So... is Romney a Moderate again?

[Beet]

In good times, you get median voter elections; both candidates run to a center that us deemed respectable by enough voters. In bad times, you get a change election. Both candidates run away from the status quo, or the incumbent tries to make the challenger seem worse than even whatever the current situation is in highly charged terms. Up until last week, this was a change election. Romney was relying in telling everyone how bad things were and presenting an ideological alternative; Obama was focused on arguing that things were getting better and presenting Romney as an unacceptable alternative. Wednesday night, Romney switched it back to a median voter election. There are still some change elements here, but what was special about the debate was the median voter pivot. It suddenly became the 2000 election all over again.

In other words, Obama promised to fix the country, and Romneys pivot ironically shows that Obama succeeded. The shift of the GOP candidate to behaving as if this is a median voter election is an implicit admission that things have improved under Obama, because a shift to the 'center' is always to some extent an endorsement of the status quo. Fridays jobs report and other reports throughout last week simply underscored that.

[Beet]

Yeah wolfentoad, I'm going to have to side with politicO here. Arguing Romneys a liberal only helps him. Arguing he's a flip flopper only has limited upside because most people are already convinced of that. Of course, you could say "how can you believe anything he says?" but that only gets you part way there.

[Beet]

Just pointing out that shifting to the center/shifting towards Obama's position/shifting towards the status quo, is always an implicit endorsement of it. Comparatively. Yes, there are still 'change' issues at stake in the election, but Romney wasn't winning on them.

[Beet]

Romney was referring to this study (the link appears to be a summary of the study; I could not find the actual 50+ percent number in there, but it is what websites cite as the origin of Romney's claim) by Paul Harrington and Neeta Fogg of Drexel University, which appeared in the Higher Education Review in 2011.

The Monkey Cage, a blog written by actual political scientists who know this stuff (social science studies) better than journalists, has given an analysis of the claim.

In particular, they note:

"t is only fair to note that another post in The Atlantic by Jordan Weissmann notes that in 2000 this figure was “at a low of 41 percent, before the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields.” Obviously an increase from 41% to 54% of recent college graduates being unemployed or underemployed is hardly trivial, but only Weissmann seems to have provided the comparison which shows that even in boom times, 40% of recent college graduates have troubles in the job market. Note that the 2000 figure is from before the dot.com recession, when the overall unemployment rate was about 4%. "

So basically, under Harrington's standards, even in 2000, 40 percent of college graduates would be unable to find work.

The blog goes on to note:

"Fogg and Harrington define underemployment (which they call mal-employment) as a college graduate not being employed in an occupation “which utilize(s) the skills and knowledge that are commonly thought to be acquired through a college education.” (p. 55-56). While that article does not specify what such occupations are, it does note that the occupations “generally include profession, technical, managerial and high-level sales occupations….” (p. 55). Of course many of these require an advanced degree, so recent college graduates under age 25 are unlikely to be eligible for such occupations."

In another paragraph, the authors suggest that 'mal-employment' (what they measure) is any work that is 'substandard in some way.'

In any case, 'can't find work' is obviously incorrect when it comes to these people.

[Beet]

Oh, I see what the Associated Press did. The 50 percent number never appears in the report, the AP appears to have added underemployed to the report's 40 percent figure for mal-employed to reach its own number. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure that's even accurate, because the unemployment rate is a share of the labor force, but the malemployment rate defined by Fodd & Harrington are as a percentage of employed bachelor's degree holders. So I hope that's not what the AP did. In any case, it never provided the logic of its analysis.

[Beet]

The recovery has not even matched the weak recovery in the early/mid 2000s, and that recession was NOWHERE near as bad as this one.

The early/mid 2000s 'recovery' was based on a credit bubble, and the deflation of that bubble is precisely what's holding back this recovery from being faster. But in terms of jobs, this recovery has actually been more vigorous than the early/mid 2000's recovery. In terms of private sector jobs, the difference is even more dramatic.

[Beet]

The recovery has not even matched the weak recovery in the early/mid 2000s, and that recession was NOWHERE near as bad as this one.

The early/mid 2000s 'recovery' was based on a credit bubble, and the deflation of that bubble is precisely what's holding back this recovery from being faster. But in terms of jobs, this recovery has actually been more vigorous than the early/mid 2000's recovery. In terms of private sector jobs, the difference is even more dramatic.

Doesn't the graph he himself posted even prove the recovery is more vigorous. I'd love to see a copy of Politico's graph above with the point shown where Obama enters office.

1/09 is clearly marked on the chart