Sam Staley notes below the weak jobs numbers out today, and while my colleague and regular lunch pal Kevin Hassett — the only person at AEI with a disposition sunnier than mine — thinks better growth is coming soon to an economy near you, don’t miss the supernumerate Jay Cost over on the blog at That Other Conservative Magazine, who compares this “recovery” to past economic cycles and concludes two things: “This has been the worst economic recovery in generations, at least as it is felt by the average American. . . . Nobody gets reelected with employment way down, real income way down, and 14 percent of his fellow citizens on food stamps. Nobody.”
...unless that "nobody" has the support of 95% of black people, who have been hit hardest by unemployment!!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat depends on who else is in the race.
No GOP candidate will beat Obama if a credible third party candidate runs.
No GOP candidate will win unless he/she gets broad support, starting with support within party.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe other shoe has yet to drop. There may be some recovery in terms of jobs, but inflation is here and it's growing. Look for your grocery bills to double during the period between Nov 2008 and Nov 2012.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA "generic" republican can certainly beat Obama, but unfortunately the republican nominee will either a) be too moderate to get the base out (Romney) or b) too conservative for idiot moderates to support (most of the rest of the so-called candidates). It says a lot that Ron Paul is currently running best against Obama.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI doubt that high unemployment bothers the president. Government dependents are his natural constituents. As for the 14% on food stamps, take a wild guess who they will vote for next year.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf The Weekly Standard is the Other Conservative Magazine, what does that make The American Spectator?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis may be unfair, but I sense the belief among some conserivatives that regardless of how awful Obama's economic policies are, we can still expect a solid recovery to materialize at some point. My gut tells me this is untrue. I think the economic crisis was sufficiently great, Obama's response sufficiently bad, and our current fiscal problems sufficiently dire, that things could indeed get much worse before they eventually (e.g., several years from now) get better.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Nobody Gets Reelected with Numbers Like This"
They do if we don't find a person that a majority of Republicans and indies can rally around.
We are so fragmented right now, it's like: Houston, we have a problem.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI doubt that unemployment bothers the president. Government dependents are his natural constituents. As for the 14% on food stamps, take a wild guess who they will vote for next year.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@conrad >This may be unfair, but I sense the belief among some conserivatives that regardless of how awful Obama's economic policies are, we can still expect a solid recovery to materialize at some point.
Look no further, my friend, than to the collected economic wisdom of Lowry and Ponnuru, who in the summer of 2009 right here, in this publication, strongly urged republicans to ignore the unemployment numbers because of the "amazing resiliance" of the american economy. Well, it hasn't been so amazing the last couple of years, let alone resiliant, but Lowry and Ponnuru aren't talking about it so I presume they are sticking to their "guns." May want to ask them about it. I would, but for some reason they always ignore me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEvery new welfare recipient becomes a life long Democrat. The more welfare recipients, the better Obama's chances are.
BTW, does the author of that statement realize that FDR won 46 states (I think) in 1936 when unemployment was 20%?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"unfortunately the republican nominee will either be ... or b)too conservative for idiot moderates to support"
Idiot moderates? Are they a small subset of moderates, or are all moderates idiots?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf The Weekly Standard is the Other Conservative Magazine, what does that make The American Spectator?
The Other Other Conservative Magazine?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. Hayward seems to have left off $5 per gallon gas prices, and the concomitant spike in the cost of most everything else. That is a huge tax on every single solitary American.
And when Obama says that "drilling now won't bring oil to market for years", the GOP had better know what to say. It's pretty clear:
"So, you tacitly admit that, in your view, we can NEVER develop our own energy supply, because the project will always be long-term. Beyond that, if oil speculators KNOW that the US is developing its own oil and gas supplies, then they will speculate the price down."
"It's NOT rocket science, folks, at least for a non-community organizer! It's basically filling the graduated cylinder to a certain level and reading the 'meniscus' -- 5th grade stuff. No offense to 10-11 year olds!"
Irish John: "It says a lot that Ron Paul is currently running best against Obama."
Well, yeah! It seems to undercut the theory that our "conservative" nominee will be too conservative to win a general election tussle.
People right-of-center need to divorce themselves from the myth that a solidly conservative candidate can not win elections. Talk about self-defeating (unless one is a died-in-the-wool moderate who merely dislikes April 15, and doesn't care about socialism's human carnage).
The more conservative the GOP nominee is, the more likely that the GOP wins elections. There are exceptions to every general rule, of course.
With 4 years' experience under his belt, it is growing all the more obvious that lack of experience was a blessing in disguise for Obama.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's dissect the logic that "conservative nominee" CAN'T win a general election.
Last I checked, Minnesota was more liberal than the nation as a whole. So is Massachusetts.
If Tim Pawlenty can win 2 terms in MN, and Mitt Romney (despite the debate over his conservatism) can win 2 terms in MA, then how can it be said that a conservative can't win enough votes to win a presidential contest in a center-right nation against a man whose crowning achievement came to pass on the heels of policies he deemed unconstitutional and canceled on day 3 of his presidency?
Go ahead - make my day! Provide a cogent, well-reasoned answer.
Has ANYONE stopped to consider the irony? Obama's ONLY popular move since January, 2009, was achieved with "enhanced interrogation techniques" the propriety of which Obama rejects out-of-hand.
His own security and intelligence policy is that the mission to kill Osama bin Laden SHOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE to duplicate any time in the future.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOstap - A large percentage of so-called "moderates" are really just unengaged voters who make superficial decisions aka "idiots". They tend to get afrighted by "controversy".
Madisonian: Ron Paul won't turn out the base - social conservatives won't vote for him. I've gathered from other threads here that "drug legalization" is a "liberal" position, let alone his stance on gay marriage.
Obama is extremely vulnerable, and no conservative of stature wants to take advantage. I'm particularly looking at Paul Ryan. I'll remember you were a coward when Obama beats Pawlenty, Romney or Huckabee.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMadisonian: Romney is conservative enough for me, and might have won in '08. Unfortunately, there seems to be a level of purity testing going on right now that is disqualifying Romney (and Daniels), and will probably only pass through a nominee that is unelectable in the general. I hope I am wrong but I doubt it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusemadisonian - Romney didn't win 2 terms in Mass. He was elected in 2002, and didn't run again in 2006.
Romney has won 1 election. I'm surprised this isn't brought up to question his experience to be President.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePoint of order, perhaps someone can help me...
Do we have to elect a president, or a congress for that matter? Couldn't we just leave the positions open for a while?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDitto what everyone below said about welfare recipients not blaming Obama for their lack of a job, and add to it the fact that none of the Republicans running seems to be outside the control of the neofeudalist & neocon wings of the party. To balance the budget you *will* have to raise taxes, esp. on cap gains, and you *will* have to reduce discretionary spending, which includes defense and foreign aid; you *cannot* do it by first targetting one of the few government entlements (Medicare) supported by nearly everyone. To reduce unemployment you *will* have to enforce our immigration laws. No Republican running seems to be interested in doing any of these things.
At this point I give Obama better than even odds of winning re-election.
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