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CNN’s Candy Crowley made a noteworthy comment on the air last night, and we’ve heard similar remarks from other media figures quite a bit lately. The subject was President Obama’s prospects for a second term.
“He has to buck history, number one, a president with that kind of high unemployment rate has never been re-elected at 9 percent.”
At first blush, the observation is plainly false. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won a second term when unemployment was at 17%.
In fairness, though, Crowley probably just misspoke, and meant to refer to the post-Depression era. But even if we give her the benefit of the doubt here, the observation is largely pointless.
As a factual matter, it’s true that every president since FDR who’s won re-election has seen an unemployment rate below 7.2%. Will the unemployment rate fall below 7.2% by Election Day 2012? No one, anywhere, believes this is even remotely realistic.
But the context matters, and the media routinely pretends it doesn’t exist. No president since FDR has won with a high unemployment rate because no president since FDR has had to govern at a time of a global economic crisis like the Great Depression or the Great Recession. The U.S. has seen plenty of downturns over the last eight decades, but financial collapses are fairly rare, produce far more severe conditions, and take much longer to recover from.
Of course the unemployment rate won’t be below 7.2%. Under the circumstances and given the calamity Obama inherited, that’s impossible.
The more relevant question is what Americans are willing to tolerate and consider in context. In 1934, during FDR’s first midterms, the unemployment rate was about 22%. The public was thrilled — not because a 22% unemployment rate is good news, but because it had come down considerably from 1932. By 1936, when FDR was seeking re-eleciotn, the unemployment rate was about 17%. How can an incumbent president win re-election with a 17% unemployment rate? Because things were getting better, not worse.
That’s obviously the challenge for President Obama. The numerical thresholds are largely irrelevant — comparing the current economic circumstances to what other modern presidents have dealt with is silly. The more relevant metric is directional — are things better or getting worse by the time voters head to the polls, and if worse, who gets the blame.
What’s more, let’s also not lose sight of sample sizes. CNN’s Crowley made it seem as if no American president has ever won a second term with this high an unemployment rate. But even if we limit the analysis to the post-FDR era, as Dana Houle explained a couple of months ago, “Since FDR only Eisenhower, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and the two Bush’s have been elected president and then sought reelection. It’s hard to draw big conclusions from a sample of seven.”
If the media is preoccupied with this metric, it will shape the public’s perceptions and help drive the campaign. Here’s hoping news outlets come to realize how incomplete this picture is.
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walt on September 04, 2011 10:03 AM:
The media elite entertain us because the alternative might be something worse, say illumination of the basic economic terrain as a rigged game favoring the rich over everyone else. The horse race is a useful diversion. Everyone ignore the elephant in the middle of the room, please.
That said, no one forced Obama to capitulate to the right's framing of Herbert Hoover-economics as the legitimate focus of our attention. No one forced Obama to accede to Republican demands at virtually every check point while ignoring his own impressive powers of persuasion.
Politics doesn't take place in a vacuum. Obama either decided he has no special powers or he finds the thought of exercising them divisive and partisan. This man is empty.
stormskies on September 04, 2011 10:03 AM:
If the media is preoccupied with this metric, it will shape the public’s perceptions and help drive the campaign. Here’s hoping news outlets come to realize how incomplete this picture is.
***************
This is yet another perfect example of how the corporate media invents their narratives and story lines to peddle over and over until the typically stupid American begins to 'believe' that the story lines and narratives are actually true. This is exactly the kind of propaganda that these 'media elite' are hired to generate in order to create the reality that the corporations themselves want to have happen. Our worst enemy is our corporate media and creatures like Candy 'just one more biscuit' Crowely ........
walt is right on September 04, 2011 10:05 AM:
What is their sample size for presidents who have run for re-election with unemployment above 7.2%? That is the meaningful sample.
Tom Johnson on September 04, 2011 10:06 AM:
There is also the matter of perception. FDR was a fighter, relentlessly bouying the downtrodden while searching for ways to represent their interests. Obama, on the other hand, is proving himself to be anything but. I voted for him, I gave him money, and I worked in a call center for him, and he is proving himself incapable of leadership. He needs to fight for...well, for anything. I understand Republicans are insane; all the more reason to get out there and fight. Even if he fights and loses, he has to fight.
