"The unemployment truthers are not helping Romney" by Greg Sargent at WP

[applegrove]

The unemployment truthers are not helping Romney

by Greg Sargent at WP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-unemployment-truthers-are-not-helping-romney/2012/10/05/1281b3ec-0f0b-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_blog.html

"SNIP.....................................................

The Tweet from former General Electric CEO Jack Welch is gaining the most attention: “Unbelievable jobs numbers...these Chicago guys will do anything...can’t debate so change numbers.” The refrain has been picked up by conservative Republicans in Congress and CNBC contributors. Fox News’s homepage blares: “Jobless rate dips under 8 percent, but...IS THE NUMBER REAL?”

Ezra Klein debunks the whole thing, as if it needs debunking. But it’s also worth noting that it’s hard to see how the unemployment truthers are helping Mitt Romney here. By launching into a full blown angry panic about improving jobs numbers, they only draw attention to, and reinforce, the idea that the economy is, in fact, improving — and, worse, that the prospect of economic improvement is terrible news for Romney’s presidential prospects.

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Then there was the release of the Drudge race-baiting tape of six-year-old Obama comments. Some on the far right were convinced this would badly damage the president, because they think swing voters are prone to seeing Obama as they do. But these voters probably don’t find the idea that Obama is secretly committed to widespread racial revenge too convincing. Indeed, this, too, was an unhelpful distraction for the Romney camp, which properly downplayed the tape’s news value.

This latest — unemployment trutherism — strikes me as having the potential to be a bit more damaging to Romney. It’s very likely that these claims are now going to break through to the nightly news, drawing still more attention to the dropping unemployment rate.

.....................................................SNIP"

[iemitsu]

1. the romney camp deserves it.

and so do other republicans.
i hope that america is finally waking to the reality of republican leadership.
time to vote them out.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. The real danger for Romney is arguing against public perceptions

Perhaps if the right track/ wrong track numbers were heading south, or the consumer confidence index was dropping, Republicans could score points with their latest conspiracy theory - but the exact opposite is happening. People are feeling more hopeful. home prices are stabilizing, people are starting to reenter the job market. Republicans are not only down talking what people want to see happen, they are down talking what people actually see happen. That's bad politics on both counts. It further opens Republicans up to charges that they don't want an economic recovery, at least not until they are back in the White House.

[bushisanidiot]

3. Friday morning when the unemployment rate news came out will be the point where

we can look back and see when the Romney campaign really started melting down and becoming desperate.