In what could be considered to be a random act journalism on Sunday, CNN “State of the Union” host Candy Crowley forced Obama senior campaign adviser to admit that the Obama campaign is lacking a “big idea” and will run on achieving the same goals set forth in the president’s first term’s agenda.
“The president laid out this week in a very important speech in Ohio the choice facing the country about the right things to do to grow the economy and strengthen the middle-class,” Plouffe said. “And we have a lot more work to do.”
Crowley challenged Plouffe’s statement that “we have a lot more work to do” as an economic campaign message.
“The point is, what direction is the country going the take?” he replied. “I think that we would all openly admit the economy has to strengthen, we have to create a lot more jobs. And question is — what is the best way to do it? Our approach is, let’s reduce the deficit in a fair and balanced way. Let’s have an economy where hard work is rewarded and everybody gets a fair shot. And as we reduce the deficit, we have the ability to invest in things like rebuilding this country, a new energy future, make sure we continue to lead the world in innovation. But the important thing is that there is a choice here. Gov. Romney and his allies in Congress, they want to go back to the same policies that created the recession. We know that won’t work. And so really the American people have to decide which direction they want to go.”
Crowley said that response lacked a “big idea,” but Plouffe stuck to his “we have some work to do” theme.
“Some of them we have accomplished, some we haven’t, some we have more work to do,” Plouffe said.
Crowley persisted in her quest to get Plouffe to differentiate the 2008 campaign from the 2012 campaign. But Plouffe insisted that the campaign is a work in progress.
“Listen this — first of all, some of these challenges predate the recession,” he said. “This isn’t just about recovering from the recession. It’s about making sure we have more stability and security for the middle class. So this is going to take a long time.”