CAF In The News

nydailynews.com — CAF writer Bill Scher outlines some rules that the president could follow to make his second term historic.

"How can Obama beat the second-term curse, launch a new liberal era and ensure a place in history as one of the greats? First, he must understand that second-term pitfalls generally fall into two groups: scandal and hubris... It’s hubris that should worry Obama. A President can only be great by aiming high. But aiming too high has big risks."

usnews.com — US News reporter Kenneth Walsh quotes CAF co-director Bob Borosage in the aftermath of Obama’s fiscal cliff deal.

“And Obama is under attack from the left for not going far enough in pushing for liberal goals such as even higher taxes on the rich. "This is an ugly deal," says Robert Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future. "...Once more Republicans have learned that obstruction works, that the president will always blink" during a confrontation.”

washingtonexaminer.com — In this article, the Washington Examiner’s Sean Higgins profiles CAF co-director Robert Borosage, highlighting his importance to the progressive movement.

“If anyone in D.C. serves as a left-wing version of Norquist, it is Bob Borosage. He's a ubiquitous figure behind the scenes of the progressive movement. His work is key to understanding the Left's renewed embrace of old-fashioned class warfare rhetoric -- and the abandonment of Bill Clinton's more moderate politics.”

“He's also one of the key figures in the Left's newfound ability to present a united front and set aside its historical internecine squabbles. Anyone who wants to know how, for example, Big Labor came to embrace environmentalism needs to understand his work.”

suntimes.com — Jesse Jackson, in an opinion editorial that ran in the Chicago Sun Times, cites the CAF/Greenberg election night poll to bolster his case that Americans want jobs before they want deficit cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

“An election night poll by Campaign for America’s Future and Democracy Corps found that 62 percent of voters would find cuts in Social Security benefits unacceptable as part of a deficit agreement, and 79 percent would oppose cuts in Medicare benefits.”

professional.wsj.com — In WSJ’s Gerald Seib report on the state of the fiscal cliff discussions between Democrats and Republicans, he quotes Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage on his take on the fiscal cliff:

“Just a couple of examples. On the left, Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, declared at the end of last week: "The president has put out a plan that already compromises more than desirable. If Republicans can't accept it, just say no. The markets will scream; the pundits will predict the end of the world; the economy may take a hit."

But the only "structural change" that would happen, he adds, is one the left actually wants, which is the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts.”

ivpressonline.com — In an article about the looming fiscal cliff discussions that Congress must face when it returns to session, Reuters journalists Rachelle Younglai and Jason Lange use CAF’s economist statement calling for jobs, not austerity to bolster their claim that economists are calling for compromise.

“Tuesday, a group of 350 economists, organized by a largely liberal group called "Campaign for America's Future," will issue a statement urging both sides to cease their "obsessive concern with cutting deficits" amid a "fragile" economic recovery.”

campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com — In a New York Times article discussing the changing American electorate after the presidential election, Thomas Edsall quotes the Campaign’s for America’s Future’s co-director Robert Borosage on his takes following Barack Obama’s reelection.
“In our Gilded Age of extreme inequality, with a middle class that increasingly understands the rules are rigged against them, this was the first election in what is likely to be an era of growing class warfare.”

online.wsj.com — In a n article in the Wall Street Journal by reporters Laura Meckler and Peter Nicholas, Campaign for America's Future's co-director Roger Hickey was quoted as encouraging a campaign strategy that makes winning back the House and keeping the Senate a priority for Democrats and for the President. Hickey said it will be all but impossible for Mr. Obama to accomplish his goals in a second term if he doesn’t have a Democratic Congress.

“He has a rap he uses all the time on the campaign trail about this being the election that will break the stalemate in Washington. But when you look at it, it sounds like he’s just talking about getting him re-elected,” Mr. Hickey said. The better course, he said, would be for Mr. Obama to tell voters: “Send me a Congress that can do the big things that need to be done.”

latimes.com — In a column by Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times the Campaign for America's Future's co-director Roger Hickey is quoted about Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan's positions on Social Security and the possible re-appearance of a debate about privatization of Social Security.

Hilzik writes, "One would have thought that this proposal was done in by two major stock market crashes since 2000, not to mention the generally noisome odor arising from almost everything that Wall Street has touched in recent years. Yet ever so stealthily it's creeping back into the public debate via the presidential campaign.

"Both members of the Republican ticket, Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), have expressed great enthusiasm for the idea in the past; in 2004, Ryan even sponsored a bill in Congress that was so reliant on private accounts that it was rejected by the Bush White House as too extreme.

"Vice President Joe Biden entered the lists last week. At a campaign stop, he announced, "I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security." That's as ringing an endorsement of the program as any uttered by a politician in years.

"Biden's words heartened Social Security advocates who have gotten accustomed to waffling from the Obama White House over whether cuts in Social Security might be part of a `grand bargain' with congressional Republicans on the federal deficit. Though it's never entirely plain when Biden is talking off the cuff as opposed to expressing administration dogma, they're taking his statement at face value.

"`The good news is they haven't been walking it back,' Roger Hickey, president of the progressive Campaign for America's Future, told me. He observed that the last time Biden was thought to have spoken out of turn, by endorsing gay marriage, Obama promptly followed his lead."

To read the rest of the column by Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times visit: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120821,0,1818705.column

stream.wsj.com — Roger Hickey was quoted in an article by Peter Nicholas in the Wall Street Journal.
Some Democrats want to see Mr. Obama do more to “nationalize” the 2012 race.

“We would like to see a more Harry Truman kind of campaign where he campaigns against the obstructionist Republicans in Congress,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, a liberal group.

“He [Mr. Obama] has a rap he uses all the time on the campaign trail about this being the election that will break the stalemate in Washington. But when you look at it, it sounds like he’s just talking about getting him re-elected again.”

A potent message, Mr. Hickey added, would be: “‘Send me a Congress that can do the big things that need to be done.’“