The script for the Obama campaign’s latest ad:
Woman 1: We’ve gone from pulling into our parking lot, which was so depressing – there would be 2 or three cars in this parking lot to our parking lot being full.
Woman 2: We have a whole second shift that we brought in, new employees, and we have a future at our plant now.
Man 1: When you look at the president’s plan I don’t think there can be any question that we’re on the right course for today’s economy.
Man 2: President Obama does get what people need and that’s jobs and the opportunity to help themselves.
Man 3 : Stick with this guy. He will move us forward.
Well, the parking lot anecdote is great, but this doesn’t even meet the threshold for three incidents to make a trend. Yes, the economy was horrific President Obama came into office. But nearly four years later, unemployment remains at 7.8 percent. (And a whopping 40 percent of those unemployed have been looking for work for six months or more.) From 1993 through 2008, the unemployment rate was consistently below that. There’s still underemployment, those have become too discouraged to keep looking for work, and wage stagnation. It’s one thing for the Obama campaign to make the argument that he did as well as could be done (and of course, Mitt Romney is free to argue that if he had been in charge, the recession would have been less severe and the economic comeback sooner). It’s another thing to argue that “we’re on the right course” and the future is bright. Don’t see how that’s going to resonate with voters who are struggling in this still-dismal economy.
Watch: