Obama will use state of US economy to build 2012 White House bid

WASHINGTON - Some political observers and experts are of the view that US President Barack Obama is in “survival mode”, while others predict he will make the state of the economy the cornerstone of his bid for a second term in office in 2012.

With unemployment at above eight percent, deficit above a trillion dollars and American troops still in Afghanistan, many of Obama’s top advisers have left the White House for Chicago to start brainstorm their 2012 strategy.

On Tuesday, Obama used his State of the Union address to accentuate the positives, make a few gestures to the center and offer an upbeat vision for the future.

How he does it, and how effective that will be, much depends on the course of the next two years-especially since the “stimulus” of the last two years has become somewhat of a dirty word among Democrats, Fox News reports.I think it’s going to be contingent probably on the state of the economy. If the economy turns around, then his record looks a lot different, and it’ll be easier to pin his re-election on his stewardship,” said David Lewis, political science professor at Vanderbilt University.

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley argued with aides before the State of the Union that Obama should adopt a more business-friendly, forward-looking tone, focusing on the value of innovation in the private sector with a helping hand from the government.

“It’s not going to be the full-out hope of 2008,” said Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, an assistant political science professor at Northwestern University.

But she said the message would probably be focused on “light at the end of the tunnel.”

She said if the economy improves, Obama will be “riding that wave hard and fast.” If it doesn’t, he’s back to talking about how he kept things from getting worse than they are, “which is a tough one.”

Democratic strategist Peter Fenn said Obama will probably build his fiscal message in the months ahead by picking and choosing some of those recommendations to promote-sending a message that he’s serious about the deficit.

Fenn also argued that Obama already has more economic accomplishments under his belt than some give him credit for.

“The economy isn’t in freefall, it’s coming back. All the talk about how horrendous it was to put money into the car companies-we saved America’s manufacturing base. They’re turning a profit,” Fenn said. (ANI)