SALON

Friday, Apr 6, 2012 4:13 PM UTC

The fragile Obama presidency

The discouraging jobs report is a reminder of the forces that really control Obama's reelection fate

By

Topics: War Room,

The fragile Obama presidencyPresident Obama (Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed)

In a way, the new jobs report released earlier today contained good news for President Obama’s reelection campaign, with the unemployment rate dropping from 8.3 to 8.2 percent in March – bringing it to its lowest level since January 2009, when George W. Bush left office.

But, as Andrew Leonard explained earlier, the underlying numbers are discouraging. Far fewer jobs were created in March than expected, and there are hints that consumers are pulling back on their spending. It’s possible that the momentum of the last few months is stalling out, or even that it was a mirage. It’s also possible that the new data is a blip, and that the coming months will bring more robust job growth.

Not surprisingly, Mitt Romney has already pounced on what he called a “weak and very troubling jobs report,” while Obama used a morning event to emphasize the positive aspects of the report, acknowledging only that “it’s clear to every American that there will still be ups and downs along the way and that we’ve got a lot more work to do.”

The March report is a reminder of the degree to which Obama’s second-term prospects hinge on the public’s perception of the economy. Starting last October, every report for six months was widely interpreted as positive news. Americans began hearing that the jobless rate was declining and that job growth was taking place at an unexpectedly quick pace. It doesn’t seem coincidental that in the same period Obama’s job approval numbers and his standing in general election trial heats improved markedly.

If today’s report is the start of a new and gloomy trend, it couldn’t come at a worse time for Obama. Here the example of the last president to be denied a second term looms large.

At this point in the 1992 campaign, George H.W. Bush’s approval ratings were lower than Obama’s now are, stuck in the low 40s, or even in the high 30s on a bad day. But he and his team were optimistic that the economy was finally recovering from the early-1990s recession and that voters would feel it by Election Day. Growth for the first quarter of 1992 was measured at 2.7 percent – the best performance since early 1989. Bush’s team was also confident because the presumptive Democratic nominee, Bill Clinton, was saddled with seemingly lethal personal unfavorable scores, the result of several primary season scandals.

But the second quarter of ’92 brought an onslaught of awful economic news that probably sunk the Bush campaign. After holding steady for the first few months of the year, unemployment jumped to 7.5 percent in May and soared to 7.8 in June. Growth slowed to 1.4 percent. This came as Bush was confidently declaring that “We’ve been through the longest, dragged, dragging, recession in history” and that “We’re in recovery now.” And it prompted his campaign to panic and change gears, as this New York Times story from early July ’92 indicates:

Shaken by an ominous jump in the unemployment rate, White House strategists said today that they were reassessing the assumption that an improving economy would revive President Bush’s political standing before the November election. Instead, they said, they must focus their campaign more on social problems and character issues.

The change in emphasis had been under serious discussion since late last month, but it was propelled Thursday, when it was reported that the June unemployment rate had surged to 7.8 percent. The shift in strategy portends a tougher and possibly more negative re-election effort by Mr. Bush than he or his advisers had predicted.

Interestingly, the economy did seem to improve after that low point. Unemployment ticked down to 7.6 percent in August and September, and fell to 7.3 in October (although that report wasn’t released until after the election). And the week before the election, Bush actually received some of the most encouraging news of his presidency, with growth jumping back to 2.7 percent (it was later revised up to 3.9 percent), but the public had long since tuned him out. The country’s economic anxiety, high to begin with, seemed to cement during the disastrous second quarter.

This year, the October jobs report will be released before the November election. Maybe a strong report then (and a few other strong reports in the fall) will be enough to save Obama. But Bush’s example is a reminder that it can take a while for good news to register, and that elections can be lost long before Election Day.

Steve Kornacki

Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More Steve Kornacki.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 110 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

War Room is our political news and commentary blog, with coverage and commentary throughout the day.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations