With just over a year to go before voters render their verdict on Obama's first term, the unemployment rate is consistently above 9 percent and Obama's smoke and mirrors rhetoric on the economy is fading away.
From Townhall Magazine's EXCLUSIVE October feature "Obamanomics: an Election-Changer?":
Obama promised it would be different on Feb. 17, 2009, when he returned to the city where he accepted his party's nomination for president. "It is great to be back in Denver," he told the crowd. "We have begun the essential work of keeping the American Dream alive in our time. And that's why we're here today."
Obama, then highly popular, was about to sign the $787 billion stimulus package, which he said would create or save 3.5 million jobs.
"Now, I don't want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic problems. Nor does it constitute all of what we're going to have to do to turn our economy around. But today does mark the beginning of the end," Obama said. He continued, "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that I will sign today -- a plan that meets the principles I laid out in January--is the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history."
Though he has signed other sweeping pieces of legislation as president--namely ObamaCare--the stimulus may well represent his biggest failure in the short term.
The site of the bill signing was Colorado, a generally Republican-leaning state, which gave its nine electoral votes to Obama in 2008. But with unemployment hovering just under 9 percent in the state (only slightly better than the national rate), convincing residents to give him another chance in 2012 could be tough, Colorado Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper told Politico. ...
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Since the stimulus law was enacted, 1.8 million U.S. jobs have been lost, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Colorado is not the only battleground state that will be problematic for the president in 2012. Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania are among the states Obama won in 2008 that will be heavily contested in 2012.
Read more of Fred Lucas' report in the October issue of Townhall Magazine, including:
- -- Unemployment analysis in key 2012 states
- -- Obamanomics: rhetoric vs. fact
- -- The economic disconnect that makes Obama beatable in 2012
Order Townhall Magazine today to get the full report in the October issue.
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