But no. Instead we get the surrenderer-in-chief. Unless he stands up for something that matters to me, he's lost my vote. I don't like saying that. I understand the value of compromise. But the Republicans aren't going to let anything good happen anyway, so Obama might as well shoot for pure inspiration.
Instead, he keeps trying to be reasonable. That's useless.
sjw on September 04, 2011 10:08 AM:
Such memes will gain traction in direction proportion to Obama's weakness. The attacks from the right are normal and predictable. What is unexpected, however, are the attacks from the left. They are fully justified, however, and will probably increase as Obama's weak national leadership -- the consequence, I've concluded, of some combination of a fatal personality flaw and a fundamental misunderstanding of how national politics works -- is on display after his jobs speech. Combine a toxic national economy and a progressive abandonment of Obama by his base, and you get increasingly slim odds for Obama's reelection. The media sees this and reports it -- accurately, in my view.
rrk1 on September 04, 2011 10:40 AM:
References to Obama's weakness are, I think, misplaced. He's not weak, nor incompetent. But he is tone deaf about the art of national politics. He's aloof, arrogant, and hasn't let us see anything personal about him. He has an uninviting wall around him, which reinforces the feeling that he is not in touch with the common folk despite being half black. He's not someone you want to have a beer with.
His vision of bipartisanship is ridiculous when only one side is willing to compromise. There is nothing he does that will gain him traction with the crazy caucus except maybe to resign or declare himself a member of the Tea Party. He's definitely not a Democrat in any case. Just what is he? Being above the fray, allowing the opposition to define the issues, and surrendering first and negotiating later is not a formula for reelection.
The Clean Air Act surrender is a milestone. Granting the pipeline permit, which I predict he will do, will be the final straw. His support on the left, what's left of it, will totally collapse, and he has only himself to blame. What his reelection calculus is is a mystery, as he himself is, but dismissing or taking for granted his erstwhile progressive supporters is a mistake. He dares us to not vote for him. However, he's reached a point for many people where they can't vote for him even holding their noses. Given the insane alternatives in the wings they're likely to stay home and not vote at all. Certainly he can't count on a ground force of supporters to work for him as they did in 2008. There is too much disillusionment. None of us likes to admit we've been had, but the evidence becomes undeniable day by day.
Waiting for a miracle won't work. A challenger on the left is not on the horizon, and without one we are lost. Obama needs to be a one term president. Electing Perry or Romney is a death warrant for the country. This is truly a crossroads.
Apologists - that's you Steve - wake up. We are in a grave crisis.
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© on September 04, 2011 10:47 AM:
Believing that Obama is weak does him a favor.
The alternative explanation for the behavior and results of his Administration is that he is a corrupt servant of the richest few in America, just like the G.O.P.
~
T2 on September 04, 2011 10:49 AM:
Most of Candy Crowley's " reports" are largely pointless.
As for the 7 second term presidents list...that goes back 60 years....the POINT should be how hard it is to unseat a sitting president, not some blather about unemployment rates.
chopin on September 04, 2011 10:49 AM:
Hey Candy, riddle me this. Read your tea leaves and tell me how many black presidents have won a second term?
stevio on September 04, 2011 10:50 AM:
I agree with the above posters BUT what is the alternative? A person worse than Bushit? Perry? A uy who prays for rain to resolve a drought? Perhaps that's what Obama should be pursuing. Praying for his base to turn-out in 2012...
It's like in sports when a quarterback throws an interception and from that point on the game and that athlete's ability goes south for the remainder of that game. Obama is in a slump. Partly because he's throwing "interceptions"at an alarmingly frequent rate but also because he signed a four year contract with a team that was already heading for bankruptcy with a supporting team that apparently was not up for the job of turning the season around and opposition hell-bent on destroying his chances for a come-back. Big time.
So, here we are and here he is. Four-and-out I fear. If you all think the country will recover with greedy rich people running it you are fooling yourselves. We are truly screwed. One has to wonder if a primary fiht would re=energize the progressives and et the young out to vote. Unfortunately, such a battle would surly turn-off the minority vote. Would the trade-off be worth it? It might be worth a shot as minorities are not flourishing under the present POTUS...
