When President Obama arrived in Buffalo, New York, a few weeks ago, he got about the last thing in the world he wanted: upstaged. Rather than reporting his message of economic recovery, media outlets were leading with reports like this one from CBS:
Frustrated western New Yorkers have a pointed message for President Barack Obama when he visits the economically troubled region Thursday: "I need a freakin job." The president makes another stop on what the White House calls his "Main Street economic tour, this time to Buffalo, NY, the anchor city in a region that was hard hit long before a recession that made things even worse, Awaiting him will be a billboard carrying a simple, direct message: "Dear Mr. President, I need a freakin job. Period."
Outwardly, the White House claimed not to be letting one billboard interefere with the president staying on message. But quickly it became clear that this one sign, which boiled the U.S. unemployment problem into one simple slogan, had struck a nerve. It seemed like even the president was listening:
But here's a sign the job seekers' message to the administration may be getting through: The White House just announced Obama will travel next Tuesday to Youngstown, Ohio — where unemployment hit 15.1 percent last month, the city's highest jobless rate in more than 15 years. The focus of Obama's visit: "jobs and the economy," according to the White House. And a more direct sign still: Obama press aide Bill Burton was asked about the billboard in today's press gaggle. His reply was, "The President is here to talk about jobs, what his administration has done to create jobs, what we need to do in order to create an environment where small businesses can create jobs. So the answer is, we're on the path to creating more jobs, and we've got a lot more work to do."
Suddenly a victory march became a pledge to work harder on jobs creation—and all, basically, because of the sign. It was the brainchild of a group that runs a Web site called inafj.org, the brainchild of Jeff Baker, a Buffalo businessman who lost his small business in 2009. Suddenly, CNN was calling him, more or less, a folk hero:
Unemployment is part of everyday life for millions of Americans and one man finally decided to do something about it. He created a grassroots organization, "I need a freakin' job," to give a voice to the fifteen million unemployed.
Whether or not Baker is a folk hero—and opinions run the gamut—he definitely touched a nerve. It may be true, as the president’s defenders argue, that there’s only so much Obama can do about job creation. But anger about the failed economy has hit a boiling point, and Baker’s billboard channeled it effectively.
The question is, what will he do with that momentum? Though Baker is clearly a conservative himself, he claims inafj.org is a non-partisan effort. But the website has an anti-government tone that is sure to turn off a lot of moderates. Some of the rhetoric goes way beyond the immediate problem of unemployment, and the angry tone is more motivational than practical. Some of the laundry lists of complaints:
Cynical is what you become after witnessing the destruction of American exceptionalism and realizing that you are a casualty of a handful of greedy animals feeding on the soul of a great nation. Obvious is the government’s need to get out of the way so that inventive young entrepreneurial Americas have the opportunity to stimulate an economy that produces jobs. Catastrophic is being a recent college graduate with diminished opportunies and the real obligation to repay educational debt.
The site’s endless hyberbole aside, it does highlight some issues that barely get attention in the mainstream media; the 27 percent youth unemployment rate, for instance.
If Baker can succeed in building a grassroots movement, what exactly will it do (besides sell T-shirts, which are the site’s current #1 export)? There is a petition on inafj.org that visitors can sign, but it doesn’t reference any specific plan of action. Is inafj.org doing anything but venting American rage at unemployment?
Baker thinks so, though he won’t give specific details. In any event, we can expect him to make plenty more noise.
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