The Los Angeles Times looks at today’s incrementally better jobs report:
For partisans on either side looking for a knockout blow, Friday’s jobs report was a letdown — at 163,000 net new jobs for July, the figure largely confirms the status quo.For the next 24 hours, political figures of both parties will do their best to spin that status quo figure into a talking point for their side. But beyond the spin, it’s clear that economic news — barring something very dramatic — has started to decline in its power to shape the race.
If you’re of the school that says sooner or later, a sluggish economy will drag President Obama to defeat, much as it has done to governing figures in other countries since the 2008 financial crisis, then Friday’s report was confirmation. The economy shows no sign of sudden acceleration, and the unemployment rate, now 8.3%, seems very likely to remain above 8% by election day.
But if you look at opinion polls, most of which have shown Obama holding at least a small lead nationally and in key states, the jobs report would do nothing to change your view that the president is on track for a close reelection victory.
On the Barack Obama campaign blog, they’re leading with a familiar graphic today:
Responding statement from Mitt Romney:
“Today’s increase in the unemployment rate is a hammer blow to struggling middle-class families. Yesterday I launched my Plan for a Stronger Middle Class that will bring more jobs and more take home pay. My plan will turn things around and bring the economy roaring back, with twelve million new jobs created by the end of my first term. President Obama doesn’t have a plan and believes that the private sector is ‘doing fine.’ Obviously, that is not the case. We’ve now gone 42 consecutive months with the unemployment rate above eight percent. Middle class Americans deserve better, and I believe America can do better.”
sourced to Reuters
The GOP Congress does everything it can to block everything and anything that would change the failed policies that are still in place. In spite of this, the trend has been reversed and the situation slowly improved ever since Obama took office, most dramatically before he had the GOP majority congress to deal with.
It takes a lot of nerve for the GOP, under the circumstances, to be blaming Obama and claiming that the same failed policies, the results of which we see most dramatically in the portion of the graph on their watch, are the answer to the problem.
They and their policies are the problem and until the public wakes up and throws them out of the WH, congress and out of governorships and state legislative majorities nationwide they will keep doing everything they can to slow or reverse recovery because their best hope to hang on long term in the face of changing demos is an ignorant public that will be so unhappy with the status quo they’ll be ready to hand the reins back to the GOP, not realizing that failed GOP policy is the cause of their misery.
Of course nerve and lies in the face of objective reality are the GOP trademark and Dems will have to go on the attack all day every day against every one of the lies the GOP manages to come up with. It’s easy to tell when they’re lying. Just watch their lips for movement.
Yes the GOP has done everything they can to keep the economy in the toilet. But the Obama administration has also been inept in addressing it, both policy-wise and politically.
but we’ve been through all this before so I won’t respond to your same ol’ with my same ol’.
But here’s something new you might like. Just announced today:
break
Also happened to catch it on TV. It’s supposed to give us our own transportation by 2016 or even as early as 2015. Will soon have Florida (swing state where Obama has very small lead) space industry revving up again, boosting employment. When we have our own transport again he said it should cost as little as third of what we need to pay in space cab fare now.
Really glad we’re not counting on Dems with your crankiness level to keep the GOP out of the trifecta. And it’s a good thing you have no chance of landing Romney for coffee. You’re so impressionable and in love with attention from pols I hate to think where that might lead.
http://www.cfnews13.com/conten…
I await enlightenment from Arap and ‘tad as to why this is a bad thing. Will they fall back on squealing… “Just politics!”? To which I would say… if it’s good policy, who cares? Killing Bin Laden was good politics, too. Too bad GW couldn’t pull it off, huh guys?
“I want the black man to lose because I’m one of the biggest concern trolls on this site and a Romney man through and through.”
I’ve never seen even a hint of racism from David.
