President Obama came to Denver last week and demanded that Congress pass his American Jobs Act legislation. He urged the audience to call, text and tweet their representatives in Congress and demand a vote on the legislation. Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called Obama's bluff and made a motion for a vote in the US Senate.
 |
Guess who blocked it? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). He didn't have the Democrat votes to pass it.
That piece of wily legislative maneuvering from McConnell exposed how poorly the President has set up his argument against his opponents.
The straw man argument that Democrats are trying to set up with the American Jobs Act campaign is that Republicans are opposed to doing anything Obama wants.
While Republicans are opposed to the vast majority of Obama's priorities, even Democrats are not lining up behind the President on this bill.
Democrats with tough races next year, where they will need the support of independent voters to win, are balking at the legislation. Harry Reid was so afraid he didn't have the votes for Obama's bill that he blocked a vote from ever occurring.
In fact, Harry Reid has signalled that he won't even have a vote on the measure until the end of the month — as much as seven weeks after President Obama gave a speech before a joint session of Congress declaring they should pass the bill "right now."
The American "Jobs" Act brouhaha has provided a stark reminder of how weak Obama has become. It all began with his speech before Congress, which he tried to schedule for the same night as a GOP debate, only to sheepishly back down from his demand and schedule it for the following night.
Highlighting the damage Obama will do to down-ticket Democrats, a number of senior Congressional Democrats have even gone on the record to trash provisions of the bill. From CBS's article entitled "Even Democrats Skeptical Of Obama's Jobs Act":
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia doesn't like the price tag.
"The ugly part of that act is $450 billion of spending, after we've spent, spent, spent. And I've said if spending would have cured our problems, we'd have no problems," Manchin said.
Which makes us wonder, where do Colorado Democrats stand on the issue?
President Obama said in his Denver speech that every Democrat with him at the speech was on board with the legislation, but Ed Perlmutter, who attended the speech, has not come out clearly in support of the full legislation. Will Perlmutter vote for the full bill?
What would Sal Pace, Brandon Shaffer and Joe Miklosi do if they had a vote on the House floor?
As we've been saying for a while, Obama is going to drag down Democrats in Colorado next year. Early signs are already appearing. With the American Jobs Act it will be interesting to see how far Democrats in Colorado run from it.