A no good, very bad week for Republican contenders
Six months ago, the effort to unseat President Barack Obama seemed like an odds-on winner. Mr. Obama seemed all but destined to join Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush in the one-termer column of American history.
Arguably, the come-down for this president would be even greater. The man who campaigned on Change and Hope was plunging in the polls, especially among independents.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party was energized by the 2010 congressional results, and buoyed by the prospects of a power-house pack of candidates.
Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin. it was an embarrassment of riches.
But as we enter the season when GOP primary voters will actually start casting ballots, the prospects for a conservative triumph have shifted starkly.
The biggest single factor is one that Republicans can’t control: the economy appears to be improving, eroding their claim that this White House bungled its handling of the recession.
Today’s announcement that unemployment has dropped to 8.6% complicates the right-of-center narrative considerably.
Another significant factor is that the GOP primary has produced what Washington Post conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer described as “a weak Republican field with two significantly flawed front-runners.”
Mrs. Palin opted out. Herman Cain and Rick Perry flamed out, after sucking up a lot of campaign dollars and a lot of precious media time.
That leaves Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich as the most likely contenders. Both men have qualities and strengths.
But Americans don’t unseat incumbent presidents lightly. For voters to choose either Republican over Barack Obama Obama, they will need to be convinced that the situation is particularly dire.
And they will also have to accept that one of these men is substantially more capable, with better ideas and a steadier capacity for leadership.
Opinions are mixed about this even among Republicans. Mr. Romney’s testy conversation with Fox News’s Brett Baier this week drew harsh reviews on the right.
And many conservatives are deeply unnerved by the idea of a Gingrich candidacy. George Will described the former House Speaker in scathing terms on ABC’s This Week:
He’s the classic rental politician. People think his problem is his colorful personal life. He’s gonna hope people concentrate on that, rather than on, for example, ethanol. Al Gore has recanted ethanol.
Not Newt Gingrich, who has served the ethanol lobby. Industrial policy of the sort that got us Solyndra – he’s all for it. Freddie Mac, he says, hired him as a “historian.” He’s not a historian. Hire Sean Wilentz, hire Gordon Wood if you want a historian.
It’s still possible, of course, for these narratives to turn around, but as we move deeper into campaign season, Republicans can’t afford many weeks like this on.
If these economic trends continue, an “anyone but Obama” candidacy won’t be enough.
Tags: election12, politics
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some nitpicks:
“all but destined”? that’s way overstating it. same for the line
since a lot of that “improvement” came not from a surge in jobs, but from a drop in the number of people looking for work.
If I may nit-pick the nit-pick:
There is a narrative which says that all-things-dreadful are the responsibility of the president — while any positive news must be the result of, well, something else. But, in this case, even the WSJ acknowledges that this is a “real” improvement: “Nonfarm payrolls rose by 120,000 last month, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday in its monthly survey of employers. Private companies added 140,000 jobs, while the public sector—federal, state and local governments—lost 20,000 jobs.”
you’re certainly right about the numbers, mayflower, but i’m not sure that i’d say they constitute improvement. 120,000 jobs is basically what you need every month just to keep up with population growth. the drop in the unemployment rate sounds nice, but it looks much more to me like we’re treading water.
How many people are no longer “unemployed” because they have simply stopped looking?
Yes, 8.6% is better than 9%, but how much “better” kinda depends on how you get the number, doesn’t it?
As for Mr. Obama being re-elected, I never really thought it was ever in doubt. The POTUS showed that he can run a very effective campaign in 2008 and I expect that 2012 will be even more of the same.
Well, the other measure they like to talk about is consumer confidence (are people buying stuff?). Both Black Friday and Cyber Monday substantially outstripped the projections according to reports I read.
When a recession is as bad/deep as the near total implosion we had, you don’t bounce back to pre-recession levels quickly. Predictions back then were that it could take 5 years or more to recover or that we could slip into a double dip recession. Indications are that we are doing the former rather than the latter. Yeah, it could be better in an ideal world but given the world wide less-than-ideal mess, I’m optimistically happy with where we are headed. Like getting older it beats the alternative.
The main appeal of The In Box is that it deals with regional issues or national issues from a regional perspective. These boring, generic, empty horse race analyses about the longgggggggg GOP nomination process don’t fit in with grass roots and relevant character of this blog. It’s not even like they touch on how it might affect the region. If I want these boring, generic, empty horse race analyses, there are a million other places I can find them (no offense, Mr. Mann, but as great as your other stuff is, these horse race national political stories offer no original or interesting insight). It seems a distraction from the great regional journalism you do. The In Box would be much better without it.
