It’s official: There are “widespread signs of a deceleration [in growth] compared with preceding periods.” So concludes the Federal Reserve Board after surveying the state of business around the country. Calm observers would note that slower growth is far from a double dip, that consumer spending is increasing, that “activity was largely stable or slightly up for professional and other nonfinancial services,” that seven of the 12 Federal Reserve districts into which the country is divided report economic growth “at a modest pace,” and that a narrowing trade gap is likely to drive third-quarter growth to something like 2.5 percent, from 1.6 percent in the second quarter. As Ian Harwood, chief economist at Evolution Securities, put it in a memo to clients, “Nothing at present indicates that anything worse than a classic mid-cycle slowdown is underway.”

But incumbent Democratic politicians preparing to face the electorate in 51 days are not calm observers. Neither is their president, who sees massive Republican gains as a personal rebuke and a bad omen for 2012, when he will have to face the voters. So we have a frenzy of activity, or at least of proposals. Never mind that nothing that is done between now and the election can very much influence the economy’s performance – the administration’s advisers are eager to show that the president cares, really cares, about the plight of the unemployed and the sleepless nights of those still in work, but worried that they might be next for the chop. They know that the voters see Barack Obama’s obsession with the costly health care bill they despise, because it is already raising their insurance premiums and reducing their choice of care, as a diversion from attending to their primary concern, the economy. Even achievements such as engineering a new Middle East peace conference are seen as a diversion of attention from jobs, jobs, jobs – which is why Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been getting most of the photo ops.