It's that time of the month again. 115,000 jobs were created in April, the size of Peoria, Illinois (image: usher at Peoria Stadium, home of the "Javelinas.")
In the 2008 presidential campaign Barack Obama said that if he couldn't right the economy after three years he wouldn't deserve a second term. An article in the Guardian this morning said that even at Chula Vista job growth rates it would take the economy until 2020 to get back to pre-recession levels. 2020 is more than three years after 2008.
How will this play in Peoria? It seems to me the mood of the country is that the president is just barely holding on to a level of competence to warrant a second term and whether he does get a second term will depend on one, these monthly jobs figures from now until November and two, gasoline pump prices. Those matter most to Peorians. However those two things, especially the latter, are effected by things like Icelandic volcanoes, Japanese earthquakes, Iranian nerve disorders. The economy, and Obama's own job prospects, are fragile. In 1980 Ronald Reagan asked the country "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Manifestly we were not and Jimmy Carter was replaced. Are you better off in May 2012 than you were on January 17, 2009? I think most Americans would pause and say "yes" but it's a close thing.
Barack Obama is a personally appealing man to more Americans than those who feel he is performing competently. That personal appeal will help him; we like to vote for someone we like in addition to someone who is competent. My sense is Americans will find Mitt Romney not as personally appealing when they get to know him. One of the most politically-telling questions pollsters ask is, "Does [insert candidate name here] share the values that are most important to you?" My sense is more people will answer that "yes" as to Obama than will answer it "yes" as to Romney once they get to know Romney. But we voted for Richard Nixon twice so personal appeal does not always trump competency.
Peggy Noonan, Reagan's speech writer, wrote a very compelling article recently on these two factors, the upshot of which was, "Yes, Americans think they have a 'cool' president, but do they think they have a competent president?" It made me think. I thought, "Romney would do a better job with the economy than Obama has done." That was my instant reaction and sometimes instant reactions have staying power; sometimes when you think about them further you think your instant reaction was wrong.The image of Obama that came to mind in my instant reaction was this:
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Thoughtful, earnest, serious. And it made me think of Jimmy Carter. One of those who worked closely with Carter said that he would have this look in meetings and for a while people thought it was his intelligence at work. They came to think he didn't understand what was going on in the meetings, that he was in over his head. Is that Obama? Carter was a one-term governor; Obama a senator for about six minutes.
Foreign policy doesn't matter much to Americans. Obama got a mini-spike in popularity from killing Osama bin Laden. It didn't last. And that was bin Laden. The Chen Guangcheng case has not filtered down to the people in Peoria. They don't care about a blind man in China but they do expect competence from their president in foreign affairs. Jimmy Carter had the Iran hostage crisis. Every night: "America Held Hostage." What did it go on for, a year? And then the failed rescue effort, an effort The New Republic dubbed on its cover "The Jimmy Carter Desert Classic" over a picture of a plane flying upside down. The Romney campaign sees a "Barack Obama Far East Classic" in the weirdness of the Chen case. They call the administration's handling of it a "shame." Maybe it will turn out alright, I haven't checked the news since this morning. Maybe it has turned out alright; Maybe Chen is on his way to being an NYU student. It's a weird case; maybe weird cases have to be handled weirdly.
Peorians don't like weird, though.
