after just being elected. It’s a wide open door which Democrats are trying to walk through.
“Cleveland, I know you’re hearing a lot of promises from a lot of politicians lately,” Obama said. “But today, you’re only going to hear one from me. As long as I have the privilege of serving as your president, I promise to do everything I can, every day, to make this country a place where hard work and responsibility mean something – where everyone can get ahead, not just those at the very top or those who know how to work the system.”
Ironically, the more that Congressional Republicans fight for their voices to be heard using the process, the more President Obama gets to tar them. GOP leaders are already threatening a lawsuit over the appointment, the presumptive argument being that Obama stepped over his Constitutional authority. “This recess appointment represents a sharp departure from a long-standing precedent that has limited the President to recess appointments only when the Senate is in a recess of 10 days or longer,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
How the fight over process will turn out is unclear, as TPM’s Brian Beutler has reported. But the political line isn’t opaque. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were quick to back Obama in the confrontation. Their essential argument? The President’s doing what he has to do to govern.
So as the Republican nominating process continues in New Hampshire, the triangulation begins. The President’s stop looks like an effort to sketch out a direct line between the GOP candidates and the Republican tactics in Congress — and hang the weight of Washington dysfunction around their necks.
