if you haven’t seen it yet, click on over to James Carville’s “What should the White House do? Panic!” at cnn.com for some of the toughest unsolicited advice President Obama is likely to receive. Progressives who have been urging the President to burn a few disfunctional bridges will like what Carville has to say, as one of the few strongly opinionated political strategists who has a lengthy track record to back it up. The gist:

This is what I would say to President Barack Obama: The time has come to demand a plan of action that requires a complete change from the direction you are headed.
I don’t know how else to break this down. Simply put:
1. Fire somebody. No — fire a lot of people. This may be news to you but this is not going well. For precedent, see Russian Army 64th division at Stalingrad. There were enough deaths at Stalingrad to make the entire tea party collectively orgasm.
Mr. President, your hinge of fate must turn. Bill Clinton fired many people in 1994 and took a lot of heat for it. Reagan fired most of his campaign staff in 1980. Republicans historically fired their own speaker, Newt Gingrich. Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. For God’s sake, why are we still looking at the same political and economic advisers that got us into this mess? It’s not working.
Furthermore, it’s not going to work with the same team, the same strategy and the same excuses. I know economic analysts are smart — some work 17-hour days. It’s time to show them the exit. Wake up — show us you are doing something.
2. Indict people. There are certain people in American finance who haven’t been held responsible for utterly ruining the economic fabric of our country. Demand from the attorney general a clear status of the state of investigation concerning these extraordinary injustices imposed upon the American people. I know Attorney General Eric Holder is a close friend of yours, but if his explanations aren’t good, fire him too. Demand answers to why no one has been indicted.
Mr. President, people are livid. Tell people that you, too, are angry and sickened by the irresponsible actions on Wall Street that caused so much suffering. Do not accept excuses. Demand action now.
3. Make a case like a Democrat. While we are going along with the Republican austerity garbage, who is making the case against it? It’s not the Democrats!
We are allowing the over-educated, over-explanatory bureaucrat by the name of (Congresssional Budget Office director Douglas) Elmendorf do all the talking. Do not let him make your case. Let us make your case. Is it any wonder that we were doing better in the middle of the stimulus-spending period than we are doing with the austerity program?
4. Hold fast to an explanation. Stick to your rationale for what has happened and what is going to happen under your leadership. You must carry this through until the election (never say that things are improving because evidently they are not).

Lest we forget the stakes, Carville has a reminder:

As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I sit in front of the television and shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country.
The course we are on is not working. The hour is late, and the need is great. Fire. Indict. Fight.

Carville has generated some hot buzz with this one. Straight talk from a proven winner.

Elizabeth Warren today announced her Senate candidacy to replace Scott Brown, and if she wins, the Democratic Party will gain an incorruptible voice for consumers and workers — much to the dismay of corporate America. Writing in The Nation, John Nichols explains what Warren’s candidacy could mean:

Warren wants to change the economic debate in a country where the poverty rate is rising, the middle-class is shrinking, the rich are getting dramatically richer and the corporations are writing the rules. In Warren’s words, working families have been “chipped at, hacked at, squeezed and hammered for a generation now, and I don’t think Washington gets it.”
“Washington is rigged for big corporations that hire armies of lobbyists,” she continued. “A big company like GE pays nothing in taxes and we’re asking college students to take on even more debt to get an education, we’re telling seniors they may have to learn to live on less. It isn’t right, and it’s the reason I’m running for the U.S. Senate.”
…She started Wednesday morning not in the halls of academies but at a Boston commuter station, where she greeted working men–in a campaign start that provided evidence that this, like all of Warren’s endeavors, will be a high-energy and people-powered project. And the nation’s most identifiable battler against the big banks and the Wall Street speculators was driving the message home. “The pressures on middle-class families are worse than ever, but it is the big corporations that get their way in Washington,” she said. “I want to change that.”

