POTUS in Scranton

I wasn't able to make it but a couple of our local bloggers had front row seats. I spotted Michelle (thanks for the pic) and Karla on MSNBC before the event started and await their reports. Sorry, I don't do Twitter.

Only the Yonk and the Blogfather have post game reactions up so far. David says "We hear all about the job creators but my question remains the same, What have they have been creating in the last three years? Tell me. Point me to a private industry jobs program, point me to an industry that has adopted a patriotic mantra to get America working again? Answer me those questions and I’ll shut up about taxing the rich...Obama needs to stay tough" and Mark repeated his usual digs at unions and government workers saying "With no record of achievement to run on, expect a steady of dose of the obfuscation and the class warfare until he's trounced next November."

Before the President spoke 3 of our friends on the right greeted him. Politics in NEPA had a creative post knocking him for a campaign stop because of sagging poll numbers, green energy jobs and the housing market and also took a shot at Corey O'Brien. McGruff posted a press release from 10th CD Congressman Tom Marino alleging "his insistence on sticking to his worn-out ideologies and Chicago-style politics is clearly hurting the national economy." Chicago-style politics? I wish he was more like Mayor Daley and knock some heads together. Pure Bunkum called him Robin Hood and also mocked the fiction that this wasn't a campaign event. Since Betty has taken the side of Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham I'll quote the President:

Now, I know you hear a lot of folks on cable TV claiming that I’m this big tax-and-spend liberal. Next time you hear that, you just remind the people who are saying it that since I’ve taken office, I’ve cut your taxes. Your taxes today -- the average middle-class family, your taxes today are lower than when I took office, just remember that. We have cut taxes for small businesses not once, not twice, but 17 times. The average family’s tax burden is among the lowest it’s been in the last 60 years. So the problem is not that we’ve been raising taxes. We’ve actually been trying to give families a break during these tough times.

I agree with my friend DB Echo who is an unemployed/underemployed blogger

I still didn't really believe that people would really and truly intentionally cripple the economy in an effort to hurt their political opponents, and to hell with the consequences, to hell with all the people who would be hurt. Even after Democratic members of Congress came out and stated directly that Republicans were intentionally hurting the economy to hurt President Obama's chances of re-election.


Even after employers came out and said they refused to do any more hiring until that half-breed Kenyan-born Muslim socialist fascist was out of the White House.
Until John Boehner got up and said, yes, that's exactly what we're doing.That was months ago. It hasn't gotten any better since then. The political battle is ramping up. Job seekers are being held hostage. The economy is being held hostage. Republicans want to maximize economic suffering to drive home the point that Americans made a terrible, terrible mistake when they elected Barack Obama in 2008.



Instead I think the point they are making, and underlining in red, and circling and drawing arrows and lightning bolts next to, is what a terrible, terrible mistake it was to load up Congress with even more Republicans in 2010.



Unfortunately, a large proportion of the electorate is soft-minded and easily manipulated. Yes, they say, Barack Obama is a failure, just like Rush Limbaugh said he would be! And besides, those Democrats are evil, what with their love of abortions and gay marriage and the Fourteenth Amendment and all that other un-American crap. I gotta vote Republican!