Obama should take a page from FDR

Stuart Weiss, Las Vegas

Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

President Barack Obama will never be re-elected because of creating jobs generally, but he might save his own job if he sharpens his rhetoric and takes on his enemies.

Check the New Deal. President Franklin Roosevelt’s first administration — and second — created few jobs outside the public sector, e.g., the Tennessee Valley Authority and Civilian Conservation Corps. Yet he was re-elected by an overwhelming margin. How or why?

First, FDR, in his inaugural address, conveyed confidence: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror”; then, 10 days later his warm voice in a fireside chat inspired confidence and reopened the nation’s banks.

Second, he identified his and the country’s enemies in 1936 in sharp terms, among them “economic royalists.” In fact, it might be said that he was loved by many because of the enemies he made. And he won a second term overwhelmingly despite high, continuing unemployment.

Obama should follow this course, proposing specific legislation that will create jobs, saying “we must have,” not “we need,” and do so in sharper terms than “infrastructure bank,” as infrastructure means nothing to many people, and bank reminds them of TARP. Moreover, he must identify his and the country’s opponents specifically, including, most importantly, the lobbies for prescription drugs and banks that cripple solid, essential legislation.