Suffice it to say that her opponent, Scott Brown, will not be hurting for corporate cash. Warren will need small contributors, lots of them. She will get good support from unions, and Nichols notes that the influential National Nurses United union is already on board her campaign in a big way.
Nichols does a good job of limning the big-picture significance of a Warren victory:

It’s not just that a Warren candidacy could provide Democrats with a needed pick-up of a currently Republican-held seat–although that’s a big deal for the party, which faces a dismal electoral map in 2012. If the chief advocate for real banking reform and the development of a federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau runs and defeats US Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts, she will instantly become an essential spokesperson for progressive values in national economic, regulatory and fiscal policy debates.
Put Warren next to stalwarts like Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley, Minnesota Democrat Al Franken, Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, California Democrat Barbara Boxer, a re-elected Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders, a re-elected Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, as well as progressive candidates like Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Hawaiian Democrat Mazie Hirono–House members seeking open Senate seats–and you’ve got the makings of what Warren’s old friend Paul Wellstone always wanted: a Senate progressive caucus.

Not to take anything away from the aforementioned progressive senators, but few of them could teach Warren much about corporate abuses. She is one of America’s top experts on the topic, as well as a fearless advocate for reform.
Progressive Democrats who have been lamenting the future of their party and its reluctance to embrace populist principles have just run out of excuses. The Warren campaign will be a no-whining zone — and a place where progressive activists can confidently invest their time, talents and economic resources.

Ron Brownstein has a post up at National Journal Daily, “With Doubts, Voters Prefer Obama Jobs Plan” reporting on a United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll with some good news, tempered by cautionary notes, for President Obama.
The Poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International 9/8-11, indicates that nearly half of respondents believed the president’s jobs plan will “help somewhat” and that the President still enjoys a slight edge 37 to 35 percent over congressional Republicans in public trust to revive the economy. As Brownstein explains, “With some exceptions, those polled saw more promise in the ideas that Obama offered in his speech than proposals Republicans are touting in Congress and in the 2012 campaign.” Brownstein cautions, however:

…The share of Americans who said that Obama’s policies have compounded economic difficulties was nearly double the portion who said he has improved conditions. And just one-in-six said they expected the jobs plan he sent to Congress will significantly reduce unemployment.

Brownstein also noted strong public support for a constitutional amendment to cap federal spending and balance the budget, along with slight and near majorities for cutting corporate taxes, repealing health care reform, tax cuts for all earners and Romney’s proposal to “repeal a regulation for each new one promulgated.”
Conversely, “Nearly as many (46 percent) thought that extending the Bush tax cuts would not be too effective or not effective at all,” and “at least 37 percent also said expressed doubt that repealing the health care law, limiting regulations as Romney proposed, or cutting corporate taxes would do much good.” Moreover, notes Brownstein:

Ideas Obama touted in last week’s speech generally fared better. Three-fourths of those polled said they believed his proposal to cut taxes on employers who hire new workers, or provide a raise to existing ones, would be either very or somewhat effective in creating jobs. Seven-in-10 said the same about his proposal to provide state and local governments funds to prevent layoffs of teachers and police officers. Two-thirds rendered the same verdict on the idea of helping more homeowners refinance their mortgages at lower interest rates.

Brownstein also notes that people of color more strongly supported the President’s proposals. But nearly half of white respondents believed the President’s actions “had hurt the economy,” with college-educated whites as negative as those without a college education.
As Brownstein concludes, “…Obama’s hopes next year may turn on convincing voters to see the 2012 election as a forward-looking choice between competing vision rather than a referendum on his results since 2009.”

Polling data indicates that President Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act contains provisions the public supports, according to TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira’s latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’:

The two biggest components of the act are payroll tax cuts, both for employees and employers (about $240 billion) and infrastructure spending on roads and schools (about $140 billion). Over the next few weeks we will see a lot of polling about these ideas, but we already have indications from polling prior to his speech that these two big items will receive a friendly reception from the public.
Start with the payroll tax cuts. Around a week before the speech, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that the public, by 2:1 (40-20), thought continuing to cut the payroll tax was a good idea for a jobs plan rather than a bad idea.

Regarding infrastructure spending, Teixeira reports:

…The same poll found the public supporting funding a new road construction bill, with 47 percent terming it a good idea, compared to 26 percent who thought it was a bad idea.
Infrastructure spending was also tested in another poll before the speech, conducted by George Washington University/Politico. In that poll, the public was asked about an infrastructure measure very similar to what the president proposed: “a large scale federally subsidized nationwide construction program putting Americans back to work building roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals.” The public supported this idea by a wide 51-21 margin.

