‘One Giant Vulnerability’: Obama’s Job Security Is All About Job Creation
- Posted on June 4, 2011 at 8:33pm by
Scott Baker
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama cannot escape one giant vulnerability as he bids to keep his job: There are millions of voters who still don’t have one.
Suddenly, the snapshot of the American economy is depressing again.
Job creation is down. So is consumer confidence. And homes sales, auto sales, construction spending, manufacturing expansion.
The brutal month of May was a reminder of the economy’s fragility and the risks for an incumbent president.
Nothing that Obama oversees, not even a success as dramatic as finding and killing Osama bin Laden, will matter as much as his handling of the economy. It is the dominant driver of voter behavior. People hold their president accountable if they can’t find work in the richest country in the world.
The weakening recovery is testing the entire foundation of Obama’s optimistic economic message, that the nation is getting stronger all the time. As much as the White House says it never dwells on any single jobs report, and Obama never even mentioned the troubling one released Friday, the stakes get higher by the month.
A finally forming field of Republican presidential competitors is maneuvering into the space for the public’s attention with this message: Obama has failed.
Election Day 2012 is 17 months away, and Obama‘s campaign knows incremental job growth won’t do. The unemployment rate is 9.1 percent. If it stays anywhere near there, Obama will face re-election with a higher jobless rate than any other post-war president.
In his favor, Obama still has the loudest voice to sell his message that the longer term trends, including job growth every month, are good.
Nearly halfway through a year dominated by foreign events mostly outside his control, he plans to build his next few months around economic events.
So what comes next will be a summer when both sides select the economic facts that best suit their case. It will play against a backdrop of trying to cut a massive deficit while letting the nation borrow more so it doesn’t default.
As Obama pushes his economic agenda, his re-election chances bank on more than job growth. They also depend on how well he can remind people that he inherited a recession and that compared with the early days of 2009, the country is in a better place.
“This economy took a big hit,” Obama said Friday in Ohio, a pivotal 2012 state. “You know, it’s just like if you had a bad illness, if you got hit by a truck, it’s going to take a while for you to mend. And that‘s what’s happened to our economy. It’s taking a while to mend.”
Is progress enough to convince people that he deserves a second term?
If so, he can’t afford many setbacks like the new jobs report. Employers in May added just 54,000 jobs, the fewest in eight months. Almost 14 million people are jobless. Analysts suggested the economy could improve this year, but the recovery could be weak for months.
“There are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery,” Obama said.
The Republicans hoping to unseat him pounced.
—Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: “President Obama has failed to pull us out of this economic downturn.
—Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty: “Obama’s failure to address the tough challenges” is clear.
—Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “The administration’s policies are failing.”
Obama’s political tendency is to take the longer view. An Associated Press-GfK poll less than a month ago, for example, showed rising public optimism about the economy and his stewardship.
The election won’t be just a referendum on Obama and the unemployment rate. It also will offer a choice between his economic ideas and his opponent’s. Still, just as change worked for him last time, it can be used against him in 2012.
Even 8 percent unemployment, a goal once promoted by the administration, is hard to see now.
Presidents Jimmy Carter, Reagan and George H.W. Bush all faced unemployment rates higher than 7.5 percent in the final months of their re-election campaigns. Reagan won, and an important factor for him was that the jobless rate was declining at the time. Carter and Bush lost.
Obama, for now, has no reason to engage the politicians trying to win his job. He instead presents himself as the workers’ champion who risked his own capital and their money in a successful bid to help Chrysler and General Motors survive and return to profitability.
“I’ll tell you what. I’m going to keep betting on you,” Obama told workers at a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio.
And hope they’ll do the same for him.
__
EDITOR’S NOTE — White House Correspondent Ben Feller has covered the Bush and Obama presidencies for The Associated Press.
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MUDFLAPS
Posted on June 6, 2011 at 7:08pmovama and job creation???? what a joke.
Report Post »townstra
Posted on June 6, 2011 at 8:44amObama and the Dems still think it’s up to the government to create jobs. They can‘t grasp that the government’s job is to create a favorable atmosphere for the private sector to create the jobs.
Report Post »Living In NYC
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 6:11pmSomeone better tell Meeshell to quick screwing around with Ronald McDonald, cause he created half the jobs in the United States last month!
