RALLY THE BASE

Obama's Labor Day Reprieve

Friendly audience will be a change.

President Obama will spend his Labor Day addressing a friendly audience for a change—the AFL-CIO Union, which will be celebrating the holiday named for their movement at a picnic in Cincinnati. Obama will introduce his new senior counselor for manufacturing policy, Ron Bloom, who has served as senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the auto industry task force. Obama will also talk about his proposed health-care reforms in preparation for his big address to Congress on Wednesday. But the friendly union crowd could turn out to be an oasis of support for Obama in the swing state—"Tea Party" protesters rallied against health-care reform in a Cincinnati suburb on Saturday.