Obama campaign struggles with question

“Are voters better off now than they were 4 years ago?”


September 2, 2012 | 1:09 pm

Obama campaign officials David Axelrod and David Plouffe both struggled to answer the classic 1980 Ronald Reagan question “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” when it was put to them on the Sunday morning news shows. Both could not answer with a simple “yes” and instead repeatedly changed the subject to attacks on Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace showed Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod a clip of Romney asking the Reagan question and asked: “David, can you honestly say the average American is better off today than they were four years ago?”

Axelrod responded: “Here’s what I can say, Chris: I can say we are in a better position than we were four years ago in our economy in the sense that when this president took office we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. The quarter before he took office was the worst quarter that this country has had economically since the Great Depression. And we are in a better place: 29 straight months of job growth, 4.5 million private sector jobs. Are we where we need to be? No.”

He then turned to an attack on Mitt Romney, calling his convention in Tampa “a terrible failure.”

Wallace stuck to his line of inquiry, noting that unemployment is up from 7.8 percent when Obama took office to 8.3 percent today. He also noted that median income has fallen from $55,000 annually to $51,000 and the price of gas has doubled to $3.78 a gallon.

Wallace reiterated: “Is the average American better off than they were four years ago?”

Axelrod replied: “Chris, as I said to you before, I think the average American recognizes that it took years to create the crisis that erupted in 2008 and peaked in January of 2009 and it is going to take some time to work through it.” He then once again changed the subject into an attack on Romney.

Wallace tried one final time, noting the economy has “300,000 fewer jobs than in February 2009.” Axelrod implicitly agreed, noting that total job loss has gotten smaller and that certain groups, like auto workers, are better off. At one point, Axelrod visibly gulped while trying to respond.

He conceded: “We have got a lot of work to do.”

Read more: http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-campaign-struggles-with-question-are-voters-better-off-now-than-they-were-4-years-ago/article/2506709#.UEVhfyLh-Sr

Isn't there ANYTHING you like about Rmoney?

Anything at all?

You keep posting negative stuff about Obama but rarely anything about the candidate you supposedly endorse.

We know somebody else who is better off than they were four years ago:

Dodge and weave, can't defend your own candidate? What's right about Romney? There's an R behind his name and he is committed to stabilizing the economy, defending the nation, and returning America to a nation of entrepreneurs who will create jobs not Federal hand outs.

Tell us all about how well Barry did at correcting the course of the economy in the last four years, what a great job he did of getting people back to work, how transparent the administration has been. With unemployment as high as it has ever been since the Great Depression of the 1930s, more people on the dole, and food stamps being issued at record levels the question we all need to ask ourselves is can America continue to exist with four more years of the same leadership.

otisptoadwater wrote: With unemployment as high as it has ever been since the Great Depression of the 1930s

Not true! It was 10.8% in December 1982. It also had its greatest climb under Bush. It's coming down under Obama. Talk about dodging and weaving...

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explor ... yment+rate

Those are slogans in a speech. They mean nothing. And there hasn't been one detail about how he's going to accomplish any of it. "If we tell what we're going to do, we'll lose."

The fact that he has an "R" after his name is a guarantee that I WON'T vote for him... But it's also just another way of saying that you'll vote for him because he's the "Not-Obama". You still haven't given a single specific reason why you would vote for him other than an "R" behind his name, and he's the "Not Obama." Next time try some facts. The garbage you just posted is just the usual RNC talking-points.

From Forbes:

The record of President Obama’s first three years in office is in, and nothing that happens now can go back and change that. What that record shows is that President Obama, with his throwback, old-fashioned, 1970s Keynesian economics, has put America through the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.

The recession started in December, 2007. Go to the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research ([url=http://www.nber.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;]www.nber.org[/url]) to see the complete history of America’s recessions. What that history reveals is that before this last recession, since the Great Depression recessions in America have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously lasting 16 months.

When President Obama entered office in January, 2009, the recession was already in its 13th month. His responsibility was to manage a timely, robust recovery to get America back on track again. Based on the historical record, that recovery was imminent, within a couple of months or so. Despite widespread fear, nothing fundamental had changed to deprive America of the long term, world-leading prosperity it had enjoyed going back 300 years.
You Can Get Richer Pinching Pennies Like Warren Buffett Deborah L. Jacobs Deborah L. Jacobs Forbes Staff

Supposedly a forward looking progressive, Obama proved to be America’s first backward looking regressive. His first act was to increase federal borrowing, the national debt and the deficit by nearly a trillion dollars to finance a supposed “stimulus” package, based on the discredited Keynesian theory left for dead 30 years ago holding that increased government spending, deficits and debt are what promote economic growth and recovery. That theory arose in the 1930s as the answer to the Great Depression, which, of course, never worked.

