Posted on 05/27/2012 4:58:37 PM PDT by Libloather
Obama refines economic pitch by focusing on steady jobs growth
By Amie Parnes - 05/27/12 04:30 PM ET
Obama is highlighting job growth and a steep decline in the unemployment rate to convince voters his policies are working.
President Obamas campaign is highlighting job growth and a steep decline in the unemployment rate over the last year to sell the public on the idea that his economic policies are working.
Obamas greatest challenge this campaign cycle is convincing voters to give him another four years to try to improve the economy, the central issue of the 2012 campaign. Republican Mitt Romney is hammering Obama on the issue as the jobless rate hovers at 8.1 percent.
No president has been reelected with an unemployment rate that high since Franklin Roosevelt, who inherited an economy in the midst of the Great Depression.
Team Obamas strategy is to remind voters that the economy has added jobs for 26 months in a row, while hammering home the point that Romney would return to the policies of former president George W. Bush, something underlined by the campaigns recent slogan, Forward. Polls suggest voters arent happy with Obama on the economy, but that many believe he inherited a mess from Bush.
A senior Democratic official with knowledge of the strategy said one of the most persuasive tools at the campaigns disposal is the jobs chart and its upward trajectory, something Democrats say they didnt do effectively during the last election cycle in 2010, ceding the argument to Republicans.
It tells a very simple story, which is the story of the Obama presidency, the Democratic official said. When the president came in, the economy was shedding [jobs] every single month. Now weve had 26 months of private sector job growth, weve had the first manufacturing gains in a decade, an American auto industry that has been saved, a growing energy sector across the Midwest.
The official added that the main question for voters in November will be is Who do you want to shepherd you through the next stage of this? What values do you want?
And when that choice is put in front of the American voters, I promise you well win that choice, the official added.
Still, in pitching their message, Democratic strategists say the Obama campaign needs to walk a fine line.
Its like walking a tightrope because you need to be able to point to achievements in the presidents record but you dont necessarily want it to appear as though youre gloating or boasting about it, said strategist Doug Thornell, adding that there are a lot of people still hurting because of the down economy.
So far Obamas pitch to voters may be working. An NBC/Marist poll out on Thursday showed that the president has maintained a slight lead over Romney in battleground states like Ohio, Virginia and Florida.
In Ohio, Obama holds his largest lead, 48 percent to 42 percent over his opponent, according to the poll. And Obamas lead in both Virginia and Florida is 48 percent to 44 percent.
Romney in recent weeks has intensified his argument that Obama broke his promise to keep the jobless rate under 8 percent by the end of his first term. He has seized on back-to-back monthly reports showing dismal job growth, despite a dip in the jobless rate. The dip is mostly explained, Romney argues, by people giving up their hunt for a job because of the poor market. Such people arent counted as jobless.
Romney last week vowed to help lower unemployment to at least six percent by the end of his first term if hes elected president.
I cant possibly predict precisely what the unemployment rate would be by the end of the year, by virtue of the policies that we put in place, we get the unemployment rate down to six percent, or perhaps a little lower, Romney told TIME in an interview. It depends in part upon the rate of growth for the globe, as well as what we are seeing here in the United States. But well get the rate down quite substantially. And frankly, the key is, we are going to show such job growth that there is going to be competition for employees again and wages will see the end of this decline.
While Democrats argue that the point is moot because of the CBO prediction that unemployment will drop to 6.3 percent by 2016, Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said Romney, has a strong case to make on the economy unlike Obama who promised to change things but didnt.
They cant defend their current record because almost everyone knows someone whos unemployed so theyre trying to show a forecast of hope, Bonjean said. The easiest thing for Gov. Romney to do would be to ask Americans, Are you better off today than you were four years ago? And hed get a resounding no.
But Democratic strategist Thornell maintains that the strategy of emphasizing the improving economy will be effective for Obama during this election cycle.
The fact is, hes got a very good compelling record to run on but for a while no one was talking about it, he said. Some Democrats didnt want to embrace it and I think they ceded the argument to Republicans.
One of the reasons [Democrats] lost in 2010 is that we didnt have an economic narrative that the American people could understand and digest, Thornell said. I think it would be malpractice if they didnt talk about what they inherited, the tough choices made and where theyre going.
A different one every month. Hussein should stick to slogan growth.
It’s the LIES and the SPIN, Alfred, the LIES and the SPIN. He’s into the “attack Romney (his enemy)” mode now; look for the destruction of Romney, or the attempt to at least, before the election.
The election is hurtling at Barack faster than he can even fathom.
WHAT “steep decline in the unemployment rate”?? It’s still way over 8%, and even higher if you count the people having given up looking for work. Any increase in employment is IN SPITE OF Obozo’s policies, not because of them.
And the real unemployment rate is at least 10%.
These slimes will cook the numbers big time between now and, say, mid-October. By election day the "rate" will be in the low sevens, maybe even the high sixes.
Must be counting on the masses of uninformed voters, what Rush said,
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/05/04/obama_s_orwellian_unemployment_numbers
Rush “Here’s the comparison: In February, 259,000 jobs were added. In April, 115,000 jobs were added and 154,000 were added in March. And that number, in March, was universally hailed as bad news, because I think in that month the unemployment rate didn’t move. But now we’re supposed to believe the unemployment rate went down when hiring is slowing down, not speeding up. But even Reuters is forced to admit, quote: “The unemployment rate ticked a tenth of a point lower to a three-year low as a people left the workforce.”
People are leaving the workforce and that’s why the rate’s going down! Jobs are not being created.”
Fake but accurate ....
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