Every day for months, the attack on President Obama was the same: the unemployment rate is above 8 percent, so voters have no choice but to consider him a failure -- no matter how severe an economic catastrophe he inherited.
This changed on Friday when recent gains pushed the jobless rate to 7.8 percent, the lowest rate in four years. Obama is now overseeing the best election-year improvement in unemployment figures since Reagan's "Morning in America" re-election bid in 1984.
If you're a Republican, what do you do? As it turns out, there are two schools of thought.
The first is, keep repeating the attack anyway, even though it's no longer true. Restore Our Future, the Republican super PAC, expanded an ad buy this week in three swing states describing the jobless rate as "over 8 percent." Karl Rove's American Crossroads attack ad shows viewers an 8.1 percent unemployment rate, rather than the actual one.
Why let facts and good economic news get in the way of a perfectly good attack?
The second is the one adopted by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan: move the goalposts. The Republican presidential hopeful is now arguing, "[I]t looks like unemployment is getting better, but the truth is, if the same share of people were participating in the workforce today as on the day the president got elected, our unemployment rate would be around 11 percent." Ryan said the same thing this week.
Like far too much of Romney's rhetoric, this is wildly misleading.
[The charge] assumes all things are equal in the labor force, when in fact it is constantly churning and evolving. In particular, besides the aftermath of the Great Recession, the composition of the labor force has been affected by the retirement of the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation.
Our colleagues at WonkBlog explored this issue earlier this year, showing that the peak of the labor force participation rate, or LFPR, was reached during the end of President Bill Clinton's term and that since then it has been on a downward track.... The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in March estimated that just over half of the post-1999 decline in the labor force participation rate was explained by long-running demographic patterns, such as the retirement of the baby boomers.
In other words, Romney/Ryan would have you believe the sharp improvement in the job market doesn't count because of demographic trends. That's marginally better than simply repeating false and out-of-date attacks, but there's no reason to take the GOP rhetoric seriously.
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How is it that Republicans will be allowed to explain the nuances, but they're lost when Democrats do that?
"...Republicans will be allowed to explain the nuances,..."
Because:
a) the lamestream librul media won't ask the tough questions nor will they call out the liars.
b) because people will believe what they want to fit in with their "world views".
c) because the current occupants of the White House are black, shocking yes I know but they are.
Isn't this whole meme the "tail wagging the dog"? 92.2% of Americans do, indeed, have jobs.
Wrong. If you are not actively looking for work, you are not considered unemployed. True employment (amount of people working versus total numbers of population) peaked at 49.3% in 2000 - that is a far cry from 92.2 percent. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/14/shock-employment-figures-fewer-than-half-of-americans-have-jobs/ (newest article I could find)
Half of this country does not work, but only 7.8%is actively seeking a job and doesn't have one. Of course the argument can be made that of the 50% not working a majority are retired or underage, I am just clarifying what the unemployment numbers actually are.
And how is that different from any other President since BLS has been keeping records?
Have you ever pointed this out in terms of any other President?
Why is there a different standard, now?
Why is this the first President with whom analysts, and people like you, use terms like "real unemployment", when they never did before?
The unemployment rate is 7.8%. Period.
Where were all the arm-chair economists when the US was taking a nosedive back in 2008? Where was their expertise then?
True employment (amount of people working versus total numbers of population) peaked at 49.3% in 2000
You mean"true emploment" peaked at the tail end of the last "socialist" administration to hold the White House? Who'da thunk it?
Undeterred by facts and figures our doomsday prophets and their cohorts the grim reapers of profits continue their message of "gloom,despair and agony on ...".
It is much easier to herd sheep with a barking dog than a silent one!
(Fiction writers everywhere are envious of Romney for having such a loyal group of followers)
not just the GOP, Benen. it's also the MSM. pretty much crickets from them too
Mitt Rmoney is like smoke.
Obama cannot debate the "man". But he can debate the "party". As in "You want to cede veto power to the folks who want to limit women's health, who want to end Medicare and SocSec, who conspired to stall our economy to win an election and fought to steal people's right to vote. Mitt you're a Grand Old Guy, but they're a Terrible Old Party. And you will be their employee. Norquist said so"
The GOTP agenda and record is inarguable, and it would be an undeniable fact that if he's elected there will be no firewall to their insanity. Mitt will be there merely to sign off on their bills.
If Obama paints Rmoney as the facilitator of the GOTP agenda Obama will win.
Gaining and then maintaining power in our beloved democracy should not be such the ignoble enterprise it is, yet here we are, what with the daily dastardly tactics dialed into our airwaves, print media, and blathering talking heads via the Republican brand!
With all the polarized political poop smell in the air, it is getting harder to simply be an American these days! You know, one who only has the simple things to complain about, not the troubling things like whether or not Mitt Romney is a tax cheat who is running for president! -Kevo
Gaining and then maintaining power
That says it all kevo. Both parties spend a lot of time on this at the expense of actually doing their elected jobs.
Getting out of the financial meltdown and resusitating the economy isn't just about unemployment numbers, it's about battleing inflation when more and more people are making less money in the jobs they have. California and Florida were the hardest hit with foreclosures, I think...
So, it's going to come down to those undecided voters picking which candidate will do best for their wallets. Stay the coarse with Obama or take a chance with Romney and his bag of tricks.
Poor Republicans. You would think that they would be arguing, "See? Trickle down policies are working!"
Another reason not to believe their rhetoric - how does Ryan get away with any credibility on the economy when he, along with the Tea Party House, has been sitting for a year on the Prez' bill to create 1M+ jobs?. And while Romney's talking smack now, he couldn't do any better than third from dead-last nationally in job creation as governor of Massachusetts. Obama has created more jobs than Romney/Ryan combined and not only that, has had to do it with one hand tied behind his back. Romney/Ryan are a pair of con men.