“The public is clearly ready for the American Jobs Act,” says Teixeira. “But is Congress? The next few weeks will tell the tale.”

Fourteen months out may seem a little early to start counting electoral college votes, but we can be sure that’s exactly what the pros are doing on both sides. Larry J. Sabato, who has a pretty good track record in assessing presidential elections, reasons it out state by state and then works up a tally that both blue and red strategists are sure to note:

So Republicans are a lock or lead in 24 states for 206 electoral votes, and Democrats have or lead in 19 states for 247 electoral votes. Seven super-swing states with 85 electors will determine which party gets to the 270 Electoral College majority: Colorado (9), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18) and Virginia (13). Prior to Obama’s 2008 victories in each state, several of these toss-ups had generally or firmly leaned Republican for most elections since 1980. Virginia, which hadn’t voted Democratic since 1964, was the biggest surprise, and its Obama majority was larger than that of Ohio, which has frequently been friendly to Democrats in modern times. Massive Hispanic participation turned Colorado and Nevada to Obama, and it helped him in Florida. New Hampshire was the only state lost by Al Gore that switched to John Kerry; its special New England character makes it especially volatile.

It’s a fairly optimistic scenario for Dems, given the worrisome economic challenges of the political moment. And Sabato pinpoints another advantage the President can leverage, “Right now, though, a troubled President Obama — so far unopposed for renomination — has the luxury of keeping both eyes on the Electoral College, planning his trips and policies accordingly.” In a related post, Sabato and associates work through various scenarios targeting the “fickle five” states (NC, IN, FL, OH and VA).
Sabato believes the Democratic preferred target states will depend on the GOP nominee, since there are very different regional angles to consider with respect to front-runners Perry and Romney. The “National Popular Vote Campaign” to render the electoral college inconsequential doesn’t appear to be on track to kick in for 2012, so winning a majority of electoral votes of the seven swing states remains the big game.
Equally encouraging, Alan I. Abramowitz, also writing in Sabato’s Crystal Ball, sees “a slight advantage to Obama,” adding “It appears that there are more ways that he can piece together the 270 electoral votes needed to win in a close election. Despite what happened in 2000, the Electoral College may yet turn out to be the Democrats’ friend in 2012.”

