Depends on the definition of "is"

The Argument for reelecting Obama

If we take Bill Clinton at his word, we should reelect Obama because the failures of the last four years aren’t hisfault.  No one could solve these problems in four short years.  That definitely is the argument of a loser.

Democrats answer “Are you better off today than four years ago?” with a hypothetical “Yes”

At first the Democrats were honest about it and tried to change the question.  But then Stephanie Cutter said, “Absolutely” and they change their meme.  People are not better off than they were four years ago, but the left wants you to imagine you are better off than you might have been.  Obama according to the Democrats saved the world from a great Depression.  Now I’m not sure how he did that since the recession was officially over in June 2009 before any spending from the stimulus took effect or any of the other programs he put into effect had a chance to take effect.  

Here’s the irony of their claim.  If there was a chance of a depression George W. Bush avoided it by passing the TARP program.  That is why the recession ended in June 2009 before any action by Obama took effect.  So the Democrats want to blame Bush for the recession while giving credit to Obama for what Bush did to address the recession.  Obama is responsible for the recovery which has been the worst recovery since World War II. 

Obama fails the interview

On Thursday night, Barack Obama interviewed with the hiring manager -- the American voters -- to keep his job for another four years.  Any hiring manager using the past behavioral event interviewing method -- a technique where experience triumphs over hope -- would conclude that Obama flunked.  And flunked miserably.

The ending was breathtakingly insulting as Obama ultimately blamed the hiring manager -- the American people -- for having elected him in the first place.  So you see, the election four years ago wasn't about me.  It was about you.  My fellow citizens, you were the change.

While Obama's stated vision for prosperity, equity, justice, security, and compassion might have been noble, he offered no plan to reach such a utopia, nor did he discuss how the nation would pay for it.

What the August Jobs Report said

Nonfarm payrolls increased by only 96,000 in August, the Labor Department said, versus expectations of 125,000 jobs or more. The manufacturing sector, much touted by the president in his convention speech, lost 15,000 jobs.

– Since the start of the year, job growth has averaged 139,000 per month vs. an average monthly gain of 153,000 in 2011.

– While the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1% from 8.3% in July, it was due to a big drop in the labor force participation rate (the share of Americans with a job or looking for one). If fewer Americans hadn’t given up looking for work, the unemployment rate would have risen.

– Reuters notes that the participation rate is now at its lowest level since September 1981.

– If the labor force participation rate was the same as when Obama took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate would be 11.2%.

– If the participation rate had just stayed the same as last month, the unemployment rate would be 8.4%.

More about the Jobs numbers

How many people are out of work but not counted as unemployed because they hadn't sought work in the past four weeks? Eight million. This is the sort of distressing number that turns up when you look beyond the headline number. 

Here's another one: 96,000—that's how many new jobs were added last month, well short of the anemic 125,000 predicted by analysts, and dramatically less than the (still paltry) 139,000 the economy had been averaging in 2012.

The alarming numbers proliferate the deeper you look: 40.7% of the people counted as unemployed have been out of work for 27 weeks or more—that's 5.2 million "long-term" unemployed. Fewer Americans are at work today than in April 2000, even though the population since then has grown by 31 million.

 

Klavan on Obamanomics

Something on the lighter side.

Top Democratic Candidate distancing himself from Obama

Democratic Senate candidate Bob Kerrey said Thursday that he hates the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act and that his own businesses might drop employee insurance and pay the federal fine for doing so if the mandate goes into effect in 2014.

Kerrey said wealthy Americans pay their fair share in taxes. And he said President Barack Obama made a big mistake by not following the recommendations of his own bipartisan budget deficit commission.

Is Kerry running as a Democrat or a Republican?

Fact Checking: It’s not just about the facts anymore

The fact checking industry has made a name for itself of late by “fact checking” not just the actual factual claims of particular candidates – usually conservative candidates – but by fact checking their supposed implications. And the fact checkers have almost universally been friends to the Obama campaign.  This is a big problem because the fact checkers to check implications have to assume what the speaker meant.  We are way far away from FACTS.

JINO—Journalists in Name Only

PolitiFact Ohio — the “fact-checking” wing of the Cleveland Plain Dealer — has been cited as an authority by all six of Ohio’s major papers, but now faces proof of staffer’s liberal bias.  And even after the outlet’s claim to objectivity was debunked in an Aug. 16 report from conservative watchdog Media Trackers Ohio, the Plain Dealer, The Columbus Dispatch and the Dayton Daily News continue treating PolitiFact Ohio as an objective source.

Media Trackers also reported that, based on voter registration records, PolitiFact Ohio editors Robert Higgs and Jane Kahoun are both Democrats. Prominent PolitiFact Ohio contributors Reginald Feran, Henry Gomez, Aaron Marshall and Fields are registered Democrats as well, but this has not prompted any skepticism at the state’s major newspapers.

