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Zeke Miller of Buzzfeed highlights this new wrinkle in President Obama’s stump speech: taking credit for some good economic numbers of late.
“We were losing 800,000 jobs a month,” Obama began Wednesday evening in Athens, Ohio, building to a new, triumphant tone as he leaned into the microphone. “Now we’ve added more than 5 million new jobs, more manufacturing jobs than any time since the 1990s. The unemployment rate has fallen from 10 percent to 7.8 percent. Foreclosures are at their lowest in five years. Home values are on the rise. Stock market has doubled. Manufacturing is coming back. Assembly lines are putting folks back to work. That’s what we’ve been fighting for. Those are the promises I’ve kept.”
Obama delivered the same message to a crowd of 6,000 Thursday afternoon (adding the qualifier “nearly” before the doubling stock market) in Manchester, New Hampshire — both states with unemployment rates lower than the national average.
There’s definitely a story to tell about the rise of the American consumer. Housing starts, consumer confidence, retail sales and the unemployment rate all show positive statistics of late.
The problem for Obama is three-fold. One, we don’t yet know how durable this will be. While consumers are happy, businesses are grumpy, and it’s unclear who will win out. Just yesterday, first-time unemployment claims, a noisy weekly number, spiked back up.
Second, the Administration has been burned before with green shoots talk. Nobody can forget Tim Geithner’s “Welcome to the Recovery” op-ed in summer 2010, which was at least two years premature. So touting the economy without certainty that the good times will proceed is a risk.
Third, even if the recovery is stable, you still have a 7.8% unemployment rate and millions of Americans out of work, millions more in poverty, etc. And it borders on insult to broadcast this economic comeback when they continue to suffer. The Obama campaign is mindful of this, which is why they always hedge with lines like this:
“Now, for all the progress we’ve made, we’ve got more work to do,” Obama said, “There are too many folks out there still looking for work. There are too many folks out there who are still having trouble paying the bills. And that’s why we’ve got to keep moving forward to build on what we’ve already done.”
Politicians, as a rule of thumb, should always highlight the indicators that make their case the best. There is a story to tell about the economy right now; it remains to be seen whether it will be sustained.
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There is nothing that o can run on that would get me to vote for him. My vote may be flipped to either of the uniparty candidates by the party controlling the ballots, but it will not have been in that column. I’m going with Jill Stein.
Willard clan factoid.
In 4 years, all of Willard’s spaun will be eligible to run for prez.
Thus after the current Willard, potential Willard I thru Willard V terms could be in the office for the next 40 years.
Shorter Obama to the non-1%-ers:
“Don’t believe your lying eyes.”
“We’ve added 5 million jobs…” This coming from the guy who said, like a broken record, “Government can’t create jobs.” Oddly enough, that’s exactly what Mitt says as well.
The only “consumers” I know who are happy with the status quo are rather affluent. They don’t care if filling the tanks in their Benz’ cost them $800 a month. Everyone else I know is rather nervous.
People don’t vote on the basis of statistical reports. They vote on what they see. This is why Obama’s tack on the economy may prove short-sighted, if not stupid.
The other thing Obama should do is to compare his recovery with that of FDR. Remember that under FDR the economy was still sputtering one year into his second term. And we did not have a full recovery until the onset of WWII. (Pearl Harbor was attacked a year into his third term.)
The group that dropped the unemployment numbers in the last report were 17-25 year olds with no high school diploma working part-time for minimum wage. The only way Barry will make the economy better for anyone outside of the top 10% is if he starts giving away winning lottery numbers, along with a special invitation to one of his $50k fundraisers.
Forward!
At least FDR tried to do something. o has done nothing that has helped the average worker, but has worked hard to get the 1% more money, and insulate them and their acolytes from prosecution for egregious financial crimes.
Let alone the unemployment report for October/2012, drop down from 7.8 to
5.0 , i see that report coming,je,je,je,je.
Thanks for the report.
My response: like, whatever…
Voting Third Party.
The numbers that are coming out now will be it until after the election, so DDay’s concerns about durability of recovery probably won’t impact the outcome of Nov 6 very much.
Romney would undo the little that was done over the last four years, which would not be good. It would be a disaster, in fact.
Yea right.
That’ll happen when Willard releases his tax returns.
Speaking of tax returns, where are they Willard.
I have to admit that I’m finding myself hoping that people in Ohio, Florida, and other swing states vote for Obama.
Exactly.
When I saw this headline I thought: “Really? He’s running on the economy now? This economy? The one here in America, right now?
Really? Because what I see also tells me this “consumer confidence” thing is a product of media razzle-dazzle and/or polls with leading questions.
Right. Worry about tax returns, not the kill list or the TPP. Because if we had Romney’s tax returns we’d see he’s fabulously wealthy and most of his income doesn’t come from work. He also aggressively uses loopholes to reduce his tax bill. Which, of course, would totally differentiate him from Obama, who is clearly a pauper with lots in common with the 99%…
There’s a better story to tell about FDL. What’s happened at the Blog that only 2 1/2 years ago was calling for supporters to meet Jane in Nevada to campaign against Harry Reid’s reelection? What’s happened to the Blog that did the BEST BY FAR reporting, analysis and commentary on Obama’s HCR Scam? Wasn’t FDL THE place Progressives could come to any time of day to get the straight story, without the political spin? Amazing how quickly change happens. Sad, but none the less, amazing.
I too will be voting 3rd Party, I will be hoping for Obama’s defeat and I promise, I will do everything I can to get either 1st term Senator Elizabeth Warren or 2nd term Senator Sherrod Brown to run for President in 2016. it’s the ONLY responsible choice I feel Progressives have.
And the corporatists thank you for perpetuating the Kabuki Theatre that allows the further enslavement of the citizens of USA,Inc. If it wasn’t for the authoritarian mindset of the majority we might live in a democratic nation that observed the rule of law and put people before profit.
Obama’s toast. ABC news says he let that ambassador in Libya die with not enough protection even when it was requested month after month.
Pretty sure I saw you make the same off-point comment on another diary.
Dear Bailey, you forgot that we ,progressives and libertarians are submissive lambs,we go straight to the slaughterhouse without utter a word, so be it.:):)..
My 18 year old registered to vote the other day. He said, “now I can finally engage in the transparent sham of democracy I’ve been reading about for so long.”