Job One

When I was growing up, I remember my father telling me he believed the best thing about America was that the right person always came along to provide the leadership the nation needed at the time it needed it.

Dad isn't a classic historian. He taught religion and philosophy at one of the local colleges (there were three) in my rather small hometown so, certainly, biblical history was part of his courses. And he did study history in general to a certain extent — and on certain sub–topics that were of interest to him — but he has never been the go–to guy to put things into historical perspective.

Nevertheless, I had to admit that he was right. America's had its share of incompetent leaders in the last two centuries, but, when the chips have really been down, usually someone steps forward — Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts — to keep the country from veering too far off the path.

Kind of smacks of predestination or manifest destiny, doesn't it? Well, maybe it is a variation on the theme of American exceptionalism, but I think that, given our history, Americans have earned the right to see themselves as exceptional.

You can always find scabs to pick at in American history. This nation isn't perfect. It is a work in progress. We acknowledged that from the beginning, yet we asserted our exceptionalism, in the preamble to the Constitution, when we spoke of seeking to be a more perfect Union.

(Barack Obama used this phrase himself in a speech during the 2008 campaign. You may remember it. It was given amid the controversy brought on by Rev. Jeremiah Wright's infamous "God damn America" remarks.)

It is a nation that was founded on faith. Even if a person has no real religious faith, most Americans do have faith in their country and the concept of limitless opportunity here. We have tried — not always successfully but we have tried — to change those things about ourselves that are contrary to our lofty self–image.

That faith has been severely challenged in the last four or five years by an economic crisis unlike any since the Great Depression. For a president who was elected on the strength of voters' belief in hope and change, it can be staggering when you talk to those who have completely given up hope during his tenure.

Their ranks are likely to swell, I am afraid, with today's jobs report. The economy did add 163,000 jobs in July, and the average monthly jobs gain in 2012 has been 151,000, which is adequate to keep up with population growth, observes Christopher Rugaber of the Associated Press, but it isn't enough to bring unemployment down.

And that was really Obama's mission when he was elected. He made a lot of other promises to a lot of other groups, but the economy and joblessness were the two dark clouds that hung over the Republican–held White House and truly made it possible for a black man with limited political experience to be elected president by an electoral vote landslide.

Until that implosion, the race was neck and neck. Many Democrats openly wondered if Obama had made a mistake in picking Joe Biden as his running mate. Hillary Clinton would have united the party, many said.

The economy's implosion was a very recent development when voters went to the polls in November 2008. It certainly wasn't the reason that either Obama or John McCain got into the race to begin with, but righting the economic ship had become the #1 concern that September.

That hasn't happened, and a recent Gallup poll shows voters want the next president to make the economy and job creation his top — if not sole — priority.

Indeed,through most of Obama's presidency, poll after poll has indicated that it is still voters' top concern. But good news from the Labor Department has been rare. In fact, the unemployment rate went up — to 8.3% — in today's report.

Which puts the president in a position — historically — that makes his re–election prospects seem weaker each day.

With about three months left before the election, Barack Obama faces some pretty steep historical mountains to climb — and not much time to conquer them.

The most ominous is the fact that, when the unemployment rate has been 7% or higher on Election Day, practically no incumbent presidents have won. Ronald Reagan, in 1984, was an exception, but Reagan had a steadily improving economy working in his favor. Obama doesn't have that.

Conventional wisdom also holds that, if a president's approval ratings are below 50% on Election Day, that president is toast. This president, who entered office with three of every five Americans approving (when, technically, there was nothing to approve), hasn't received the consistent approval of a majority of respondents in more than a year.

Recent polls show Obama's approval in the 40s, and today's jobs report isn't likely to help.

Another rule of thumb is that right track/wrong track question that pollsters ask. Essentially, voters are asked if they think the country is on the right track or the wrong track. When the majority say the wrong track, that isn't a good sign for the incumbent.

The latest poll results I have seen on that question were reported by Rasmussen Reports. Only 29% of respondents said the country was heading in the right direction.

(The good news in that for Obama is that the number is up from this time last year, when only 14% believed the country was going in the right direction.)

Rasmussen's figure is a little lower than the others I have seen, which are typically in the 30–36% range, but even the most positive of them has no good news for the administration.

