Talk Elections

Early indicators suggested that the September jobs report will be good, so a decent jobs report and a couple good rounds of debates for Obama might be enough to erase tonight's bad numbers.  I'm not sure if those indicators predicted something different recently, though.

Oh my god. Please do not get your hopes up for this, guys. The last thing Obama needs right now is over-inflated hopes on one number which is a rough, rough, rough estimate that will get drastically revised 3 times, and then get revised again in six months, then get revised again a year later. Margin of error +/- a couple hundred thousand. It'll likely be a disappointment. The ISM services employment index fell from last month, when only 96,000 jobs were created. So I'm expecting less than 96,000. Remember, Europe is long jobs, Japan is losing jobs, it'll be a miracle at all if we gain jobs.

The main point is that Obama has created over 5 million private sector jobs in the past 2 1/2 years, and has a much better job creation record than George W. Bush in his first term.

It depends what they are.

The numbers will be worse than when Obama took office.  A decline in rate and an increase in the number of employed will.  Bad numbers, and Obama is probably finished.

You mean like that 8 percent one he made back in 2008 that still hasn't happened 4 years later?

If Obama's campaign is hoping to fight the election on the economy - then Mitt's won. Plain as day. This economy is absolutely horrible.

You know, one debate and unknown employment numbers are not necessarily a sign of Armageddon.    :)

The election's going to be fought on everything, including, but not limited to, the economy. Mitt learned that the hard way- he can't just run on "the economy is horrible" just as Obama can't just run on "the economy is turning around." There are specific issues at stake and that's what Mitt realized in time for tonight's debate and that's where the election will also be fought on.

Says the guy who made this?

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You have me confused with an Obama fan.

It seems I underestimated Obama's ineptitude. Making Mitt Romney look good in a debate?

No. After the disastrous debate, there is no hope for Obama to recover

Source? All signs point towards about 110,000 jobs, which does NOT keep pace with population growth. This is not good enough. This is not solving the unemployment problem. This economy is terrible.

Obama and Co. better hope and pray the figure is six digits as anticipated, or they are in a world of trouble!

Oh, sorry, but I thought you'd like the increasingly rare distinction.   ;)

Well, I have to give credit where credit is due. I did not expect Romney to work his butt off and actually deliver. That effort will be rewarded in a month's time. Obama clearly expected that just showing up was enough and he got his butt handed to him.

You made a map with a Democratic Alabama, and now you're predicting a Republican win with certitude...basically on the basis of one debate alone?

You are officially entered for a third time on my list of completely ridiculous people.

When a 3:1 ratio of we the people think Romney, Morman extraordinaire kicked his ass, yes that's going to translate into greater support.

Obama doesn't have much to run on except for the fact that he's considered to be 'bright', and that he speaks well. If he doesn't have that - what does he have?

As for the election results - I based that on my assessment of Romney until now. He was unable to deliver the knockout blow. He's one of the weakest nominees in the history of the Republican party. Few nominees ever have a competitor with 10+ states won, let alone Santorum. I based that on third party candidacy from two right-most parties, that has been drawing support off of Romney for months. I also based that on the assumption that Obama continued to do what he was doing.

Any of those factors change, the race changes. Do I think he'll win? No. But going up +5 in NC helps. I think he will be rewarded, but I don't believe that at present it's enough to overcome the negative factors this election.

I'm sorry, but I can't hear you over the redness of Alabama on that map.

It's because the man is in over his head and surrounded by Chicago sycophants.

I am willing to bet he will cling to the White House by watching the returns there.

Will you shut up about freaking Chicago?

NEVERMIND

Haha, good one, JJ.

These job reports haven't really had any impact on the campaign and there's no reason to believe they'll start to now.

JJ's numbers have been turning on him left, right and centre... Let's have some compassion

It's really interesting that he's recasting himself as a moderate and that's what's enabling him to run stronger.

Well, I think they have, though not as much as other things.  36 hours before these numbers came out Obama was saying the economy was improving.  If the numbers show that the economy is not improving, it steps on his narrative for the next three weeks.

Is that what happened with the last jobs report? How many weeks did that shape the narrative?

People are paying attention now, and looking for reasons to NOT vote for Obama.

They will only have an effect if they are much poorer than expected. The slowing in growth hasn't made many headlines either.

CNN will be covering it extensively.

There are two elements, unemployment rate and the actual number of employed people.  If both are static, it is very bad news for Obama.  He will be going into the election with higher unemployment numbers than any president since 1948; that is almost a given.  If the number of actual jobs drops or shows an anemic increase (90 K or less), Obama will be the first president since either FDR or Hoover that has had a loss of jobs prior to the election.  He probably could not survive that.

ADP reported their numbers yesterday, which had private employment increasing by 162,000 in September.  As a result I would be shocked if the BLS numbers released tomorrow are not a six-figure number beginning with "1", so I expect tomorrow's job report to have no effect.  It will need to be <100,000 to help Romney and ≥ 200,000 to help Obama.  Even then the effect would be slight.

It's rather funny reading Politico's ravings about how bad the job market is while I sit at work at the beginning of an OT-boosted 12 hour shift.

I think one of the keys will the number of people employed.  Obama needs to have that in positive territory.

The job numbers will be bad and they will be a slight negative for Obama, but it's not going to be a real big deal. His base has already consigned itself to a bad economy and is voting for Obama regardless of such.

I suspect it will be (like the last two months) good news/bad news type of thing and will (like the last two months) have no impact. People feel the economy on a personal basis.  The only impact is if it was hugely good news like 250k jobs unemployment below 8, or hugely bad like unemployment back up to 8.5 and/or net job losses

How many jobs are normally created after a deep recession over a three year period as a percentage increase, Beet?  And why is growth slowing down, rather than speeding up.  The recovery has been dismal because nobody sees any plan to get us out of the pit of despair. We are a nation suffering from severe anemia.

That depends on how many people give up looking for work, artificially lowering the publicized unemployment rate. The reality is that ~15% of the country is not meeting their employment needs. That is not a winning number. Fortunately for Obama, that is not the number we are arguing over. Why Romney has decided to fight the unemployment debate on U-3 grounds rather than U-6 is beyond me.

It depends on what it shows.  If the unemployment rate has been decreasing, it is largely because so many people are leaving the workforce.  In my home state of Michigan, our unemployment rate has significantly dropped over the past few years because so many people have stopped working or left the state to find work.  (Sorry, President Obama, it wasn't the auto bailouts, as much as you like to think that it was.)  In fact, Michigan was the only state to lose people in the 2010 Census.

First reason is valid (leaving the workforce), bur second has nothing to do with the unemployment rate. A rate means...

No, the world is suffering from severe anemia and we are an otherwise well functioning organ that is getting affected by it. America is doing much better than the rest of the world. Even if you look at China and India, they are doing as bad as during the depths of the 2009 recession and Europe is basically teetering on the edge of recession as well as Japan. We are at least chugging along at 1%+.

And the unemployment numbers have been released. 114k jobs created and surprisingly, the unemployment rate drops to 7.8%. Now let the bitchfest about labor force participation commence. :P

Yes, it is a plus for Obama. Period.

Is the election now over?  No.

Yep, definitely good news for Obama. I'm very surprised that so few new jobs would lower the rate that much.

It's because they've adjusted the numbers for the past several months.