Barry better give up coneys and take up Big Macs, Super-Sized Fries, Monster Size Shakes and Apple Turn-over if he wans to get re-elected in in 2012….NOT!
Report Post »miles from nowhere
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 6:04pmHis job security is about paying off people to vote for him, if you care to look at his track record with the stimulus money that he stole from the tax payers. Obama has proven to be the purist of HABITUAL LIARS of any president in our history.
Report Post »FANGS
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 2:40pmWe had a Great Year in 2008. At the end of 2009, We lost all 3 employees and lost 75% of our Jobs. Our Business has been in a Depression since obama took office. That, I’ll never forget.
Report Post »budahbabe
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 12:10pmI have a Question. With most of our jobs overseas and foreign policies getting worse by the second, what does the MSM and Hollywood and Rock n Roll get in promoting this guy? Have you ever wondered what is in it for them? Is it that they don‘t have relatives that can’t find work? Is it that they don’t have children and or grandchildren that are going to inherit this awful debt? Just what is it that makes the MSM promote such an incompetent guy. Now they must be getting something and no one has made a real effort to find out and I think they should! Is there even a real journalist out there anymore that cares about the truth? Do you really think unemployment is only 9.1%? HA!
Report Post »gpk
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 12:09pm2008 Hope & Change
Report Post »2012 Dope & Broke
dizzyinthedark
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 6:58pmThis is a great ‘quote’ for my ‘post it notes’ I’m plastering all over town–thanks.
Report Post »budahbabe
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 11:56amOkay, I have a Question. What does the MSM get out of keeping this guy in office? The Hollywood crowd and the Rock an Roll gang and certain news papers. What is it that they are getting for promoting this guy? Do they not have children that are going to be paying for this spending spree this administration is doing? Do they not see that 14 trillion in debt? Why are none of these celebrities helping out the people in Joplin? Where is the outrage and the sympathy for these people? Okay that’s two Questions??
Report Post »powhatan
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 11:43amDoesn’t it just amaze all of you that this pres…who is pretty much a complete failure at almost everything he does..Who has gone back on every “promise” he has made…and his sychophants still believe he will solve all of their personal problems…..and those in the senate that are career politicians (like that should even be a “career”) the cause of most of our ills..are still there.says how stupid a lot of America still is. I am truly afraid for us.
Report Post »C. Schwehr
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 11:26amFirst of all, Barry didn’t “inherit” a recession, he helped to START A RECESSION..and then proceeded to TURN IT INTO A DEPRESSION just like his hero FDR.
The United States is NOT in better shape than it was in 2009. It‘s in MUCH WORSE SHAPE THAN IT’S EVER BEEN IN BEFORE!
The dollar is about to collapse, the unemployment rate is at REAL depression era levels, housing prices have dropped MORE than they did during the last depression, and yet this utter fool we have for president just plays golf and lies to the American people about the RECOVERY he wants them to believe actually exists!
And yet the gpvernment controlled media is genuinely worred about how they can re-elect a MORON!
Report Post »wodiej
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 11:24amWhat gets me is his policies thus far have by and large failed yet he refuses to try anything different. He is bound and determined to keep doing what he’s been doing. Einstein said that was the definition of insanity.
I just don‘t know how in the world he thinks he’s going to get re-elected by going out and telling millions of unemployed Americans that their bleak financial picture is just a “bump in the road.” Being unemployed for two years is not a bump in the road. It’s an indication that something abnormal is going on.
Report Post »Barb1954
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 10:55amSo when the numbers aren’t good….well, we don’t look at just this weeks numbers….we have to look at 6 months worth of numbers…………
OH MY GOSH! How DUMB do they THINK WE ARE?
Report Post »kestrel27
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 10:43amOne vunerability??? Obama is so unbelievably beatable on so many levels. The 17% unemployment level is only one of many. Obama makes Carter look like a piker when it comes to mihandling the presidency. Of course he has all the butt kissing brown nosers in the media doing everything in their power to make sure no-one see‘s or hears about his constant screw ups like 57 states and the fact that without a teleprompter he can’t put two intelligent words together, yet he is supposedly a genius.
Report Post »wodiej
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 11:25amI‘ll believe he’s a genius when I see his college transcripts and he passes a Mensa test.