The following article by political strategist and partner in Democracy Partners Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
President Obama’s speech to Congress tonight reset the political battle lines and put Progressives back on the offensive.
The speech included provisions that Republicans in Congress may actually agree to pass — like continuing the payroll tax holiday that if allowed to lapse would affect the paychecks of virtually every American worker. But it also made the case for bold initiatives to rebuild America’s infrastructure and directly create jobs through a teacher corps and youth jobs program. These bolder proposals are critically necessary to jump start the economy, and Obama is betting — correctly — that if they fail to support them, Republicans will pay a political price next year.
What was needed was a package of proposals that were bold, projected urgency, and will create jobs now. The president delivered.
Obama explicitly rejected the dangerous, fallacious notion that the path to long-term economic growth runs through the valley of economic austerity.
He clearly defined the fundamental difference in values — and economic philosophy — between progressive Democrats and right wing Republicans.
The president provided the perfect counter point to Rick Perry’s outrageous statement in the Republican debate, that the Obama economic record had proved once and for all that “Keynesianism was dead.” Of course, just the opposite is true.
Any one who has taken a semester of Economics 101 knows that problem at the root recessions is too little economic demand to purchase the available supply of goods and services. Seeing their customer base shrink, businesses make fewer investments, and layoff more workers and the economy enters a downward — deadly spiral.
What is needed to restore the economy to health is not “confidence” but customers. And the only economic actor that can provide those customers is the government. We must all collectively act through our government to restart the economy because if everyone is left to act in their own rational individual economic self interests they will make matters worse, not better. With less demand from customers, it is rational for businesses to hold on to their cash and lay off workers, but that only increases the number of people who are unemployed and unable to buy new products.
The 2009 stimulus bill halted the slid of the economy into depression. Without it we would have had another Great Depression. But it turns out the stimulus wasn’t large enough to restart the engine of self-sustaining growth.
That’s because we now know from new economic data that the Republican policies that lead to the melt down on Wall Street and triggered the recession, had inflicted even more damage on the economy than anyone knew at the time.
That means that to get us out of this economic swamp, the government must act to create more jobs now — so that more people have money in their pockets and can buy more products and demonstrate to businesses that it makes economic sense to hire more workers and invest in more plants and equipment.
The notion that you can create more jobs by cutting government spending is not just another theory or point of view — it is verifiably wrong. And in his speech the president made it clear that the Republican “emperor has no cloths.”
When the Republicans prevented continued aid to state and local government, half a million teachers, firemen, health care workers, and cops were laid off — its that simple.
If we were to cut the Social Security or Medicare benefits of middle class seniors they would have less money to buy things and that would mean that businesses hire less workers — this is not hard.
As for the Republican’s fixation on eliminating “regulatory burdens” and cutting taxes for wealthy “job creators” — that is exactly the plan that lead to the deregulation of Wall Street and the crash — and that generated exactly zero private sector job growth during the Bush years — that’s right zero. We’ve been there and tried that. It didn’t work when Herbert Hoover tried it before the Great Depression and it didn’t work when George Bush tried it before the Great Recession.
And of course in both cases that policy lead more and more of the fruits of our economy to go to the top two percent of Americans and less and less to the middle class. Today 400 families control as much wealth as 150 million Americans. That kind of gaping inequality creates the conditions that lead to economic stagnation, because when the income of everyday workers don’t increase to keep pace with increases in worker productivity, it is mathematically impossible for workers to buy the new products they create.
Henry Ford understood that to be successful he had to pay his workers enough so that they, themselves, could by the cars they produced. Rick Perry and the Republicans don’t get that simple fact. Luckily, President Obama does.
But this speech did more than clearly define the difference between progressive and right wing economic philosophy. It had huge political benefits for the president and Democrats.
First, Obama rejected the Republican view that there is nothing we can do to create new jobs but cut government spending and pray. He argued that we can take the future into our own hands — that we are not just the victims of forces that are so big and so powerful that we are simply at their mercy. People don’t want to be told they are helpless or that they must simply get used to the “new normal” and watch the American Dream go up in smoke. They want leadership, and Obama provided it.
Second, Obama recognizes the political fact that jobs trump short-term deficits. According to a July Gallup poll, concern over the economy and jobs top concern for the deficit by at 58% to 16% margin. The great deficit discussion — Republican frame for debate that has dominated the summer — completely missed the mark when it comes to the interests of most Americans.
Finally, Obama signaled the kind of campaign he will run in 2012. No incumbent president has won re-election in the last century when the economy was not either good — or materially improving — except for one. Harry Truman won in 1948 in the midst of bad economic news, by running against the “do-nothing Republican Congress.”
Obama political adviser David Axelrod was quoted in the Washington Post as saying that “Obama will make clear that Republicans are to blame if they don’t agree to the jobs measures… Harry Truman once said if you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat. And that’s what the president is going to do.”
That is exactly the kind of message that will simultaneously attract swing voters who want strong leadership to create jobs — and at the same time re-inspire the progressive base.
Even if they want to go further than the president when it comes to the scale of a jobs program, progressives were elated that the President has sounded the call to battle on this critical issue — that he has drawn an indelible contrast between the failed right wing economic policies of the past — and progressive policies that will lead to widely shared long term economic growth.
If we take it, progressives and Democrats have the high political ground when it comes to the all important jobs debate. But that requires that we stand up proudly for our economic principles and contrast them sharply with the failed right wing economic policies of the past. Our principles provide solid political ground from which fight the battle of 2012. Obama’s speech signaled that is precisely where he intends to make his stand.

Conservatives are still trying to get the public refocused on “reforming” Medicare and Social Security, while putting investment in jobs on hold. But the public isn’t having any of it, as Ruy Teixeira explains in this week’s edition of his ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’:

Right after the debt ceiling deal last month, the public was asked whether creating jobs or cutting spending should be our nation’s highest priority now. By an overwhelming 62 percent to 29 percent margin, the public prioritized job creation. Sounds like a cue for serious action rather than small-bore proposals that won’t have much of an effect on the problem.

