With the Latest Jobs Report, the Die is Cast for This Fall’s Main Election Issue
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As Democrats get more desperate to change the discussion from jobs, things will get ugly; Mr. Romney must stay focused on the economy and employment
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The jobs report released today that shows the U.S. economy created only 69,000 jobs in May while the unemployment rate edged up to 8.2 percent, its first increase in 11 months, has all but guaranteed what will be the primary issue for this Fall’s election: the economy and more specifically, jobs. To add to the bad news, the previous two months’ numbers were also revised lower, adding to the concerns about a sputtering recovery.
With only 5 more monthly jobs reports between now and the election, it is highly unlikely that there will be a significant improvement in the economy that President Obama can take credit for. And while Mr. Obama likes to remind everyone that he inherited a bad economy when a typically lousy jobs report has been unveiled during his reign, his attempt to pin the lackluster recovery on his predecessor, George W. Bush, with the “you break it, you own it” rule is no longer germane in his fourth year as President. In short, Mr. Obama took ownership of the broken economy several years ago and the country expected him to fix it by now. He has not.
There can be little sympathy for the President as he is only reaping the fruits of the big-government agenda he has sown. To wit, ObamaCare, crushing EPA regulations, an unwillingness to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond this year, and a general antipathy by this administration towards private industry which is the primary actor in these monthly jobs report Greek tragedies, have all but bludgeoned the economy into a semi-coma. Any time it tries to come out of dormancy (think: XL pipeline or fracking), Mr. Obama unleashes one or several federal agencies on it and pummels it with government intervention back into a deep sleep. One could almost argue that Mr. Obama’s lucidity should be questioned if he expected anything other than lousy economic reports after all of the social engineering he has inflicted on this country since he entered the White House. In short, the great society that Mr. Obama wants to build requires great wealth, which he will not allow.
Which gets us to the current campaign and Fall election.
Mitt Romney has been handed the same campaign gift that Mr. Obama was handed in 2008: a lousy economy. Even the 1992 economy was better than now but gave Bill Clinton a strong campaign to oust the sitting President, which he did, albeit with the added yeoman’s efforts of Ross Perot and George H.W. Bush.
But Democrats will do everything possible to wrench such issue from Mr. Romney. The rhetorical tomatoes and verbal pies thrown in the faces of Mitt Romney and Republicans will intensify. It’s no accident that the carnival barkers at MSNBC and other Liberal enclaves have been peddling the various Republican “wars” (“Republican War on Women,” “Republican War on Unions,” “Republican War on the Middle Class,” and, soon, the “Republican War on Planet Photon in Alpha Centauri” ) as well as Mr. Romney’s days as a Charles Dickens’ Scrooge caricature at Bain Capital, his alleged bullying in high school and the inevitable revelation of a late-night bad bean-burrito incident at a 7-Eleven. They’ll do anything to change the subject from the non-recovery Mr. Obama is presiding over.
Mr. Romney owes it to his campaign as well as the country to stay on the message that James Carville famously put: it’s the economy, stupid. When the Democrats start talking about sonograms for women seeking abortions in Virginia, Mr. Romney and Republicans should respond with how they will allow the economy to create jobs. When the Democrats start talking about collective bargaining rights for government workers, Romney, et al should state what suffocating government restrictions they will eliminate to allow jobs to grow. When the Democrats want to talk about the evil “1%,” Romney and his crew should speak about reducing taxes for them so they will create more jobs.
And above all, Mr. Romney and his Republican colleagues should point out that while they are talking about jobs, the Democrats are either running from the subject or just creating a lot of hot air over it, and then changing the subject to global warming, which their hot air is helping to create.
-I.M. Windee