“Today’s announcement that unemployment has dropped to 8.6% complicates the right-of-center narrative considerably.”
Strictly fuzzy math. 300,000-ish dropped out of the labor market and 120,000 jobs were added. Net loss no matter how you slice it. U3 number (8.6%) is political and bogus.
15.7% U6 unemployed. That’s real.
Cain was Borked. Cain was Thomased. In the future, we will say, Cain was Cained.
The fact is that the jobs numbers suck. That said, it isn’t going to help the Republicans to keep rejoicing about how bad the economy is when everyone knows that they are working very hard to keep Obama from being successful in any way.
In the future we will say about Cain: “who?” Because Cain simply isn’t good presidential timber.
And finally, Brian MOFYC is right, too horse-racey. Yes, I’m an addict and I can’t stop reading.
Guessing what voters will do is more difficult than guessing what the stock market will do.
Just about everyone will agree all politics is local. The same can be said of economics.
Here in Hamilton County and the Adirondacks in general, we have a booming economy every summer, followed by a recession in the fall, followed by a depression in the winter and a recession in the spring. It happens like clock work and what is happening nationally or statewide has only a moderate effect.
Personally speaking, I don’t think it matters an economic hoot who is president when it comes to the economy of the Adirondacks.
We should be happy unemployment is going down albeit slowly. I am not going to vote for Obama because his answer to our problems is always another gimmick instead of a long term philosophy and strategy to grow our economy and take care of the poor and middle class in this country. However it is a good thing that unemployment is going down regardless of who gets the credit.
If it gets down to around 7% by November of next year I think Obama will win the Republicans just can’t come up with anyone competent. Newt is competent but that story is right, the least of his problems is his moral failings in his personal past, people forgive that sort of thing today, his problem is that I think he is probably corrupt.
Mervel, are you serious? You think the Republican candidate, whoever it turns out to be, is going to have anything to offer other than the gimmick of “No New Taxes” or “Don’t Tax “Job Creators'” [i.e., the Rich]?
That’s not a “long term philosophy,” that’s just Rewarding Your Masters.
Newt has been a bloodclot his whole political career. No way is he the answer.
The business community in general is not confident in this President, right wrong whatever. He does not instill confidence in the future he is always coming up with some new little scheme of the moment.
It does not really matter what the tax rate is as long as we have confidence that it will be stable over some extended period the same goes for every other aspect of fiscal policy. I don’t know what Obama’s policy is, what his plans for the future are? He just seems to go from thing to thing, I think we can do better.
The problem with Obama is that he is in the pocket of the business community — the Wall Street business community. Bernanke, Geithner, larry Summers…
I would agree to some extent. He is serving two masters here, he has to try to please his base in the upcoming elections yet he has needed and used the support of the Wall Street elite. But when you do that you don’t have a consistent policy plan. I always find it interesting that people think Wall Street are traditional conservatives, look at Corzine a very liberal gov of New Jersey, but what he was really about was being a crook, or Geihtner, these guys take care of themselves first.
I am no liberal but George McGovern wouldn’t be smoozing around with those guys and neither would Jimmy Carter. I think both sides of the political spectrum have produced worse leaders in the past 20 years, more self centered more about cronyism than anything else.
Mervel, it is accepted by many that “confidence” is not, in fact, the problem. That’s just a Republican talking point, like the “job creators” meme. (If they were seriously only worried about avoiding taxing Job Creators, they could raise taxes but then give tax exemptions based on Jobs Actually Created.)
No, THE problem is lack of demand. No matter how confident you are in terms of tax rates, if no one is buying your product, you’re not going to hire, period, end of story.
But if demand picks up (which can only happen if more people have stable employment and thus have money to spend) then manufacturers will be willing and able to hire workers to produce the goods the workers can then afford, even if taxes increase.
Only a terminally stupid manufacturer would avoid hiring in the face of rising demand because they were concerned over taxes. Taxes only affect profits, and you have to actually HAVE profits before taxes become an issue.
Lack of confidence is the reason demand is low.
The cast of Republican contenders has been so laughable that it causes me to wonder…is this all a charade? What’s really going on while we’re all being distracted by the clown show? I’ve become somewhat of a suspicious old fart maybe, but I’m cautious whenever the news becomes too loud.
“Lack of confidence is the reason demand is low.”
Well, yeah, confidence that you’ll have a job, health insurance, and a house to live in next month.