Reminiscent of Nixon: Obama has a plan

Sounding like Nixon who had a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam, President Obama yesterday said:  “I’ve got a plan,” Obama said yesterday before a podium with a big blue square placard, “Forward,” on its front. “I’ve got a plan,” he said again, then ticked off all he’d like to do. Export more products. Recruit 100,000 new math and science teachers. Cut college tuitions, etc.

“We need to create more jobs faster,” he said. “We need to fill the hole left by this recession faster.”

Yes we do. Everybody knows that.  But the plan seems long on goals and short on answers. 

Josh Greenman grades the Conventions

An interesting and short review of both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

The Star: C-

President Obama’s Thursday night speech in Charlotte was a major missed opportunity. He should have have defended his economic decisions. He should have described, in vivid terms, what Obamacare is already doing for real people. Instead, he gave what amounted to 4,000 word rehash of his stump speech.

Is Connecticut in play?

Connecticut might be the last place you'd expect Republicans to pick up a U.S. Senate seat this November, but it may happen. In the race for retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman's seat, Linda McMahon, the co-founder of the highly profitable World Wrestling Entertainment, leads Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy by three points, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll. 

Those numbers terrify Democrats, so much so that at the party's convention in Charlotte, N.C., this week they frantically shuttled Mr. Murphy around town to meet deep-pocket Democratic donors.

Connecticut hasn't had a Republican senator in modern times—with the exception of Lowell Weicker, who was so liberal that the Democratic Mr. Lieberman unseated him in 1988 by running to his right. Barack Obama carried the state by 23 points in 2008. 

But Nutmeg State voters today are cranky, and even Mr. Obama is up only seven points on Mitt Romney in the latest Quinnipiac poll. One reason for their angst is tax-happy Gov. Dannel Malloy, who has raised income, sales and 70 other taxes and fees while insisting that taxpayers would be glad to pay the higher charges. They haven't been—in part because the budget remains steeped in red ink and the unemployment rate remains persistently above the national average. Barron's recently rated Connecticut the worst-run state in the country.

Obama’s Speech

Of course, reading through the speech, I didn’t see the word “jobs” mentioned once. In fact, though I could be wrong, I didn’t see the word “growth” mentioned once.

What I did see were constant references to government. Obama has taken to calling it “citizenship.” But it’s the same old, same old. Whether it’s more money for the teachers’ unions, or more Solyndra-like green energy, or more for infrastructure, it translates to more government spending and dependency in a second Obama term, all to somehow be financed with tax hikes on the rich.

Unfortunately, as former President Clinton mentioned in his convention speech, the arithmetic doesn’t add up.

Taxing successful, upper-end earners, investors, and small-business owners will generate less than half the revenue Team Obama expects. Maybe far less than half, since taxing capital gets you less capital, lower investment, fewer jobs, and slower growth. This will lead to a huge revenue shortfall, all while spending as a share of GDP continues to rise, perhaps to 25 or 26 percent.

Jobs picture no help for Obama

Best Quotes from DNC

"All women should have the right to birth control." Aspen, Colorado delegate Blanca O'Leary

“On every issue, the choice you face won’t be just between two candidates or two parties. “It will be a choice between two different paths for America. “--Barack Obama

BLS:  August 96000 jobs created

Unemployment rate down to 8.1% as 368,000 leave the workforce.  The 96,000 jobs created is below the estimates of between 125,000 and 200,000 and below last months 163,000.  Here is the three month moving average.

January 2012               207000

February 2012             230000

March 2012                 204000

April 2012                   146000

May 2012                      99000

June 2012                      67000

July 2012                       85000

August                           88000

These aren’t winning numbers if you are looking to be reelected.

Obama Administration:  Pay no attention to….

The answer is by warning Americans “not to read too much into any one monthly report.”  Perhaps the bad news is an anomaly, Council of Economic Advisers chairman Alan Krueger warned Friday.

Of course, Krueger said the same thing last month.  And the month before.  And the month before.  Noticing the depressing repetitiveness of the White House’s analysis, the Romney campaign last month dug through old reports and put together a list of 30 examples, going back to November, 2009, in which the administration warned Americans not to “read too much into” discouraging jobs numbers.  Now, there are 31. (That’s out of 43 months Mr. Obama has been President). 

Now tell us what you really think, Clint.

“President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” Eastwood told The Pine Cone. “Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know. I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle.”

Obama:  It could have been worse

John Stewart skewers Obama.  “It’s better than cancer” perhaps can be the new Obama Campaign slogan.

Krauthammer Pans Obama’s Speech

“I was stunned. This is a man who gave one of the great speeches of our time in 2004. And he gave one of the emptiest speeches I’ve ever heard on a national stage… There was nothing in it… At least Romney had a 5 point plan… He pulls numbers out of a hat… He doesn’t say how he’s going to get from A to B. It’s a vision. I have a vision of America where there’s no disease and everybody owns a private airplane. But, unless I tell you how we get there I’ve said nothing.”  In short, Obama gave us an Edsel when he needed a T-bird.

