No doubt, there are lots of high fives around the White House today. Their crack communications team finally, finally got the headlines they wanted. A couple of examples:
LA Times: At news conference, Obama portrays himself as compromiser in chief
NY Times: Obama Grasping Centrist Banner in Debt Impasse
Centrist. Compromiser. Those words are like gold to Team Obama, designed to help with outreach to independent voters -- with the assumption that the Democratic base will just suck it up.
And, we get confirmation from the top political adviser, via the NYT, that this is the real Obama -- and is not based on "repositioning":
“There was never a discussion of, ‘Let’s sit down and reposition ourselves.’ There were discussions of returning to first principles and the things that motivated him to run,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior political strategist. “This is what he talked about all through the 2008 campaign — that we need to put solving problems ahead of scoring political points, and we have to think about not just the next election but the next generation.”This is who he is. Now.
The next meeting of the President and Congressional leaders will take place at 3:45 PM ET today.
