Mark Wilson: "As you know, in the Tampa/ St. Pete area, we're around 11 percent unemployment, among the highest in the country really, that number actually went up in 2009 after your first stimulus. So what would you tell Floridians wondering if you deserve another chance?"
President Obama: "Well, I think what I would say is that we're nowhere near where we need to be, but keep in mind that when I took office, we had already lost one million jobs in the previous quarter. We had lost more than four million in the previous quarter and we lost another four million in the three months when I came into office, so our economic plan hadn't even had the chance to take effect."
"We know the economy was contracting by nine percent when I came in. It was growing by four percent by the time the end of the year came around, so obviously the Recovery Act had an impact. But again, it's not enough."
"We've got to do more, and that's why we've put together this jobs plan that incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans, rebuilds our roads, our bridges, our infrastructure, puts teachers back in the classroom. It would have a direct impact on what's going on in Florida, and what we need right now is Congress to go ahead and act, and they have been not acting in the interest of Floridians or the American people."
Friday, November 4, 2011
Filling Gaps in the White House Website, Part 74
Frustrating Economic Numbers for POTUS
U.S. employment climbed in October at the slowest pace in four months, illustrating the “frustratingly slow” progress cited by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke this week.
The 80,000 increase in payrolls was less than forecast and followed gains in the prior two months that were revised up by 102,000, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The unemployment rate fell to a six-month low of 9 percent from 9.1 percent even as the labor force expanded.
The crisis in Europe and looming deadline on U.S. budget talks may be prompting companies to hold back on concern failure to reach resolutions will put the global recovery at risk. Fed policy makers project the jobless rate won’t drop under 8 percent until 2013 at the earliest, one reason why Bernanke this week said additional stimulus “remains on the table.”
Said Steven Law, president and CEO of Crossroads GPS, and former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor:
President Obama's massive stimulus policies have failed to bring down unemployment, and his new ideas haven't learned from past mistakes,” said Steven Law, president and CEO of Crossroads GPS. “President Obama's tax, healthcare and regulatory policies have savagely attacked small businesses and entrepreneurs that create jobs, and instead entrusted job creation to unelected bureaucrats in Washington that hand out stimulus checks – and that's no way to run an economy.
The Federal Reserve significantly reduced its forecast of economic growth through 2013, acknowledging that it had once again overestimated the nation’s recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.
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The central bank predicted that the economy would expand 2.5 percent to 2.9 percent in 2012, well below its June projection of 3.3 percent to 3.7 percent. For the following year, 2013, the Fed predicted growth of 3 percent to 3.5 percent, down from a range of 3.5 percent to 4.2 percent.
The unemployment rate, it predicted, would still be at least 8.5 percent at the end of 2012, at least 7.8 percent at the end of 2013 and at least 6.8 percent at the end of 2014. Such reductions probably would come in part from people abandoning the search for work, rather than those finding new jobs.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Perry Says He Wasn't Drunk
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, on a fundraising swing in California, spoke at length for the first time Wednesday about his eyebrow-raising address in New Hampshire last week that has gone viral on the Internet, saying it was "a pretty typical speech for me" and denying suggestions that he seemed to be on medication or under the influence of alcohol.
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The clip, described by some as bizarre and incoherent, shows Perry mugging, joking and playing with the audience as he describes New Hampshire's motto, "Live Free or Die" as "cool" and appears to collapse in giggles over a gift of maple syrup.
Perry shrugged off the criticism and appeared flummoxed by the attention to the address.
"I've probably given 1,000 speeches. There are some that have been probably boring, some that have been animated, some that have been in between," he said.
But "ask the people who were there," he said, "not some political opponent who has put a video up. The people there were responding to the speech ... clapping at all the right places - and there was a standing ovation at the end."
Responding to the suggestions by some political observers that the animated Perry may have been on pain medication for his past back surgery, the governor said: "No. I was just giving a speech."
"I had spine surgery on the first of July, but I ran this morning," he said, adding that he was not taking pain medication or anything else before Friday's event, and in fact was back on his regular running routine.
Asked about "The Daily Show" comedian Jon Stewart's suggestion that Perry looked like he had been drinking, the governor said, "It wasn't that either."
"It's not that I wouldn't love to sit down with Jon and have a glass of wine," he said with a laugh, adding "if he'll buy."
Cain Developments
At The New York Times, Michael Shear reports that Cain aide Mark Block is retreating from his accusation that Curt Anderson leaked the harassment story:
After Mr. Anderson flatly denied having leaked the story to Politico — and even denied having discussed the issue back in 2004 — Mr. Block appeared again Thursday on Fox News.
“Until we get all the facts, I’m just going to say that we accept what Mr. Anderson had said. And we want to move on with the campaign,” he said on “America Live.”
Mr. Block added that the Cain campaign was “absolutely thrilled” that Mr. Anderson went on Fox and said that he was not the source of the Politico story.
“Mr. Cain has always had the utmost respect for him,” Mr. Block said. “I’m going to do the same thing that Mr. Anderson has done and move on. Talk about issues and get off of this ‘silliness,’ as he called it, and let’s get on with the campaign.”
A textbook example of walking back a story — or trying to.
Of course, he still has that pesky quote from his boss, Mr. Cain, who told supporters by phone Wednesday evening: “We now know and have been able to trace it back to the Perry campaign that stirred this up, in order to discredit me and slow us down.”