Gandalf on September 04, 2011 10:51 AM:
rrk1 I must have said this ten dozen times now about different people but it's applicable to you. Your the kind intolerant asshole that's pretty much gotten the country to the point it's in now. You more than likely voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. Listen stop being an intractable douchebag and start doing something positive. Is Obama perfect-No but if people like you would stop whining all the time about not getting their way and start doing something things would start swinging more their way.
sjw on September 04, 2011 10:57 AM:
There's lots that bothers me about Obama's transformation from dynamic presidential candidate to wimp-ass president. But what I haven't seen mentioned explicitly is the fact that he excited and galvanized a younger generation of voters, then alienated them and pushed them away. He's turned off millions to electoral politics and thereby made it possible for fringe groups like the Tea Partiers to have their successes. (Notice how this worked already in the midterms.) I could imagine my stepson, for example, not voting for 20 years. Republicans love it when the Democratic base stays home: Obama has greatly aided in that effort.
kevo on September 04, 2011 11:08 AM:
Watch and listen as the media's clarion call has begun:
Don't vote for Barack Obama again people if you know what's good for you - you who can still vote now that the contraction of our electorate has also begun in earnest!
For those who can discern the nuances of political pathways, we are already witnessing the pathway to authoritarianism guided by mega-monied corporate interests, and brazenly championed by the modern Republican party.
If my fellow country-citizens vote the rascals in instead of out of office in 2012, we're in for some very bad end-times!
Mark my word! -Kevo
walt on September 04, 2011 11:08 AM:
Gandalf, you're a kind of intolerant asshole yourself. At least rrk1's comment is well-reasoned and informed. Yours may as well be graffiti on a restroom wall.
And it's true: we are in a grave crisis. Depersonalize the Obama question for the moment: if a Republican wins next year, this nation is beyond recovery. That's why we're writing here. If this were merely an exercise in supporting the home team, we could lick our wounds and fight another day. But imagine a federal government stacked with anti-regulatory zealots, and a federal judiciary overflowing with hard-right Federalist Society types. This transcends losing. This is death.
stormskies on September 04, 2011 11:08 AM:
Maybe the one thing that can happen, relative to all of us who feel so disillusioned about Obama, is that the Repiglicans will go ahead and nominate the truly crazy folks like Perry. If that happens, maybe, the impact of that craziness, and the implications for our country, will be so stark that all of us will run as fast as we can to the voting booth ....
jjm on September 04, 2011 11:14 AM:
If the GOP prevents Obama from doing stimulus and from hiring government workers directly, the level of unemployment won't drop from that source.
But with business so hostile to Obama, and sitting on TWO TRILLION IN PROFITS, they won't create new jobs either, even though in the very long run they are cutting off their nose to spite their face: high unemployment will eventually kill profits from their actual, primary business.
Their solution is to just keep using their accumulated capital to make more capital with investments in derivatives and the like.
Jobs are no longer of interest to capital.
So what is a mere president to do?
TCinLA on September 04, 2011 11:34 AM:
Here’s hoping news outlets come to realize how incomplete this picture is.
The sun will rise in the west before this happens. The MSM needs to be seen for what they are: Servants of The Enemy. These gutless otherwise-unemployable buffoons know very well who signs their overpaid paychecks and what is required to keep getting them.
Why anyone pays any attention any longer to The Cretins' News Network is beyond me.
Trollop on September 04, 2011 4:20 PM:
Candy Crowley is another high paid hooker.. She probably shouldn't get paid as well as she does for what she does but it's good PR to play nice with the big girls once in a while. Another role model for the "info-tainment" industry; even Candy Crowley can make it shoveling shit!
J on September 04, 2011 4:28 PM:
Please include HuffPo in the media shitpile...doing more than their part to ensure Obama goes down. This is serious people - it isn't time to be whining about why Russ doesn't primary the President. It's time to get out there and make sure that not only HE wins but other Dems do too, and ones that will actually help Obama do what we want him to do. Even when he had the majority, he had to fight his own party all the time to get anything done.