And fooling around with America’s two most popular social benefits programs is also off limits, as far as the public is concerned:

…The American people also have some priorities about what they don’t want to happen as Congress continues its deliberations about the long-term budgetary situation. By a lopsided 64 percent to 35 percent, they say they don’t want major changes in Social Security and Medicare included in future deficit reduction proposals.

It couldn’t be clearer, says Teixeira: “Create jobs and don’t mess around with Social Security and Medicare. A simple recipe for Congress if only they could be induced to follow it.”

Labor Day 2011 has come and gone, but the spirit still reverberates in Madison, where Tom ‘the Nightwatchman’ Morello tore it up in Madison’s Labor Day celebration at the Barrymore Theatre yesterday. From Andy Downing’s report at Madison.com:

Appearing here in his solo guise as The Nightwatchman, Morello, still best known for his work as lead guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, spent a bulk of his 70-minute set leading a rousing demonstration that felt informed by the same sense of purpose as this year’s Capitol Square protests. At times, the events even shared a soundtrack. Such was the case when the guitarist gave an encore performance of “Union Song,” a tune he first played in town this past February during a rally on the steps of the Capitol.
Elsewhere, Morello delivered solemn acoustic ballads (a hushed “The Garden of Gethsemane”), rousing foot stompers (“Black Spartacus Heart Attack Machine”) and throwback numbers both by Woody Guthrie (“This Land Is Your Land,” introduced here as “America’s alternative national anthem”) and clearly reminiscent of his work (“Union Town”).

In his profile of Morello, The Nation’s John Nichols notes that Morello would be welcomed to Madison this time by Fire Fighters Local 311 Bagpipers, who have been leading mass marches in that city, playing their “ancient instrument of popular insurrection.”
Mere reportage can’t really do justice to the Morello experience, which usually includes a fierce pro-worker rally speech (clip of earlier Wisconsin rally speech here), along with guitar rifts channeling the spirit of Jimi Hendrix in top form. No YouTubes of the Barrymore event are posted as yet, but here’s Morello’s ‘Union Town’ video featuring scenes from Madison, where he has visited to boost the cause on other occasions:

Morello’s visit was part of the ‘Justice Tour’ he is leading in battleground states under attack from wingnut anti-labor politicians. “They’re raising money for nonprofit media (via The Nation Institute) that expose corporate abuse and highlights union struggles,” reports Nichols. “But most of all, they’re celebrating the rise of a new pro-labor, pro-democracy movement that marches to the sound of guitars–and bagpipes.”
Now if we can bottle a little of that spirit for the next election…

Ryan J. Reilly has an update on the origins and legal strategy behind voter i.d. laws being passed around the country. Reilly shines a floodlight on where they come from and what they are really about:

It all started in January, as many new Republican state legislators who had been swept into statehouses across the country in the 2010 elections started pushing like-minded legislation soon after they took office.
“These bills started popping up everywhere and what started as a trickle almost seemed like a flood,” Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told TPM.
Altogether this year, 20 states which did not have voter ID laws and 14 states that already had non-photo ID laws have considered legislation requiring citizens have a photo ID to vote, according to the latest figures from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Of those 34 states which considered voter ID legislation, six of them enacted laws: Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
Many suspect some sort of coordinated campaign behind the voter ID bills. Back in March, Campus Progress uncovered model legislation published by the conservative group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Fiddler isn’t so sure they’re entirely responsible.
“I know a lot of folks point to ALEC and what they’re doing but what my experience tells me is that a lot of these legislators are influenced by their colleagues in others states,” Fiddler told TPM. “They say, ‘hey that works! Let’s try to push that thing here’.”
A few years back, there was a centralized group, the American Center for Voting Rights, that was dedicated to pushing the idea that voter fraud was a major threat. Now it’s more a loose network of conservatives who have used their influence at think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the pages of various conservative media outlets to push voter fraud as a threat to democracy.
The Tea Party is also getting in on the game, with a group in Texas playing a major role, starting an affiliated group called “True the Vote” that hosted its first national conference back in March. Speakers insisted that their efforts were non-partisan and that they wanted everyone to be able to vote.