Lack of confidence about taxes on rich folks, not so much.
Lack of jobs (and fear of loss of jobs) is the reason demand is low.
I agree that lack of confidence about future employment is a major reason for demand being low. It is not just rich people who lack confidence in Obama, it is the business community in general, why would anyone have confidence in this guy? He has shown that he is not up to this job, I am sorry but I basically like him but his policies have failed, he is the President and he has half the congress, that should have been enough to do more if his policies were correct, the obvious conclusion is that his policies are wrong.
However as the thread points out and I agree the Republican field really is weak, the caste of characters is kind of bizarre. If they lose there will be major changes in that party which may be a good thing.
I have a very simple plan to restore consumer confidence and to help turn the economy around. You can call Harvard Business School and tell them you heard it here first.
Obama asks the Fortune 1000 companies to hire 100 workers each before Christmas. The Fortune 500 will be asked to hire an additional 100 before Christmas. That will be an additional 150,000 workers getting a paycheck every week and some number no longer on unemployment.
That will mean a stimulus for the economy because all those workers and their families are likely to spend a bit more on Christmas and the news will boost the national mood so others will feel just a bit more confident as well.
The government will save some money on unemployment benefit payments and will start bringing in more money from payroll taxes. State and local governments will benefit from increased sales taxes and will not feel the need to cut as many workers.
The Fortune 1000 companies will benefit from the general rise in consumer confidence at what would amount to the cost of an ad or two during the Superbowl.
And if the companies refuse I guess we have to make up our deficits in some way and the bad economy will make a millionaire tax more likely. Better to spend a small amount of your companies cash reserves on people who can help grow the business than to lose your Christmas bonus to taxes.
I have whined about it before, but I don’t understand what was wrong with the WPA model? We spent a LOT on the stimulas and the bailout (more in real terms than the original WPA), it seems that money would have been better spent directly hiring workers to build, schools, libraries, bridges and airports. (I guess I should go to NY and join OWS).
Mervel, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the WPA model except for the fact that Republicans will never ever get behind it.
That was a good commentary.
Like Charles says here this is probably why I like Mitt:
“So what is he? A center-right, classic Northeastern Republican who, over time, has adopted a specific, quite bold, thoroughly conservative platform. His entitlement reform, for example, is more courageous than that of any candidate, including Barack Obama. “
“The biggest single factor is one that Republicans can’t control: the economy appears to be improving, eroding their claim that this White House bungled its handling of the recession.”
Opinion stuff here.
The economy is very slowly improving, maybe only because the house has been able to restrain the government from interfering more with the markets.
Brian both yours and my opinion here could be way off base.
“The business community in general is not confident in this President…”
Correction: the business community in general is not confident in THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT… which includes, but is not limited to, the president. Primarily due to their collective inability/refusal to solve problems.
And also their ability to create problems when they get involved. And a president that they had confidence in would be a major improvement (not the whole solution but a big part).
“Correction: the business community in general is not confident in THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT”
Correction: the business community in general is not confident in the CONSUMER.
If folks start buying, business will crank stuff out. If not, they won’t. Period.
You really think companies are going to let orders go unfilled because of a lack of confidence? Likewise, do you really think companies would hire more workers and make more stuff in the absence of demand? Get real.
Businesses employ people to do all kinds of things and many businesses don’t even make “stuff”.
Sometimes the best strategy to build a stronger business is to hire better talent in a down market when that talent comes cheap and is happy to find a job. It can build tremendous loyalty among staff. Or a business can lay people off while the executives get bonuses for reducing costs thereby creating enemies among former workers who will never buy that companies products ever again.
Confirmation of my plan to raise consumer confidence:
Corporate America Is Sitting On The Solution To The Jobs Crisis: Report
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/corporate-america-is-sitting-on-the-solution-to-the-jobs-crisis_n_1132445.html
For those disinclined to click on the link above:
“If America’s largest banks and non-financial companies would just loosen their death-grip on a chunk of the $3.6 trillion in cash they’re hoarding and move it into productive investments instead, the report estimates that about 19 million jobs would be created in the next three years, lowering the unemployment rate to under 5 percent.”
$3.6 trillion in cash! Unfortunately, some companies are using their cash hoard to buy back the company stock, resulting in higher stock prices (not coincidentally increasing the value of CEO stock options). Ah, the magic of the marketplace!
The WPA model was never proposed or supported by Obama that is why it was not done, not because of Republicans who could not have stopped a large scale wpa program anyway as Democrats controlled both houses.