That was the beginning of President Obama’s Rip Van Winkle act, pretending not to know anything that happened over the previous 30 years proving the dramatic, historic success of the new, more modern, supply side economics, which holds that incentives for increased production are what promote economic growth and recovery. Indeed, that Rip Van Winklism pretended not to remember the 1970s either, when double digit inflation and double digit unemployment proved Keynesian economics grievously wrong.

As should have been long expected, Obama’s trillion dollar Keynesian stimulus did nothing to promote recovery and growth, and almost surely delayed it. That is because borrowing a trillion dollars out of the economy to spend a trillion back into it does nothing to promote the economy on net. Indeed, it is probably a net drag on the economy, because the private sector spends the money more productively and efficiently than the public sector.

The National Bureau of Economic Research scored the recession as ending in June, 2009. Yet, today, in the 49th month since the recession started, there has still been no real recovery, like recoveries from previous recessions in America.

Unemployment actually rose after June, 2009, and did not fall back down below that level until 18 months later in December, 2010. Instead of a recovery, America has suffered the longest period of unemployment near 9% or above since the Great Depression, under President Obama’s public policy malpractice. Even today, 49 months after the recession started, the U6 unemployment rate counting the unemployed, underemployed and discouraged workers is still 15.2%. And that doesn’t include all the workers who have fled the workforce under Obama’s economic oppression. The unemployment rate with the full measure of discouraged workers is reported at [url=http://www.shadowstats.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;]www.shadowstats.com[/url] as about 23%, which is depression level unemployment.

Today, over 4 years since the recession started, there are still almost 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. That includes 5.6 million who are long-term unemployed for 27 weeks, or more than 6 months. Under President Obama, America has suffered the longest period with so many in such long-term unemployment since the Great Depression.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/01/12/the-worst-economic-recovery-since-the-great-depression/ THERE ARE THREE MORE PAGES!!

From the Wall Street Journal....(You know, that bastion of liberal thought....)

WSJ Editorial On Fatally Flawed Mitt Romney: ‘Compromised And Not Credible’

Today likely Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is giving a speech in Michigan to address his albatross: Romneycare. The universal healthcare bill he signed into law in Massachusetts and which served as a model for President Obama‘s similar plan, has long been believed to be a major hurdle for Romney in his bid to win the Republican nomination. And now an editorial from The Wall Street Journal suggests that hurdle is insurmountable.

The editorial eviscerates Romney, disputing not only his statements about the success of the healthcare program in Massachusetts, but also whether he has a basic understanding of how government works. The Wall Street Journal argues:

Mr. Romney now claims ObamaCare should be repealed, but his failure to explain his own role or admit any errors suggests serious flaws both in his candidacy and as a potential President. . . . Like Mr. Obama’s reform, RomneyCare was predicated on the illusion that insurance would be less expensive if everyone were covered. Even if this theory were plausible, it is not true in Massachusetts today.

The rejection of Romney’s candidacy continues as the newspaper believes Romney’s experience with healthcare is a “fatal flaw” in his core argument that he knows how to revive the free market economy. In the final dismissal of Romney, the Journal concludes:

The debate over ObamaCare and the larger entitlement state may be the central question of the 2012 election. On that question, Mr. Romney is compromised and not credible. If he does not change his message, he might as well try to knock off Joe Biden and get on the Obama ticket.

With criticism like that from the conservative-minded Journal editorial board it looks like Romney’s potential campaign might be in some serious trouble.

Check out the full editorial at the Wall Street Journal .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... ns_opinion

Can't stay on topic? Obamacare is only one hole in the dam, there are plenty of other problems with this administration's "accomplishments." That's fine, most recognize your standard "I don't have a relevant answer" deflection.

Raees wrote:

otisptoadwater wrote: With unemployment as high as it has ever been since the Great Depression of the 1930s

Not true! It was 10.8% in December 1982. It also had its greatest climb under Bush. It's coming down under Obama. Talk about dodging and weaving...

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explor ... yment+rate

1982! :faint: That is a devastating rebuttal. I am sure it helps Obama a lot. rofllol rofllol rofllol rofllol rofllol rofllol