Reelect Obama?  Why?

“The times have changed -- and so have I,” Obama said. “I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the president. . . . I’m far more mindful of my own failings, knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said, ‘I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.’ ”

His speech at the Convention has pretty well sealed it.  His “times have changed and so have I” reminds me of Jimmy Carter in the final weeks of the election of 1980 telling everyone he had learned so much.  If Obama has changed, how has he changed?  Romney wins big in November.

Kerry finds everyone is worse off

Kerry asks if bin Laden is better off than he was four years ago leaving himself open to the response, “No, he’s like everyone else.  Under Obama everyone is much worse off including UBL.”

Peggy Noonan looks at the DNC Convention

There was the relentless emphasis on Government as Community, as the thing that gives us spirit and makes us whole. But government isn't what you love if you're American, America is what you love. Government is what you have, need and hire. It’s most essential duties—especially when it is bankrupt—involves defending rights and safety, not imposing views and values. We already have values. Democrats and Republicans don't see all this the same way, and that's fine—that's what national politics is, the working out of this dispute in one direction or another every few years. But the Democrats convened in Charlotte seemed more extreme on the point, more accepting of the idea of government as the center of national life, than ever, at least to me.

Perhaps they took God out of the platform because they don’t want competition for the government. 

The Specifics in Obama’s Speech

He offered more specific goals than did Mr. Romney, many of which he had previously set: doubling U.S. exports, training 2 million workers at community colleges, recruiting 100,000 math and science teachers. Those, and a few new goals — creating 1 million manufacturing jobs over four years, cutting oil imports in half by 2020, cutting in half the growth in college tuition — are laudable. But Mr. Obama did not explain how he would achieve them or prepare the country for the difficult choices they would demand.

Obama keeps asking if we want the failed policies of the past when we can have his failed policies of the present (although he doesn’t phrase it that way). 

Obama lies about how is mother died

Vice President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama all told a story during the Democratic National Convention about battles the president’s mother waged with health care companies as she fought a terminal illness in 1995. But the version of events presented Thursday night differs dramatically from others, including those of at least two biographers and Obama’s own previous account.

Never let a good story be compromised by the truth.

Obama voters: it is understandable to be disappointed

Many of Obama’s 2008 voters are greatly disappointed with the results of his election.  Romney needs to make it okay for them to vote against Obama.  Says campaign pollster Neil Newhouse: “These voters are my mother-in-law. She’s a soft Republican and voted with pride for Barack Obama in terms of what it meant for the country. And now, every time she talks to me, she’s more than disappointed. She’s frustrated. She’s upset. She thought she was voting for a transformational leader and feels like we got just another politician.”

The Thrill is gone

While Obama and Mitt Romney remain locked in public polls, several Democratic officials are worried that three groups that pushed Obama over the finish line in 2008--younger voters, seniors and "Walmart" white women--are as frustrated as other groups about the economy and Obama's failure to change Washington and might stay home.

In other words, they say, the polls lie. Yes, when called by pollsters, the nation is split, but the GOP appears more eager and willing to follow through and vote than the Democrats.

During an event hosted by National Journal/Atlantic her this week, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake cited an "enthusiasm gap" with younger voters and unmarried women and seniors. Former Clinton aide Maria Echaveste said that "too many [Obama supporters] are not engaged." And micro-targeting expert Laura Quinn said younger voters especially are "not motivated as they need be."

We may be able to identify this lack of enthusiasm by group, but this is not unusual.  If you look at history you will see a bad economy translate into a failed run for reelection.  

Bill Clinton without a clue

Maybe the most galling thing Clinton said was, “Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far Right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats.”

I saw the hatred — the almost animal hatred — that was directed at George W. Bush for eight years. (What a good and decent man he is.) I saw the hatred — the raw, snarling, truly animal hatred — that was directed at a woman named Sarah Palin. It had almost a physical effect on me, this hatred.

I’ll never forget a friend of mine, with whom I’d never discussed politics — “I hate her,” she said. And she had a look in her eye I had never seen before. My friend is a loving person. But she had a look of wild hatred in her eye. I had never heard my friend say she hated anything: al-Qaeda, Pol Pot, cancer — nothing. 

And let me add the TEA Party, Rush Limbaugh, the Koch Brothers, Tony Snow, and we did have that one delegate who said she wanted to kill Romney. 

Nancy Pelosi denies putting Obama on mute

In his new book, The Price of Politics, Bob Woodward writes that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sometimes hit the mute button when President Barack Obama would start giving “uplifting speeches” during conference calls. Pelosi denied the claim, saying that, during those calls, she always cleared the room, listened and took notes.

Took notes?  This sounds as if Debbie Wasserman Schultz wrote this statement for the former Speaker of the House.  But if she’d be willing to share those notes….