The other truism of American politics has to do with personal income. People vote their wallets. I have always believed it is the reason why Reagan's question at the end of his debate with Jimmy Carter — "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" — resonated the way it did.

Personal income is a little harder to boil down into easily digestible numbers, like the unemployment rate, presidential job approval and right track/wrong track, but the Commerce Department reported recently that personal income was up modestly in June. A troubling side note was the decline in personal spending; in a consumer–based economy, that is definitely not a good sign.

Those four historical factors — frequently cited by historians, pollsters and political scientists as the most reliable predictors of an election's outcome — are all working against the incumbent.

And it doesn't seem likely to me that he can reverse those trends in three months.

The Silver Lining

As I have observed here before, I grew up in Arkansas.

And when I was growing up, there was a saying that nearly everyone around me could be heard to utter, at one time or another: "Thank God for Mississippi!"

I don't know how long they were saying that in Arkansas — and it's been awhile since I lived there, so they may well be saying it still ... for all I know. But it was always an article of faith, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it still is.

It stemmed from the fact that Arkansas usually ranked 48th or 49th in nearly every category — but Mississippi was usually 50th.

That was the silver lining for Arkansans — who weren't proud of the fact that the state lagged so far behind the others in nearly every meaningful category but who were grateful for the existence of Mississippi, without whom Arkansas would have been dead last in so many important things.

In the wake of yesterday's abysmal jobs report, supporters of Barack Obama have been grasping at anything that can give the news a positive spin. A negative jobs report at this stage of the president's re–election campaign cannot possibly help his cause, but that hasn't stopped his backers from trying to give the news a positive spin.

Call it their "Thank God for Mississippi" moment.

As usual, the White House got its rah rah from the New York Times. But it didn't strike me as being quite as enthusiastic as it usually is.

"The slow economy is getting slower," wrote the Times, apparently ignoring the influence of public policy while seizing the opportunity to criticize the president's congressional critics.

"Republicans in Congress seem more determined not only to block any boost that President Obama wants to give the economy," opined the Times, "but they are preparing to take the nation's credit rating hostage again over the debt ceiling. Mitt Romney, the Republican presumptive presidential nominee, has no new ideas."

The Times did acknowledge, however, that the numbers were "daunting." Unemployment went up (0.1%, to be sure, was not an astonishingly high number by itself, but it was alarming and disappointing for an administration that saw much more robust job creation a few months ago and was hoping for clear evidence of steady improvement); weekly wages went down (thanks to a drop in average hours worked); and nearly 5½ million Americans are now regarded as long–term unemployed.

The hardly unexpected news caused a chain reaction, along with Europe's economic woes, on Wall Street as each of the stock exchanges lost more than 2% of its volume.

But the Times chose to blame congressional Republicans, who have controlled only the House (and that for barely more than a year) since the 2006 midterm elections — "There's no sign that Washington is prepared to shoulder this responsibility," said the Times, declining to hold the president accountable — although it did acknowledge that, "[i]n the meantime, millions of Americans need jobs."

The Philadelphia Inquirer blithely called the jobs report a "letdown" that "baffled" economic experts who had anticipated better. I can assure you of one thing: When the experts are baffled, the rank and file become jittery, and they express themselves at the ballot box.

Many experts suggested that a (temporary) scapegoat is the fact that many of the unemployed who had given up the search were encouraged by job gains earlier this year to re–enter the workforce. The jobs still aren't there, but more people are actively looking for them.

Obviously, most of us would like to see those who have given up find a renewed resolve within themselves to seek employment. But, when they do, they can be so darned inconvenient.

I don't know if it was all those formerly discouraged job seekers jumping back into the far from tranquil employment waters, but few of the president's usual defenders have had anything to say about the latest job report. I guess they couldn't find a silver lining.

Jimmy Carter has been an unapologetic supporter of Obama, but, after he lets the news sink in and he reviews the unambiguous election returns on November 7 — and recalls how he has been reviled for more than three decades as the worst modern American president (which lets some rather notorious 19th–century chief executives off the hook) — he may be the only Democrat who can truly find a silver lining ...

What will Jimmy Carter say on that November day? Thank God for Barack Obama?