Bracing For The Big Lift

The NY Times front-pages the difficulty facing their Presidential candidate in 2012:

Employment Data May Be the Key to the President’s Job
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

WASHINGTON — No American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent.

Seventeen months before the next election, it is increasingly clear that President Obama must defy that trend to keep his job.

Roughly 9 percent of Americans who want to go to work cannot find an employer. Companies are firing fewer people, but hiring remains anemic. And the vast majority of economic forecasters, including the president’s own advisers, predict only modest progress by November 2012.

In addition to Roosevelt they go on to mention He Who Must Not Be Named:

Ten presidents have stood for re-election since Mr. Roosevelt. In four instances the unemployment rate [link] stood above 6 percent on Election Day. Three presidents lost: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush. But Ronald Reagan won, despite 7.2 percent unemployment in November 1984, because the rate was falling and voters decided he was fixing the problem.

The Obama administration hopes to tell a similar story.

The idea that Obama is The Man With A Plan will be a tough sell, since he has focused on everything but jobs, jobs, jobs (now its immigration?!?) ever since he flipped the keys to Nancy and Harry and put them in charge of the stimulus.

But the Times will do what they must.

Comments

[Ignatz]

--But Ronald Reagan won, despite 7.2 percent unemployment in November 1984, because the rate was falling and voters decided he was fixing the problem.

The Obama administration hopes to tell a similar story.--

They knew Reagan was fixing the problem because his program was correctly seen as a clean break from the past mess he had inherited that was necessary to fix it.
Barry's on the other hand is correctly perceived as an extension of the bailout nation, TARP, pointless puny tax rebates of Bush's reaction to the financial crisis with the bonus of a gigantic failed stimulus boondoggle thrown on top.

[MayBee]

Elliott Spitzer and Robert Reich were trying to sell a new stimulus plan last night on CNN.

[anduril]

Wowzers!

Salon has a story (sourced from a Mother Jones piece that I haven't read) about Michelle Bachman. I mean, I knew she was nutso, but..I mean...the truth outstrips most anything I could've imagined.

Here it is: Michele Bachmann thinks the world is ending and the pope is the antichrist

They have a really cool graphic at the start:

Just to give you a flavor:

Mother Jones writes about Rep. Michele Bachmann's, R-Minn., connections to Olive Tree Ministries, an evangelical Christian operation founded by a former Jew for Jesus and longtime friend of Bachmann's named Jan Markell.

Olive Tree Ministries, based out of Maple Grove, Minn., produces a weekly radio show and a newsletter, and it is also obsessed with Israel because it believes we are living in the end times. Bachmann's been on Markell's radio show multiple times, attended an Olive Tree Ministries conference, and left a testimonial on its website. ...

So Bachmann stands with Israel because she needs the Jews to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem so that Christ can return, rapture the Christians up to Heaven, convince the Jews to worship him during the Tribulations, and then rule over the Earth from Israel for 1,000 years. (This is what these people believe, very, very literally.)

But wait! Before all the happens the antichrist needs to show up and convince everyone he's the Messiah! But who could that end up being? Some people say Obama, but Bachmann's church fingered a different suspect.

...

When Bachmann was running for Congress in 2006, her official website bio said she was a member of the Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church of Stillwater, which belongs to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. WELS is one of the very conservative "confessional" Lutheran denominations that maintains that the "antichrist" is the pope. You know, the leader of the Catholic Church? That pope.

...

It seems more than fair to ask whether Michele Bachmann is anti-Catholic, and whether, should she be elected president, she'd purposefully sabotage a Middle East peace deal in order to bring about the Second Coming. Or whether she'd launch some sort of tactical strike against Vatican City. I think she would. Look who she pals around with!

[anduril]

"Elliott Spitzer and Robert Reich were trying to sell a new stimulus plan last night on CNN."

OK, I'll bit--was it called the Brooklyn Bridge?

This Bachmann stuff has me wondering about Palin now. I wonder where she's coming from on the end times?

[anduril]

= I'll BITE

[Captain Hate]

"The problem" that Reagan was fixing was the huge inflation that began under LBJ's Great Society garbage that was rammed down the country's throat coincident with Vietnam. Nixon, Ford and Carter ineffectively dealt with it through half-assed measures which only made it worse. Anybody too young to have lived through it have no idea how miserable it was; although BOzo's doing his best to make it more than a vague memory.

[narciso]

Well Nixon, on the advice of Moynihan, imposed
'wage and price' controls, and Burns, 'primed
the pump' to eleven, but the source of the problem was the earlier spending,

[Danube of Thought]

Raz:

In May, the number of Republicans in the country increased to its highest level so far this year.

Now, 35.6% of American Adults consider themselves to be Republicans, up from 34.8% in April.

Dems are at 34.0%. Keep those numbers in mind when looking at polling internals.

[Captain Hate]

Wage and price controls was the dumbest thing, among many, that Nixon did; all it did was create spot shortages while keeping wages lower than the market would dictate. Surprisingly obtuse for Moynihan to advise that.