As for the motivation behind the new i.d. laws, Reilly reports:

“There’s a lot of reason to think that voter ID laws depending on how they’re constructed could have a harmful effect on minority voters,” University of Michigan Law School Professor Samuel Bagenstos told TPM. Bagenstos was the number two official in the Civil Rights Division until he returned to Michigan this summer.
The VRA, Bagenstos said, “puts the burden on the state to prove that the change in voting isn’t discriminatory in purpose and effect.”
“The people who are proposing those laws say there’s a problem with voter fraud,” he said. “But since the overwhelming majority of voter fraud that occurs occurs via absentee ballot and not at the polls, there’s a very tenuous connection.”
Since the legislatures proposing voter ID laws don’t typically come out and say that they’re trying to stop minorities from voting, it’s usually much easier to argue that regardless of what lawmakers intended to accomplish when they passed the law that it would have a discriminatory effect.

Reilly notes that advocates of i.d. bills in Texas and Arizona are focused on weakening or gutting the section 5 pre-clearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, making it easier for states to pass voting laws that disempower minority communities. Attorney General Holder says the Justice Department “will continue to enforce the Voting Rights Act…”
Ironic that the conservative advocates of ‘smaller government’ are fine with increasing regulation and spending more taxpayer dollars to fund a “solution’ to the non-existent problem of voter fraud.

Matthew Yglesias takes a dour look at the focus of a debate now raging between liberal and moderate Democrats in his ThinkProgress post, “How The ‘Hack Gap’ Will Kill Obama’s Jobs Speech.”

I think Jon Chait gets this exactly right. The debate between moderate Democrats who want the president to propose initiatives that can pass Congress even if they don’t create jobs and liberal Democrats who want the president to propose initiatives that would create jobs even if they can’t pass Congress is nonsense.
If you’re going to propose things that can pass Congress and they create jobs, then I don’t think it matters whether or not they’re popular. The job creation will be rewarded. But if you’re going to pass something that can’t pass Congress, then it doesn’t matter at all whether it would hypothetically work, all that matters is that it polls well. And as Chait says, the things that Keynesian analysis suggests would create jobs — much larger budget deficits, higher inflation — are not popular things to campaign on…

As for the President’s upcoming speech on Thursday, Yglesias sees an unavoidable snare resulting from the lack of Democratic message discipline:

The smart move, if you’re just going to give a speech for speech’s sake, is to make the speech be full of nonsense bromides that voters like to hear. Except one problem President Obama will face is that for a “nonsense bromides” strategy to be maximally effective, it would be really useful for the entire progressive echo chamber to get really excited about his bromide agenda and start loudly insisting that the bromides would be super-successful in reducing unemployment if implemented. But Paul Krugman, Rachel Maddow, etc. won’t do that. A speech full of bromides will be disparaged as bromidish. These are the wages of the “hack gap,” the fact that the progressive media ecology is less leadable than the Conintern. Consequently, the president will probably try to split the difference in a way that leaves everyone unhappy and sniping at him from all directions.

There is a better way to go, says Yglesias, “…What he actually needs are measures that would boost the economy and don’t require congressional authorization.” Yglesias doesn’t define the measures of such an ‘end run’ strategy in his post. But some of these measures will likely be advocated in a spate of “what the president should say” articles and posts over the next week.
Yglesias also identifies the primary obstacle to any further stimulus proposals:

But to understand just how screwed Obama is, you need to read Ed Glaeser’s criticisms of mass mortgage modifications. He goes on at great length about some flaws in the idea, and sort of breezily dismisses the need for economic stimulus in a couple of sentences that do nothing more than establish that this isn’t a particularly well-targeted form of stimulus. And yet is Glaeser volunteering to whip votes in the House to get a better-targeted, more-optimal stimulus through the GOP caucus? Of course not. But precisely the reaction you’ll get to any institutionally feasible stimulus at this point is that it’s a poorly targeted, inefficient desperation move. And in a sense, that’s true. The best time to get this right was back in 2009 when the White House had a much stronger hand.

Despite his impressive public speaking skills, President Obama faces a daunting challenge in his jobs speech a week from today. But if Yglesias is right, Obama’s greater challenge is to reduce unemployment through executive action that doesn’t require congressional approval.