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Obama set to tell voters of economic successes
President Barack Obama will tell voters on Thursday that he and Democrats succeeded in pulling the U
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resident Barack Obama will tell voters on Thursday that he and Democrats succeeded in pulling the U.S. economy back from the brink of collapse during the Great Recession, a speech that looks forward to elections just a month away, when Republicans are seen as having a better than even chance at taking control of the Senate and dooming the White House legislative agenda.
Obama speaks at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in a suburb of Chicago, his adopted hometown.
The president has spent weeks consumed with international crises and now the firestorm over failures by the Secret Service, the agency charged with protecting him. Obama now wants to let voters know he hasn't forgotten about their financial struggles.
And voters still are keying on that issue. The new Associated Press-GfK poll shows that nine in 10 likely voters said the economy was an important issue, outpacing rising concerns about terrorism, ongoing concerns about health care, and the social issues that have led to sharp clashes on the campaign trail.
"I can put my record against any leader around the world in terms of digging ourselves out of a terrible, almost unprecedented financial crisis," Obama said in an interview that aired Sunday on "60 Minutes." A CNN poll out this week found two-thirds of Americans said the economy would be their top issue when deciding their votes for Congress.
In the coming months while voters make up their minds on candidates in the midterm election that will decide whether Republicans gain full control of Congress, Obama plans to speak out more during that time on pocketbook concerns, including a jobs speech Friday in Indiana.
Many important economic indicators are good ' unemployment has been going down, consumer spending is up and housing prices are rising. The stock market hit new records in the past month, then softened in recent days.
Obama's challenge is to walk a delicate line between claiming credit for an economic recovery without seeming to disregard continuing hard times. His aides said this speech isn't designed to lay out new policy ideas, but to explain what he's done to help the U.S. recover from the Great Recession that he inherited when taking office in January 2009.
Obama also plans to acknowledge the reality that many Americans aren't experiencing the recovery and argue that more needs to be done. His aides say he intends to be more presidential than partisan, at least this time.
Obama chose Northwestern because of its reputation as a scholarly business school and the ideal setting for an address that was expected to tackle the economic issues more deeply than a typical campaign speech. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama will be speaking to the "students who will have a hand in shaping America's economic future and leadership both at home and abroad."
A big sign of U.S. economic health will be a jobs report coming out Friday. Although some economic figures look good, they aren't yet easing the strain on many families' budgets.
"They don't feel it because incomes and wages are not going up," Obama said on "60 Minutes." He argued that Democratic priorities like raising the minimum wage, job training and road building will help. Voters will decide if they agree. (**)
