|
|
|
Jewish World Review Nov 22, 2011 / 25 Mar-Cheshvan 5772 Who Can Beat Obama? By Bernard Goldberg
A misery index that is at a 28-year high. America's credit rating downgraded for the first time in American history. A standard of living for Americans that has fallen further and more steeply over the past three years than at any time since the government began recording it five decades ago. An unemployment rate that now stands at 9.0 percent. October marks the 33rd consecutive month in which the unemployment rate was above the 8 percent level that the Obama administration said it would not exceed as a result of his stimulus program. And 28 out of the last 30 months has seen unemployment at 9.0 percent or above—the longest stretch of high unemployment since the Great Depression. Obama is now on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era. The share of the eligible population holding a job has reached its lowest level since July 1983. Chronic unemployment is worse than the Great Depression. The rate of economic growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression. Federal spending as a percent of GDP, the budget deficit as a percent of GDP, and the federal debt as a percent of GDP have all reached their highest level since World War II. Confidence among U.S. consumers has plunged to the lowest level in more than 30 years. The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty has seen a record increase on President Obama's watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty. A record number of Americans now rely on the federal government's food stamps program. There's more … A few weeks ago in his weekly Wall Street Journal column, Karl Rove offered up these statistics: 74 percent of Americans say we're "on the wrong track." No president has won re-election with so many Americans thinking we're heading in the wrong direction. Only 13 percent say they're "satisfied" with how things are going in the country. Rove tells us no president has even been re-elected with a number that low. So, how can the Republican nominee - whoever he or she is - possibly lose? Easy. As Rove points out, the president's team can't run "on a positive record but they can run a negative campaign … Such a strategy will be ugly, but it could be successful." Here's one more statistic, from a Public Policy Poll (associated with the Democratic Party), that was just released: Barack Obama leads all six Republicans in head to head polls by margins raging from three to 11 points; Romney trails 46 to 43. So with just about everything seemingly going against him, the president still beats every Republican challenger, as least as of the poll numbers today. It's clear that while voters may not be happy with the president, they're not thrilled with any Republican either. So to all those conservatives who are still staying "any conservative can beat Obama" … think again. If the election were held today, there's a good chance none of them could beat Obama.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Bernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of several bestselling books, among them, Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news. He is widely seen as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. Mr. Goldberg covered stories all over the world for CBS News and has won 10 Emmy awards for excellence in journalism. He now reports for the widely acclaimed HBO broadcast Real Sports. He is a graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey and a member of the school's Hall of Distinguished Alumni and proprietor of BernardGoldberg.com.
© 2011, Bernard Goldberg |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