David has, incorrectly I believe, berated President Obama for his handling of the economy. He is neverending in his criticism and it is annoying because it is like your naggy uncle who has to repeately tell eveyone he doen’t like sagging. In late ’08 it seemed most economists and others knowledgeable were saying this was the worst economy since the Depression and it has been really bad. But, I don’t fault President Obama. I do fault both houses of Congress and Blue Dogs Dems for being timid in their response to the economy and their unwillingness to risk their own seat to do more
And FWIW, I used to think Obama was doing as well as possible and it was just that he faced a gigantic problem. But as more and more comes out about the decisions made, and the decisions not made, I’ve come to see that his handling was mediocre. Not awful, but neither was it good.
that’s a synonym for ‘mediocre’?
Just saying. I do agree with this
And also this
On days I’m really upset about unemployment he’s done a piss-poor job. On days I’m not as upset, it’s a mediocre job
ps – thank you
but not a favorite of us hyperpartisans on CoPols:-)
On both counts
You must really be a Republican.
Dave’s not a bad guy or a racist. His heart’s in the right place, but he just really likes attention.
I don’t know what you mean by the reference to “sagging” though.
Someone who feels the best thing for our party is to call out the mistakes tha have been made in the hope that our elected officials will do better.
You appear to have the mindset that anyone who finds fault is by definition an opponent and a racist (throw in sexist too why don’t you?).
but racism? Where on earth did that come from, GG?
The unemployment RATE (not “unemployment” as you state, which is a count of people rather than a rate) actually rose 0.037% (not a tenth of a percent as you state), and it’s because, with the economy adding jobs, more people entered the workforce.
So while we’re not experiencing any economic boom, this month’s report was clearly positive news.
In the 12 months ended in July, doctors’ offices added 70,800 employees to a workforce of 2.4 million, for a one-year growth rate of 3%
http://www.modernhealthcare.co…
First off, yes Obama has clawed back a lot of the Republican damage. And yes Romney would send us back on the road to ruin. With that said…
The line for the downward vs upward part should be at 100,000 new jobs. Because that’s the steady state point. Above that under/unemployment drops. Below that it increases. If ti was graphed that way you would then have a much clearer understanding that we are stuck.
The public sector is dropping jobs due to low tax receipts and because Republican Governors are trying to cut the size of government. Cutting government means cutting teachers, firefighters and police, because those professions are where the personnel are.
Employment numbers in private industry is actually growing.
The economy needs demand-side stimulus for the recovery to take off.
Retail isn’t empty because of taxes. It’s empty because fewer teachers, fire fighters, police and others who once had good public sector jobs are able to walk through the doors with money or remodel homes or hire painters or lawns services or get their nails done or go out to eat, to the movies, to buy gas for weekend trips to the mountains or a car to replace the one that’s barely hanging on. The people who provide them goods and services aren’t making enough money for themselves or to keep on employees either.
Public and private sector wage earners are the real job creators but they need to have jobs before they can support their local businesses. A few percentage points more or less in taxes is nothing compared with a dearth of paying customers with good jobs and confidence that they have some money to spare.
California has the biggest cus and that’s a Democratic administration. The problem is that the states are out of money – they pushed problems forward and that doesn’t work anymore. They also have pension payments and health insurance eating up more and more of the money they do have.
And in a recession their receipts go down, their expenses go up, and they can’t run a deficit. All of this irrespective of party in power.
It would trigger yet another Republican-led Great Recession
That’s the way Romney will create 12 million new jobs! But first, you have to increase the applicant pool. Sounds like he’s got that one nailed.
another Nixonian thing
Didn’t like Nixon at all but he is looking better and better all the time if you can overlook his enemies list, conspiracy to obstruct justice, secret plan to end the war in Viet Nam and …
…but some resignation thingy ended that.
Nixon was quite a social liberal.
when the primary progenitor of tax slashing propositions, infamous prop 13, was passed. So thanks, Cali, for that as well as for our fast food obesity culture and all kinds of California dreaming fads that have been in the forefront of so much crap in our culture.
Dem Governor Jerry Brown was opposed.