[anduril]

I didn't spend much time looking, but this timesonline entry from 08/2008 was the top search return for "sarah palin end times":

Mrs Palin attended a service recently where a guest speaker, David Brickner, suggested that terrorism in Israel was God’s judgment against the Jews for failing to accept Christ as the Messiah.

Didn't look up Brickner. Not sure I have the stomach to read much more of this stuff.

[Danube of Thought]

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss:

Jill Abramson, the most powerful woman in journalism for much of the last decade as the managing editor of the New York Times, has been named the paper’s first female executive editor in a historic and sudden shakeup of the paper’s top masthead as executive editor Bill Keller resigns to be a full-time writer. Dean Baquet, the paper’s assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief who became a kind of journalistic folk hero when he refused to cut staff as editor of the Los Angeles Times, will move up to become managing editor.

[jimmyk]

BOzo's doing his best to make it more than a vague memory.

Vague memory? As I'm sure you know, all that Great Society garbage is still with us in spades. All Reagan could do was try to slow its growth. Medicare, Medicaid, the Federal money for education (now we have a whole department), the NEA, NEH, DoT, NHTSA, public broadcasting, etc., etc.

[anduril]

OTOH, here's a good read from Walter Russell Mead--and yes I'm linking him knowing that I disagree with most everything he says re the ME:

The Death of the American Dream I

He starts slowly but gradually gains momentum.

[narciso]

Well to be fair, it had more to do with Connally, and McCracken, but it still was a bad move,

[Captain Hate]

jimmyk, the "it" in the sentence was meant to be inflation. Sorry I didn't make that clear. Of course I agree with everything you wrote.

[Rick Ballard]

"But Ronald Reagan won, despite 7.2 percent unemployment in November 1984, because the rate was falling and voters decided he was fixing the problem."

Gosh, I thought it might have had something to do with the confidence inspired by Reagan's optimism backed by GDP growth beginning in Q1-83 (corresponds to Q1-11) of 5.1% followed by 9.3%, 8.1%, 8.5%, 8.0%, 7.1% and 3.9% in Q3-84, just before the election.

In comparison, BOzo's Q1-11 number was 1.8% and current forecasts for Q2 have been cut to 1.5-2% with very few forecasts above 3% for the next four quarters.

Let me be clear. As I've said many times before, President Obama is a clueless, incompetent buffoon whose only success has been in obliterating any hope on the part of those foolish enough to have believed a syllable of any utterance passing his lips.

[Danube of Thought]

Real GDP growth, constant dollars:

1980 -0.274%
1981 2.538
1982 -1.942
1983 4.518
1984 7.186

That 7.186 number translated to 49 states.

[MayBee]

"Elliott Spitzer and Robert Reich were trying to sell a new stimulus plan last night on CNN."

OK, I'll bit--was it called the Brooklyn Bridge?

ha!

[jimmyk]

Got it, Cap'n, though both in the 70s and now we also have to give thanks to the dolts at the Fed for aiding and abetting the big spenders, whether wittingly or not.

[Danube of Thought]

Daniel Henninger explains, rather succinctly, the harm Obama has deliberately inflicted on the US economy.

[anduril]

OK, I couldn't resist googling "jews for jesus david brickner" (seemed logical search terms in the circs) and I came up with this in the top entry:

"David Brickner leads the best known Jewish evangelism agency in the world, Jews for Jesus."

That's from jewsforjesus.org so I guess they'd know.

So, Palin and Bachmann seem to move in pretty similar circles. Well, OK, Sarah never worked on a kibbutz. But they've moved in similar circles in relatively recent years.

[narciso]

Right, Burns, pump priming had a good deal to do with these circumstances ,as with Greenspan's first iteration, in the Ford Administration.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vnjagvet]

OT:

June 1 gave us much to be thankful for. Jane and Amy made it through the freak tornado without injury and my first grandson, Graham Sung Hee Kitt was born around three months premature. As of this morning, my daughter Sara is recovering well from a c-section delivery after having been diagnosed with preeclampsia during her routine OB checkup yesterday afternoon. Graham is a real fighter and is holding his own. My son-in-law, Brian has been a real rock of Gibralter.

[anduril]

Go to RCM for the link. John Tamney explains Why Robert Mundell Is Wrong About the Dollar/Euro. Money quote:

By the above definition, China could avoid inflation by virtue of pegging its yuan to the dollar. No doubt that was the plan of Chinese monetary authorities back in the ‘90s, but with dollar policy having become very irresponsible in the U.S. beginning in 2001, our devaluation transmitted our inflationary problem to China.

Let's see...who was prez beginning in 2001. Oh yeah, that bozo. The one that trashed the economy and led the way for Obama.

[Sue]

Jim,

Congratulations. Will send up prayers that the young man will soon be fighting weight and they let him go home.

[Janet]

Much to be thankful for indeed, Jim!

[anduril]

Heh, on second reading, this from timesonline is rather amusing:

"David Brickner, suggested that terrorism in Israel was God’s judgment against the Jews for failing to accept Christ as the Messiah."

