In looking to the 2012 campaign, the mood among Republican pros in Washington at the moment is low-grade manic depression. \u00a0Anyone can beat President Obama, the conventional GOP wisdom goes, except the anyones who are actually running.<\/p>\n
You might ask, why would anyone believe that anyone can beat the president? \u00a0The killing of America\u2019s most wanted terrorist three weekends ago produced the predictable spike in the polls. \u00a0But, for Mr. Obama, predictability is the problem. \u00a0We have all been that way before. \u00a0George H.W. Bush won an entire war and saw his numbers go to nearly unanimous approval levels. \u00a0Yet he lost the next election to a candidate running on the unofficial slogan of \u201cIt\u2019s the economy, Stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, too, Mr. Obama\u2019s graceless handling of the \u201cbin Laden is dead\u201d announcement and its aftermath quickly compromised his newly gained stature. \u00a0This week\u2019s Saturday Night Live<\/em> captured the widely held perception of his post-mission manner. \u00a0In the one funny skit in a not-at-all-funny show, cast member Fred Armisen in the role of the president all but spiked the bin Laden ball at a rally, repeatedly shouting \u201ckilled bin Laden\u201d to a recording of a cheering crowd. \u00a0In the past two weeks, the White House tonal misjudgment has taken the gleam off a real presidential achievement.<\/p>\n Yet isn\u2019t the economy coming back? \u00a0Aren\u2019t job numbers rising? \u00a0As it turns out, there is less to the job story than meets the eye.<\/p>\n Here are key data points.<\/p>\n Data Point #1: \u00a0In a weekend posting, Powerline<\/em> (here: http:\/\/www.powerlineblog.com\/)<\/a> reports on a just released study from two economists, one at Ohio State, the other at the University of Western Ontario. \u00a0The economists looked closely at the president\u2019s first stimulus package and found that it \u201ccreated\/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed\/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs.\u201d \u00a0In other words, the president\u2019s policies have made the downturn worse rather than better, and now he must live with the political consequences.<\/p>\n Data Point #2: \u00a0In this morning\u2019s Wall Street Journal<\/em> (here: http:\/\/tiny.cc\/j0hew),<\/a> George W. Bush\u2019s Council of Economic Advisors chief and Hoover Institution fellow Edward Lazear noted, \u201cIn a healthy labor market\u2026, American firms hire about 5.5 million workers per month\u2026. [T]he current number of hires is four million and it has not moved much from where it was two years ago.\u201d \u00a0Recent relatively favorable job numbers, Lazear explains, have come because layoffs diminished, not because job creation expanded. \u00a0To emerge from the jobs recession, we need to return to the five million plus per month job creation level, a place, Lazear concludes, current policies won\u2019t get us.<\/p>\n