Strategy Memo: Earth Wind and Fire
Good Friday morning, Washington and beyond.
About 80 mayors from around the country will meet with Obama and members of his Cabinet at the White House today to discuss the economic stimulus plan. After a week on the road, it looks like the President will spend most of his weekend in Washington.
Sec. of State Hillary Clinton continues her dipolomatic tour of Asia. After sitting down with the president of Indonesia and appearing on a popular youth TV show there yesterday, Clinton visits South Korea today.
Most of the country's governors, sans Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, will descend upon Washington this weekend for the National Governors Association winter meeting. After meetings, panel discussions and luncheons over the weekend, the governors will head over to the White House Sunday night for dinner and performances by the Marine Corps band and Earth Wind and Fire.
**President Obama
*The Fix: "President Obama will use this weekend's meeting of the National Governors Association to urge the chief executives to move quickly to utilize the federal money being doled out to the states as part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package that passed Congress last week."
*WaPo: "Hillary Rodham Clinton has a new campaign and message: The United States wants to listen."
*Next week is going to be dominated by Obama's budget speech, and the New York Times reports that the administration will publish an "honest" budget, banning some "gimmicks" that President Bush used to make the deficit seem smaller. OMB director Peter Orzag: "The president prefers to tell the truth, rather than make the numbers look better by pretending."
*Obama issued an executive order Thursday creating the office of urban policy, which will be headed by Bronx Borough President Adolfo Caron.
*In National Journal's Political Insiders Poll, 27% of the Democratic political operatives polled gave Obama an A for his job performance so far this year; 63% gave him a B. Of Republican political operatives, 45% gave Obama a C, 35% a B, and 12% a D.
**Campaign Stuff
*The Diploma Belt: National Journal's Brownstein and Wasserman find that "Democrats have dramatically gained strength in what might be called the Diploma Belt, the nation's best-educated large counties -- those with at least 20,000 people." Obama won 78 of the 100 best-educated large counties.
"This process started decades ago but accelerated tremendously as voters went to the polls to choose between Obama and Republican John McCain for president. The Democratic candidate carried 78 of the 100 counties with the highest percentage of college graduates, according to an analysis by National Journal and The Cook Political Report. As recently as 1988, a Republican -- George H.W. Bush -- carried 64 of the same 100 counties."
*Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) will not resign; he'll "return to Washington to vote in the Senate next week, sources close to Burris told Politico."
*Illinois State Controller Dan Hynes is the latest Democrat to call for Sen. Burris to resign.
*NYT: "Despite railing against the bill as wasteful, a handful of Republican members of the House and Senate have found some provisions to cheer."
*Former Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who's considering challenging Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) in the 2010 Senate Republican primary, called Blunt "another white guy in a suit" in an interview with Politico.
--Kyle Trygstad and Mike Memoli