Question Time With The Dems

President Obama has taken Question Time on the road, this time facing off against Senate Dems.  It was somewhat less contentious, but the session was nevertheless enlightening.  Blanche Lincoln wanted to know about jobs, and President Obama sounded like a Republican in his response:

Blanche Lincoln, another endangered senator, asks what Democrats can tell people to assure them that they are working to stabilize the economy. Part of the answer, Obama says, is to remind them: "Part of what we've done over the course of the year is put a floor under people's feet. That's what the Recovery Act did."

He cautions that Republicans will say returning to "what we've been doing before the crisis," citing giving tax cuts to the rich, and stalling health care reform and Wall Street reform, will ease the pain of the recession. But the Democrats' strategy, he says, should be a "non-ideological" approach.

"We've got to make sure that our party understands that, like it or not, we have to have a financial system that's healthy and functioning, so we can't be demonizing every bank out there," he says. "We've got to be the party of business -- small business and large business -- because they produce jobs."

The problem is that voters do see the Democrats as the party of business...the party of giving the voter the business and preferring corporate America to Main Street.   What happened to to Volcker Rules?  You're not demonizing banks at all, in fact you're letting them walk away with hundreds of billions of our money.  Geez.
(More after the jump...)

Demand Question Time!

MoJo's David Corn is leading the charge to get Question Time to be a regular feature of our democracy, and he's got an interesting left/right coalition of good government types on board.  Politico's Mike "Not Ben Smith" Allen:

David Corn, Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief, describes how the new campaign came about: "It's hard to imagine all of us agreeing on anything (except perhaps John Edwards' future in politics). But we had an idea that transcends ideology-and cable-talk squabbling and blogosphere bickering. On Sunday evening, a group of endorsers worked on a Google document of a shortened version of my original draft. Sharing ideas via email, we quickly resolved any disagreements. . Moffo found a designer who cooked up a nifty logo: a campaign-style button declaring, 'Demand Question Time.'

"None of us are naive and believe that implementing Question Time will cure what ails our country and our political process. We do realize that if QT does become a Washington routine, politicians and their aides will do what they can to game it to their advantage. . But even though there are problems with the presidential debates-which have been taken over by the political parties and a corporate-sponsored commission-those events still have value. . If you want more Question Time-even if only for its entertainment value-you can saddle up with dozens (and maybe it will turn into hundreds, thousands, and millions) of your fellow Americans in calling on our elected representatives to show us their best stuff on a regular basis."

Demand Question Time invites visitors to sign a petition: "We live in a world that increasingly demands more dialogue than monologue. President Obama's January 29th question-and-answer session with Republican leaders gave the public a remarkable window into the state of our union and governing process. It was riveting and educational. The exchanges were substantive, civil and candid. And in a rare break from our modern politics, sharp differences between elected leaders were on full public display without rancor or ridicule. ...

"So we call on President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner to hold these sessions regularly - and allow them to be broadcast and webcast live and without commercial interruption, sponsorship or intermediaries. We also urge the President and the Republican Senate caucus to follow suit. And we ask the President and the House and Senate caucuses of his own party to consider mounting similar direct question-and-answer sessions. We will ask future Presidents and Congresses to do the same. It is time to make Question Time a regular feature of our democracy."

Now I'm all for this, and so are a lot of folks, from The Nation's Katrina VandenHeuvel to FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver to Grover Norquist, Markos "Great Orange Satan" Moulitsas and Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds.  It's a good idea.  We need to have more of this.

Demand Question Time and sign the petition.

[UPDATE 10:01 AM] The Question Time site, www.demandquestiontime.com, is getting swamped.  They're working on it.   You can also follow the #questiontime hashtag on Twitter for more info.

[UPDATE 1:02 PM] Demand Question Time is up and running.  Sign the petition!  And if you're on Facebook, join the Demand Question Time group, And follow them on Twitter at @demandQTime.