Bartender on September 04, 2011 5:49 PM:
Nevertheless, with the high employment rate, and the republicans constant hammering away at this point and other stuff they simply make-up that will begin to influence the independants, this is a critical time for our country and the potential loss of the safety nets that strengthen our middle class. There now seems to be an increasing chance that Obama could loose to a radicalized republican and Democrats need to seriously consider a primary against Obama. Hillary, this is your moment. As President Kennedy said, "...ask what you can do for your country." Our country needs you.
Squeaky McCrinkle on September 04, 2011 7:12 PM:
"Misspoke" my ass. Candy Crowley is a lazy fucking moron, and CNN is a disgraceful joke, Fox News without a purpose.
Doug on September 04, 2011 9:50 PM:
Oh please, still blaming everything on President Obama?
How about looking in a mirror? What sort of enthusiasm can you expect to generate among registered Democratic voters, let alone "independent" ones, with the whining, carping, second-guessing and overall displays of Middle School-level angst that appear here and elsewhere on a daily basis?
People hear President Obama maybe once or twice a week, maybe. How many times are they forced to listen to your back-stabbing, adolescent "my way or the highway" crap? After having to put up with THAT, I wouldn't go out of my way to vote either!
Of course, YOUR thoughts are based on your intimate and personal knowledge of EVERY Senator AND their aides; of EVERY Representative AND their aides; of EVERY member of the WH staff (much more important than the guy in the Oval Office, anyway); EVERY member of the SC AND their staffs as well as EVERY lobbist who ever was, or will be. Add the above to your deep knowledge of politics, and inability to add, and THAT'S why YOU are making the "left" irrelevant.
The DNC, DCCC, OfA and dozens of PACs will have to spend millions just to counter your, hopefully inadvertant, work for the GOP.
"Heckuva job (insert name here)!"
Skip on September 05, 2011 1:55 AM:
Each time I get exasperated at Obama's bipartisanship, I go read up on one of the Republican candidates slated to replace Obama.
Perry alone stops my exasperation cold.
President Obama has to do a hell of a lot worse before I even consider not voting for him. We could have had McCain and Palin running this nation today, but we don't. Next year we will watch the Republicans vote enmass their usual straight ticket.
WE WILL BE THE DIFFERENCE. You have to see how important maintaining perspective about Obama has become. You have to see that wide voting margins are now required since the Gore/Bush race. You have to know that ANY Republican in the WH will finish this shaky nation, without giving us a chance to recover from the mess THEY made during the Bush administration.
Anonymous on September 05, 2011 7:10 AM:
Skip at 1:55AM
"You have to know that ANY Republican in the WH will finish this shaky nation,..."
We already have a Republican in the WH. He thinks he's Ronald Reagan even though he campaigned as a Democrat. I don't vote for Republicancers, period!
ifthethunderdontgetya����� on September 05, 2011 7:37 AM:
How many times are they forced to listen to your back-stabbing, adolescent "my way or the highway" crap?
Yeah, really. How could anyone expect Obama to protect Social Security, rather than put it on the table for budget cuts?
And only radical ideological purists would expect Obama to follow through on his pledge to protect whistle-blowers, rather than to double down on G.W. Bush's war against them.
/sarcasm
You Opologists couldn't possible get any feebler, could you?
Obama 2012: Yes, We Could Have!
~
Doug on September 05, 2011 6:33 PM:
ifthethunderdontgetya @ 7:37 AM -
And just when, pray tell, was SS actually placed "on the table"? When were cuts agreed to? Or the raising of the retirement age?
Agreeing to talk about SS, aka known as placing SS "on the table", during deficit reduction talks doesn't mean anything will be done to SS. It DOES mean there would be yet ANOTHER occasion for Republican/Teabaggers to show their economic incompetence and virulent partisanship when they're shown that SS doesn't contribute to the deficit and they STILL want to cut it.
Actions often DO speak louder than words and the actions of the current administration, in most areas, demand our full support; something many seem very reluctant to give. Tell you what, you start supporting the Obama administration for all that it's done and I'll be more than happy to join with you in condemning those few instances where it hasn't met its' promises.
Crissa on September 05, 2011 9:33 PM:
You ever notice that complaints about Obama's lack of perception as a fighter are from people who haven't heard his speeches and somehow gloss over his ability to make the media retransmit what he's said?
He can't just force the nation's newspapers and tv news to run headlines for him. Our country doesn't work that way. What the President says is apparently not A-1 news.
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