Politico reports new details about one of the alleged incidents:
In recent days sources—including associates of the woman and people familiar with operations of the restaurant association—have offered new details of the incident.
The woman in question, roughly 30 years old at the time and working in the National Restaurant Association’s government affairs division, told two people directly at the time that Cain made a sexual overture to her at one of the group’s events, according to the sources familiar with the incident. She was livid and lodged a verbal complaint with an NRA board member that same night, these sources said.
The woman told one of the sources Cain made a suggestion that she felt was overtly sexual in nature and that “she perceived that her job was at risk if she didn’t do it.”
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Did the Perry Campaign Launch the Cain Story?
Was the recent attack on Herman Cain’s presidential campaign a professional hit job? Absolutely, says Herman Cain. And he says he knows just where to look for the guy who did it: At 815 Slaters Lane in Alexandria, Virginia, a low-slung former warehouse in the shadow of a coal plant.
There, beside rusting rail lines, is the home of OnMessage Inc., a Republican-leaning consulting firm recently hired to bolster Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign.
One of the firm’s partners, Curt Anderson, worked on Cain’s losing 2004 U.S. Senate campaign. Cain thinks he’s the hired political gun who leaked details to Politico, a Washington trade publication, of alleged “sexually suggestive behavior” Cain is said to have exhibited towards two women while he ran the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. That story set off a media frenzy which has quickly put Cain’s campaign on the defense.
In the summer of 2003, Cain recalls briefing Anderson—his general campaign consultant at the time—that sexual harassment claims were brought against him while he was chairman of the National Restaurant Association from 1996 to 1999.
Bret Baier, FOX News: "You're charging the Perry campaign with stirring this up?"
Mark Block, Cain Chief of Staff: "Absolutely and quite frankly, this is one of the actions in America that is the reason people don't get involved in politics, right. The actions of the Perry campaign are despicable. Rick Perry and his campaign owe Herman Cain and his family an apology. Both the Rick Perry campaign and Politico did the wrong thing by reporting something that wasn't true, to anonymous sources in, like I said, they owe Herman Cain and his family an apology
As the 2004 Senate primary neared, it was clear that it was a contest between two people: the millionaire liberal, [Blair] Hull, who was leading in the polls, and Obama, who had built an impressive grass-roots campaign. About a month before the vote, The Chicago Tribune revealed, near the bottom of a long profile of Hull, that during a divorce proceeding, Hull's second wife filed for an order of protection. In the following few days, the matter erupted into a full-fledged scandal that ended up destroying the Hull campaign and handing Obama an easy primary victory. The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had ''worked aggressively behind the scenes'' to push the story. But there are those in Chicago who believe that Axelrod had an even more significant role -- that he leaked the initial story. They note that before signing on with Obama, Axelrod interviewed with Hull. They also point out that Obama's TV ad campaign started at almost the same time. Axelrod swears up and down that ''we had nothing to do with it'' and that the campaign's television ad schedule was long planned. ''An aura grows up around you, and people assume everything emanates from you,'' he told me.
Cain: Before the Fall?
Herman Cain is the only candidate whose Positive Intensity Score has increased in comparison to Gallup's initial measurement earlier this year. In fact, each of the eight candidates Gallup tracks began with scores in the double digits, but now only three remain in that range.The current results are based on Oct. 17-30 Gallup Daily tracking interviews with more than 1,500 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. The candidates' scores have stabilized in recent weeks, with no significant change in any candidate's positive intensity since last week. The stability may not persist, however, as Cain is attracting scrutiny for allegations of sexual harassment while he was president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. All interviews in the most recent field period were conducted before that story broke. Gallup's update on positive intensity next Tuesday will show whether the news is having an effect on Cain's image among Republicans.
Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Perry have seen their images deteriorate the most since earlier this year. Perry and Bachmann saw increases in their positive intensity scores at earlier points in the campaign and ranked among the leaders for a time before fading. Now Bachmann's score of 3 is lower than all other candidates' scores except Huntsman's -2. All of these candidates were less well-known at the time of their initial measurement but have made substantial gains in name recognition since.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Obama is Losing Supporters
President Barack Obama has lost millions of dollars in support from former donors in Democratic strongholds and in districts that he won narrowly four years ago, according to an Associated Press analysis of the most recent federal campaign finance data.
Tens of thousands of supporters who gave him hundreds of dollars or more in the early stages of the 2008 campaign haven't offered him similar amounts of cash so far in this campaign. And in some cases, former Obama contributors gave to GOP candidates, such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
"Spending levels and tax policy are probably the most important issues for me at the federal level and things have not gone in the direction that I would favor in those departments," ex-Massachusetts Governor William Weld told Reuters. "Governor Romney has a picture perfect textbook on those issues."
Weld, who backed Obama against Senator John McCain in 2008, said he would choose not just Romney over Obama in 2012 but some of the other Republican contenders as well if they won their party's nomination.
Support from influential moderate conservatives helped Obama win about 54 percent of the independent vote in 2008, according to exit polls, and he will need a strong showing among independents again next year to be re-elected. He was supported by 9 percent of Republicans in 2008.
"I am a Republican and only voted for one Democrat in my entire life, and that was very much an anti-McCain vote. I thought Obama was going to be better than he turned out to be," said Kenneth Adelman, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and adviser to a number of Republican presidents, including George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.
Adelman is also backing Romney.