From Hope to Nope

Ronald Reagan was in trouble in the middle of his first term: unemployment was actually worse in late 1982 than at the trough of the recent recession. So does Reagan's 1984 landslide suggest a similar outcome for President Obama? Jay Cost explains that the answer is...Nope.

Note that the dip in jobs during Reagan's tenure happened later than the dip in Obama's tenure, but even so the jobs picture under Reagan at this point in his tenure was already better than it is now with Obama. Note also that job growth exploded from this point forward under Reagan -- there's no reason to expect that during the rest of Obama's term.

How about real disposable income per capita? That's a great metric for answering the question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

There's no comparison here. Real disposable income per capita was consistently better under Reagan than Obama, and just like jobs, growth in this metric really takes off during Reagan's third year on office. The most recent data for July showed that real disposable income per capita actually declined.

He also explains that the president cannot win on the basis of his major policy innovations because they are very unpopular.

Here's the bottom line: If the current trend continues, this election is not even going to be a close call. If it were held today, the president would lose by maybe 7 or 8 points. The economy stinks. The deficit is out of control. The country hates the president's top domestic achievement. It's darkness in America.

Unless the economy improves big-time, Obama has to hope that the GOP nominates a candidate who is unacceptable to the public, or at least one who is deeply vulnerable to Democratic attacks. Expect a very nasty campaign.

Important New Book about Obama

From Rowman and Littlefield:

Transforming America: Barack Obama in the White House

Edited by Steven E. Schier

The presidency of Barack Obama seeks a major transformation of American politics and policy. This new collection, edited by Steven E. Schier, examines the unusual combination of risk and ambition in Obama's presidency concerning popular politics, Washington politics, and economic and foreign policy. It also places the Obama presidency in historical perspective, noting the unusual circumstances of his election and the similarities and differences between presidential politics today and those of previous eras. Transforming America: Barack Obama in the White House provides a guiding focus involving the successes and failures of the administration's transformative aspirations during Obama's initial years in the White House.

List of Contributors
John J. Coleman, James L. Guth, John F. Harris, James Hohmann, Bertram Johnson, Richard E. Matland, Nancy Maveety, James M. McCormick, John J. Pitney Jr., Nicol C. Rae, Steven E. Schier, Raymond Tatalovich, Andrea L. Walker, John K. White

About the Editor
Steven E. Schier is Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science at Carleton College. He is the author or editor of eleven books, most recently Panorama of a Presidency: How George W. Bush Acquired and Spent His Political Capital and numerous scholarly and media articles.

Also see Amazon listing.

Zero

Max Fraad Wolff writes at The Huffington Post:

For the second time in monthly jobs report history we have created no new jobs. The last time we created no jobs in a month was 1945. We saw downward revisions to the June and July 2011 numbers as well; erasing 56,000 previously reported job gains. Local government employment continued to fall, losing 20,000 jobs in August. Of the local job losses 13,700 were in education. We have now lost550,000 local public sector jobs over the last 3 years. The broad U-6 measure of unemployment rose to 16.2% in August. This measure includes people who have stopped looking and who are involuntarily part time.

Michael D. Shear writes in The New York Times:

It took the Republican National Committee exactly 94 minutes to coin a new, demeaning title for Barack Obama: President Zero.

In an e-mail to reporters, the committee took note of the worst jobs report in nearly a year, saying that there has been “two and a half years of Obamanomics and nothing to show for it.”

The monthly report, which showed a 17,000-job gain among private employers but no growth over all, provides Mr. Obama’s Republican rivals with the perfect opportunity to criticize him as they prepare to gather for another nationally televised debate next week.

Perry's Gift to Oppo

Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns write at Politico:

Rick Perry describes Social Security as a “violent” attack on core American values. He says Sarah Palin may have been right that the Affordable Care Act created death panels. He says it was “unprincipled” to establish the Department of Homeland Security.

That’s not the provocative, distorted language of a 2012 attack ad — at least, not yet. Rather, those are words right out of the Texas governor’s 2010 book, “Fed Up!” — a slim volume that may be one of the biggest gifts ever given to the opponents of a presidential candidate.

It’s a treasure trove of oppo research, a target so ripe that Perry himself pointed to it last year as prime evidence he wasn’t interested in running for president.

...

“This is just a really, really long paper trail and it’s one that was written for an entirely different purpose than a presidential election,” said Dan Schnur, a former adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign who is now director of USC’s Unruh Institute of Politics. “Just as Romney has to convince voters that he feels differently now than he did when he was governor of Massachusetts, … Perry needs to find a way to explain to people that some of these more provocative [statements] don’t represent his current thinking.”

A former student of mine concludes:

“Speaking from an opposition research perspective, if you wanted to pin someone down on their extreme views on Social Security, you would have to go to, you know, the University of Texas video archive and find the debate from his first state house campaign where he gives this outrageous quote on Social Security,” said Judd Legum, who was research director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign. “Here, he put out a book … where he just lays it out very specifically.”