Report Post »Dauntless
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 10:43amObama cannot create jobs…the only thing he should do is get the govet out of the way.
We are the ones who create hobs.
http://www.USARecoveryNow.com
Report Post »slickmeister
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 10:39amI think the problems we have here are that (A) O‘Bummer’s propaganda crew in the MSM will spin the issue, therefore confusing the uninformed “independents and (B) leftist drones DON’T CARE.
Which means the likely outcome will be that the drones and uninformed “independents” will, instead of heeding this important information, fall for the narrative that O’Bummer has been “trying really, really hard”, but the problems left from the Bush administration “were just too great to overcome” in one term.
Therefore, they‘ll say that what we need to do is give O’Bummer a second term so all of his “transformative” policies can finally fulfill their promises. The’ll also ask us…..can we REALLY afford to go back to the “failed policies of the past”?
Unfortunately, one more term for O‘Bummer and it won’t matter. The Cloward-Piven process will be complete. The system will be overwhelmed, the nation will be bankrupt and more and more people will turn to the STATE for help – especially in the wake of the inevitable economic collapse.
Welcome to the USSA (the Union of Soviet Socialist States of America).
Unless you‘re one who either keeps their head buried firmly in the sand or if you’re one of the fools who would actually WELCOME this turn of events, you’d better wake up. This election is not about which party holds power. This election is an EXISTENTIAL election for our nation.
Don‘t sit on the sidelines and allow O’Bummer’s propaganda p
Report Post »jagr1850
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 10:13amobumma continues to follow the advice of the people around him who only want him to be a complete failure. he really should get some new advisors if he wants success…..not much time left to turn around his failures……2012
Report Post »hifi74
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 10:00amMr. Obama, you can keep polishing that terd but in the end your policies are still terds.
Report Post »Cemoto78
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 10:29amThis is one guy I’d love to see lose his job.
Report Post »dizzyinthedark
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 10:43am…shaking head in amazement at the complete lack of knowledge on what it is to be a leader…..
Wow, how on earth did the multitudes vote this guy in?! Oprah, I’m convinced you are a total moron too and those that follow you to this day are the same.
Our great leader, orator, Haaavard grad, most intelligent President ever, says: “This economy took a big hit,” Obama said Friday in Ohio, a pivotal 2012 state. “You know, it’s just like if you had a bad illness, if you got hit by a truck, it’s going to take a while for you to mend. And that‘s what’s happened to our economy. It’s taking a while to mend.”
We are to be awed by this explanation of what is wrong with the jobs market, what is wrong with why our economy is not picking up, what is wrong with why the Administration is not doing all to fix it. These are his explanations. We are too stupid so he has to ‘dumb it down’ for us now. Well I feel more informed now don’t you? Not. I feel more encouraged that jobs will return, dont you? Not. His great words comforted me, how about you? Not.
Report Post »The_Almighty_Creestof
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 11:11amI wonder if they will fall for his 2008 pitch?
“Job? You don’t need a job! The government is going to pay your mortgage, give you a free car and gas for life…we are spreading the wealth!”
Report Post »TomFerrari
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 11:24amIf you know someone who needs a job, FIRE OBAMA!
Report Post »hauschild
Posted on June 5, 2011 at 2:18pmI think people need to really be aware that as disastrous as Obama has been, he is still hovering around 50% approval rating; this is astounding considering how over-matched he is for the job.
As a result, it is going to take unemployment rates probably around 20% or higher before the Marxist has any real concern of not getting re-elected; especially if we nominate another RINO like Romney, Huckaby, Gingrich, Pawlenty, etc.
Let’s not get lulled to sleep here, folks. Let’s keep our eye on the ball and remain sensible.
Report Post »smithclar3nc3
Posted on June 6, 2011 at 9:26amA 700,000,000,000 bandade that grew more long term government jobs than long term Private sectors jobs. Jobs that will continue to cost tax payers for years and years if they aren’t cut from the budget. billions and billions dumped into a green industry that can’t possibly work until we get government intrusion and taxation out of the way. Huge influx of money being printed with nothing whatsoever to back the more then double amount of currency being added.
Report Post »All the while multi-million dollars parties,Euro and south American vacation,while giving 20 billion to the G8 for the middle east Arab spring and putting us in another war this one without so much as an annoucement to Congress.
YEAH HE’S FINISHED