President Obama last week finally received the kind of economic news he was desperate to hear. Unemployment had hit a two-year low. But even as the news broke, Obama was bogged down in a new military action that threatens to undermine the domestic agenda on which he is building his re-election effort. If the shellacking in last November’s midterm elections was a repudiation of Obama because he was unable to stop the hemorrhaging of jobs, Democrats were expecting any improvement on the economic front to provide Obama and the party a positive bounce heading into the 2012 campaigns.
Yet, one of the most optimistic job reports in two years, as well as Obama’s blueprint for economic competitiveness, seemed to get lost in the shadow of the conflict in Libya and talks of a government shutdown on Capitol Hill.
Not surprisingly, the president has bent over backward to remind voters that he remains focused on kitchen-table issues.
“I know there’s a lot going on in the world, and the news is filled with images of the Middle East and Japan, but you should know that keeping the economy growing and making sure jobs are available is the first thing I think about when I wake up every morning,” Obama said.
The unemployment rate fell to 8.8 percent in March, with the economy adding 216,000 jobs, the Labor Department reported last week. That means joblessness dropped a full percentage point over the last four months, the sharpest declined in more than 25 years.
White House press secretary Jay Carney was careful not to appear celebratory while unemployment continued to hover near double digits. But he rejected arguments from those who characterized the report “as anything but good news” given that the country was losing 700,000 jobs a month when Obama took office.
The glaring spotlight on Libya has not been politically advantageous for the president and some analysts say any escalation of American involvement in Libya would present political risk for the White House.
“As long as the president keeps the boots off the ground, so to speak, I think he’ll be OK,” said Charles Walcott, a political science professor at Virginia Tech. “If it turns into another Iraq or Afghanistan, there will be significant blowback.”
Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates vowed to keep combat troops off the ground in Libya, though administration officials defended the presence of CIA operatives working with Libyan rebels.
If unemployment continues to drop, Republican contenders will be forced to focus on other issues, Walcott said, though Obama can’t “start thumping his chest yet” on job creation.
The newest jobs report certainly didn’t keep conservatives from attacking the president for his handling of the economy.
During an event in Nevada, likely GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, “The idea that we celebrate 8.8 percent – I’m glad for the progress, but my goodness, we’ve got a lot of people out of work.”
And pointing out that unemployment has yet to meet stimulus-package projections, Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said, “As far as I’m concerned, he has to have unemployment at 8 percent or lower when he runs for re-election.”