Crossroads and Hedges

Previous posts noted the migration of hedge-fund money away from Democrats. Paul Blumenthal adds more detail at The Huffington Post:

The Karl Rove-affiliated Super PAC American Crossroads raised $2.7 million between July 1 and August 24, according to a new report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Notably, Kenneth Griffin, the founder and CEO of the massive hedge fund Citadel, donated $300,000 to the group. In 2008, Griffin backed Barack Obama's bid for the presidency, raising between $50,000 and $100,000 as a donation 'bundler' and contributing the maximum $4,600 to the then-Illinois senator's presidential bid.

Recently, Griffin bemoaned the lack of attention paid to hedge fund managers by the White House and claimed that President Obama had expanded government spending too much. Griffin was quoted in May saying, "The frustration with Obama is that the administration is taking the spending levels of the Bush era and multiplying them by some multiple. We are greatly concerned about the fiscal stability of this country."

The vast majority of American Crossroads' recent contributions came from Texas home builder Bob Perry (no relation to Texas Gov. Rick Perry). Perry donated $2 million in August, bringing his annual total of donations to American Crossroads to $2.5 million and his total contributions since the group was founded in 2010 to $9.5 million. Perry is the biggest donor to political campaigns in the nation. In the past, he has donated millions of dollars to Republican outside groups including the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004 and the Economic Freedom Fund in 2006.

Insiders Think Romney is More Electable

National Journal reports:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry may be surging in polls of Republican primary voters, but his party's Insiders aren't convinced he'd be the best general election candidate. More than two-thirds of Republican Insiders say Mitt Romney has a better chance than Perry of defeating President Obama in 2012, according to this week's National Journal Political Insiders Poll.

Many Republican Insiders acknowledged Perry's appeal to conservatives but questioned his ability to win over independent voters. "Perry can fire up the base, but this election will be won in the middle, not on the fringes," said one. Said another, "Having trouble ID-ing a single independent who'd vote for Perry."

Democratic Insiders echoed that assessment by an even larger majority. "This election is sitting on a platter for Republicans if they do it right," said one. "Romney is probably good enough. Perry will get drilled by independent voters and women." Another quipped, "Rick Perry is all base and no swing."

In his 2010 reelection race, Perry got 56 percent of the independent vote.

Sean Davis writes at Redstate:

What National Journal failed to inform its readers is that at least 30 of the 141 GOP operatives polled — nearly 25 percent of the GOP sample — currently work for Romney or worked for his 2008 presidential campaign. Only one insider was readily identified in a Google search as being a member of Team Perry.

The Boys and Girls on the Bus

The media have changed, as Jeremy W. Peters reports at The New York Times:

For decades, campaign buses were populated by hotshots, some of whom covered politics for decades, from Walter Mears to David S. Broder to Jules Witcover. It was a glamorous club, captured and skewered in Timothy Crouse’s best-selling “The Boys on the Bus,” about the 1972 campaign.

Now, more and more, because of budget cutbacks, those once coveted jobs are being filled by brand new journalists at a fraction of the salary. It is not so glamorous anymore.

...

“People are watching you,” Fernando Suarez, a CBS News reporter who covered Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, admonished the young reporters. He recounted once innocently checking his e-mail and Facebook page during a Clinton rally in Oregon. A local blogger looked over his shoulder, snapped a picture of him and then wrote an item criticizing the media for being disengaged.

“Just be smart,” Mr. Suarez added. “Now that everybody has a Flip cam, they’re looking to get you.” The young reporters nodded earnestly.

...

“The press was just a law unto itself, and there really was no way to come back against it, especially the very tightly knit cabal of political reporters,” said Richard Ben Cramer, who wrote the book “What It Takes: The Way to the White House,” an account of the 1988 election.

“Even if you had the wherewithal to embarrass a reporter, there was no mechanism to do it,” Mr. Cramer added. “And in most cases, you might as well save your breath because the reporter had no shame anyway.”

...

Jake Tapper, the senior White House correspondent for ABC News, recently composed a tip sheet he called “13 Pieces of Campaign Advice for Young Reporters.” No. 11 on the list: Someone somewhere thinks things you say and do are interesting and reportable.

“This is an increasingly sophisticated and hazardous media world,” said Mr. Tapper, who as a rising media star often found his career and even his personal life the subject of interest by blogs and media critics. “Undermining a 27-year-old reporter — if it is in the interest of a campaign or a party that wants to discredit a news organization — it’s impossible for me to believe that’s not going to happen.”

The article overlooks another problem with the youth brigade: lack of historical memory. Reporters such as David Broder could watch a campaign event and immediately draw comparisons to things that happened 4, 8, or 32 years earlier. The newbies lack this experience, and in some cases, have only a sketchy knowledge of history.