Since christos is Greek for messiah--not Jesus' last name--it ends up being a tautology of sorts. Shoulda been "failing to accept Jesus [of Nazareth] as the Messiah."

[MayBee]

Jim- woah. How scary for everyone involved. I will send them my strength, because I can't imagine anything that requires it more than fear for a newborn.

Bless all our JOMers in stress right now. And cut it out, people.

[maryrose]

Rocco:
You are a hero for your early first tornado alert.
Jane: So glad you and Amy and family are OK .Please tell Amy we are praying for her.
I agree with RB.
After watching the jobs numbers for the last 2 and a half years I've concluded it won't turn around fast enough to save Obama.
Obama:
SeeYa ,wouldn't want to be ya!

[Neo]

But if they cannot or will not, shouldn't they be true to their faith? If they truly believe that these interrogations did not and could not yield useful intelligence, they should demand that the CIA identify all the information derived directly or indirectly from enhanced interrogation. And then they should insist the agency destroy it. They should also insist that significant portions of the 9/11 Commission Report be rescinded, as it too was based on this data. This would be perfectly consistent with the interrogation deniers' transcendental faith that nothing of use could have come from enhanced interrogations after 9/11.

[centralcal]

Jim - Congratulations and ditto what Sue, Janet and MayBee said. And, double ditto, for the cut it out people portion.

[narciso]

I hear a buzzing sound, cc, but I don't know what you're referring to, lol.

[centralcal]

worry over fellow JOMers, narciso - worry!

Has anyone heard from Jane yet this morning?

[centralcal]

Very early this A.M. with my first cup of coffee I read a piece at American Thinker. Rush just discussed it now on his show. I can recommend it as a very thoughtful piece on what is up with the Krauthammer v. Palin shtick.

[Captain Hate]

Walter Mondale's speech writer? That worked out well. The Hammer has squandered all of his carefully accumulated credibility by being bone-crunchingly wrong on BOzo and glaringly spiteful to Palin. I'm thinking that wheelchair needs to travel outside the Beltway periodically for a sanity update.

[lyle]

I don't care, Obama is awesome.

[narciso]

Duke and Duke, has a Boston branch, who knew;

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/2011_0602headlinegoes_gop_miffed_on_mitts_big_day/srvc=home&position=2

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Anduril: Your attempted take-down of Bachmann shows your ignorance. I would suggest you get yourself a Bible, or go online to one, and read the Book of Revelations to learn about end-times prophecy. I think she is quite in line with general Biblical teachings.

[Jack is Back!]

OT: We are on the train. Pulls out at 4pm. Wine tasting in lounge car featured Blue Crab blanc, rouge and rose (blush). Not bad for being Virginia verital.

New post on Frederick's blog. Only have iPad on train and my photo database is too large to get the photo I took of the car uploaded to his blog post. More tomorrow as The All American Summer Road Trip begins.

Ciao!

[Missy]

Congratulations, Jim! Thank you for sharing the news. As I think I remember saying immediately after the birth of all three of my children: Thank God for Western medicine.

Prayers for his continued growth and strength and your daughter's recovery.

[Clarice]

Jim--whew--My best wishes to all.
JiB, Frederick has more fun in his life than should be legal. Are you up to adopting an older sister?

[Jack is Back!]

BTW, the Amtrak mag, "Arrive" is nothing more than a propagana tool for The First Conductor and Conducteress. Moochelle is on the cover and three other places throught the mag as well as such liberal icons as Bill Clinton and Patti Smith. Almost like reading a Mother Jones version of McCalls.LUN

[Jack is Back!]

We left station early, blog commenting from the auto-train. Is this a JOM first? We are still enjoying that Viginia wine:)

[Jack is Back!]

Clarice,

We will be in DC (staying in Darnestown with oldest daughter) 13th and 14th. Janet may catch us for lunch at Old Ebbitts or Monocle. Wanna come? Also, is the Barracuda with you then?

[Janet]

I think she is quite in line with general Biblical teachings.

I agree Sara.

[Soylent Red]

JiB, Janet or Clarice:

Can't make it for the Friday but I would love to come down to DC on Saturday (I'm up in Charlottesville). Please let me know.

[Porchlight]

BTW, the Amtrak mag, "Arrive" is nothing more than a propagana tool for The First Conductor and Conducteress.

In that case, it is very aptly named.

[Jack is Back!]

Soylent,

Rakkasans always invited at my table. An honor, sir.

How bout it ladies? We could add all the DC contongent and others ready to travel down. Like one of Ace's Moron meet ups. Too bad Duke Ziebert's isn't around anymore.

I leave it to the others.

[Janet]

Sounds great! What dates are we talking about though? The 13th & 14th or this weekend? Both are okay with me...I'm probably the most flexible one, so you guys all decide. We'll have to email Old Lurker too. RichatUF, MoodyBlu,...

[Clarice]

The wolverine arrives with her parents very late (midnight flight) on the 16th so I will have to beg off hosting anything here. I'll be too busy, but if I can I'd love to meet you all on the 13th or 14th.

[Clarice]

On the other thread, I note that I can do lunch on the 13th but not the 14th.