Clinton's ex-pollster tells Obama how to win independents

What Bam can learn from Bill

Doug E. Schoen
New York Daily News
July 10, 2010

The news for President Obama is bad. Very bad. This week's Gallup tracking poll indicates that public support for Obama has fallen to a record low - with his job approval rating dropping to 45% among all voters, and 38% among Independents.

With ratings this low, the President and his party will almost certainly be unable to avoid devastating losses in the fall midterm elections. The only hope is a fundamental midcourse correction.

What then should the President do?

The independent swing voters who hold the fate of the Democratic Party in their hands are looking for candidates and parties that champion fiscal discipline, limited government, deficit reduction and a free market, pro-growth agenda.

They respect leadership that bucks the Washington establishment and the special interests.

Above all else, these swing voters will not tolerate any lack of focus on the most pressing economic concerns: reigniting the economy and creating jobs while simultaneously slashing the deficit and exhibiting fiscal discipline. Some say these are mutually exclusive objectives. They are not.

I should know. When I first met with former President Bill Clinton privately in late 1994, jobs and the deficit were major concerns. In the aftermath of that year's devastating mid-term elections when the Republicans gained control of Congress for the first time since 1954, I emphasized that unless Clinton simultaneously stressed fiscal discipline and economic growth, he simply could not be reelected in 1996.

By adopting a bold new agenda that included a balanced budget, frank acknowledgment of the limits of government, welfare reform, as well as the protection of key social programs, we were able to win a decisive victory over former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole in 1996. Without that fundamental repositioning, Clinton would almost certainly have lost.

While the circumstances are different, the electorate now wants the same things that it wanted back then. The American people, exhausted and demoralized by a sluggish economy, recognize that the stimulus package, as currently crafted and implemented, has at best produced short-term results through subsidization of the public sector. And they are increasingly uneasy about rising deficits, which remain the independent voter's touchstone.

The left-wing economists urging Obama to ignore the latter concern, and pour more taxpayer money into the economy now, regardless of the impact on the deficits, are prescribing electoral suicide.

Obama needs a robust, fast-acting job-creation strategy that doesn't throw fiscal responsibility to the wind.

To start, he should provide entrepreneurs and small businesses with new incentives to create jobs. He must fight to enact a payroll tax holiday, new lending through the Small Business Administration's loan program, an extension of the Small Business Innovation Research program and tax credits for businesses that invest in research and development.

He should assemble a package of reforms to facilitate start-ups, allowing prospective entrepreneurs to grow tax-free savings for the purpose of starting a small business, and offering property tax breaks for those who do.

On the deficit side, he should also develop an initiative modeled on the Clinton administration's National Partnership for Reinventing Government - which cut more than $25 billion of waste out of the federal budget each year. Obama's election-year promise to go through the federal budget "line by line," eliminating waste, is rarely mentioned anymore.

And he must not back down on the bipartisan deficit reduction commission he created, making clear that he will do everything possible to rein in the size, scope and cost of government.

Perhaps he could get behind a federal version of the Office of the Repealer proposed by Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican running for governor of Kansas. It would review rules and regulations on the books with an eye to purge old, over-the-top government-imposed burdens that no longer apply.

Policymakers must also press ahead, without further delay, on a broad immigration reform agenda - getting past the static debate over the Arizona initiative to encourage more highly skilled foreign-born students and entrepreneurs to come to America and create lasting employment opportunities for all.

The Obama administration needs to make a decisive turn. Without it, the Democrats could well face Armageddon come November.

Schoen, who served as a pollster for President Bill Clinton

I think it's far too late as far as mid-terms go. Way too late. In tow years, we'll see if the man has moved to the center. If not, he's destined to be a one term president and with a record right in line with Jimmy Carter.