which has not been a difficult argument...even Obama conceded in Debate2 that the past 4 years were tough...even Biden noted that the past 4 years had "buried" the middle class. Romney effectively had to do very little to convince anyone.
Of course the past few years have been tough, but Obama is right to remind us how far we've come and what the state of the economy was in late 2008, early 2009, well before any of Obama's "policies" took effect. Two years ago Time Magazine ran an article praising Obama's stimulus measures because they did in fact work. There were something like seven serious studies conducted on that question and all but two concluded the stimulus did what it set out to do. The two exceptions were studies produced by Right Wing outlets, of course.
The only problem I see here is mass denial/ignorance/dementia by Republicans who want to conveniently forget we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs per month as Bush left office, and pooh-pooh on the recovery because it isn't happening fast enough for them. Well, at least it is happening, and that is the only point Obama needs to make because it proves we're going in the right direction! Their judgment that the recovery is "too slow" is based on their silly comparisons to much milder recessions such as the Carter recession, but Paul Krugman has demonstrated that economic catastrophes such as that of 2008, require more time to recover. We see countries all around the world experiencing the same kinds of sluggish recoveries, which demonstrates just how powerful that financial crisis was to begin with.
The irony here is that Republicans thought they could take the Presidency by simply telling Americans that their candidate isn't Obama, whereas Obama is really in a better position since all he should really need to do is convince people he isn't Romney. After all, Romney has come to the table unprepared. He has no viable plan to reduce the deficit as every non-partisan study has concluded, and he doesn't even think he is obligated to explain the details for us. He thinks he can win by constantly railing against Obama's record, which was the illicit criticism of Obama by folks like Jason Bourne. He said Obama can't run on his record, which I quickly disproved. In reality, it is Romney who has nor ecord to run on, so he thinks he can just make crap up and claim 2+2= 5. Moreover, any careful analysis of Romney's proposals show that he is essentially Bush 2.0. He is already hyping his tax cuts, in a period of record low taxes and claims, using magic math, that it will somehow reduce the deficit. There is no rational basis for this conclusion. None. It is just something the Romney worshippers take on faith and they have the audacity to act surprised when the rest of us don't fall in line with the rest of the sheep.
I recall a professor in an architecture studio announcing that the purpose of a critique was not to solely pat you on the back because little will come of that...the negatives must be illuminated.
But illumination isn't what Romney offers. He uses negative information and twists the numbers to suit his agenda. For example, his false claim that Federal land oil production has dropped "each year" under Obama. He knew this was false, but said it anyway because he expected American minds to be short sighted and fixated on his 14% figure, which would be verified by factcheckers in the first breath, but refuted in the follow up explanation that this only pertained to ONE YEAR out of Obama's four! He was counting on you folks being intellectually lazy. Can you bring yourself to admit Romney lied about this?
nice promotion for being an informed voter, but it seems that many people disagree with your notion....myself included.
But that's because you're not an informed voter. Anyone who has been vaguely aware of their economic surroundings the past four years, knows that the economy is doing much better. In 2008 when I returned from Brazil, I found out that roughly a dozen friends and family members lost their jobs and their homes. Currently I don't know anyone who is unemployed. Ironically, some of these same folks are Romney supporters who are too dumb to understand they're much better off now with a job and a home, than they were four years ago when they had neither.
the economy being improved might be hard sell to those who "know" they are unemployed.
Yes, if they remain in their own little world, which is generally the case with Republicans.
the communist dictator might be a hard sell to those who "know" they will be punished if they do not buy healthcare
Like Romney's plan in Mass! Funny how no one called him a communist.
you are trying to sell a broken clock under the guise that it is correct at least twice a day. The economy is not in the right direction, that is why its velocity is so disappointing, it is being impeded by Obama's policies.
Regurgitating cute imagery and FOX News talking points doesn't a convincing argument make. There is no evidence that "Obama's policies" have done this. In fact, I've yet to find a Right Winger point to a single "policy." They generally have no idea, but know this is what the Right Wing media keeps telling them, so it must be true. Your rhetoric is very much like Romney's deficit reduction plan; it is short on details, but huge on bold claims. You can't seriously watch an economy crumble the way it did in 2008-2009, and then watch the unemployment rate improve at the fastest rate since the mid 80's, and then say we're not going in the right direction. Well, I suppose you can say it, but it would be an exercise in self-delusion.
the unemployment rate seems to contradict your hallucination.
No it doesn't. We're at 7.8%, down from 10.1%, just two years ago. Remember Reagan oversaw unemployment skyrocket to 11% and was over 10% for more than a year before it started to go down. And he inherited a mild recession that was already on the upswing before he took office. Obama jumped into the cockpit of a plane just seconds before it was pushed off a mountain.
Besides, incomes has not kept pace with inflation...gas is more expensive, food is more expensive, etc...
Food is more expensive BECAUSE gas is more expensive, but this has nothing to do with the President. You have a very unsophisticated understanding of economics, where illicit blame can be dished out based on assertions born from the blogosphere.
State and local governments have had to gut their staff due to funding and this has way offset the timid private sector growth.
Notice how the rhetoric had to drastically change. Originally we were told private sector jobs would plummet and government jobs would be on the dramatic rise, and therefore Obama would be manufacturing a temporary, fictional boom in employment. This is what your ilk predicted because he was supposed to be a Big Government socialist. Yet, the opposite has happened, and blaming Obama for state legislators cutting their budgets - as if he had any control over that - is just about what we'd expect from someone who doesn't understand the basics. All he can do is offer them stimulus funding, which has been rejected by a number of Republican states.
The reality is that when Obama took office there were 2.7 million unemployed...today there are more than 5 million....that fact alone neuters your conspiracy theories.
Again, only a shallow understanding of the facts would lead to these kinds of claims, attributing the state of the economy to a man the very day he steps foot in office. The fact is Obama got back all the jobs that were lost due to Bush's economic catastrophe. All Romney wants to do is blame Obama while returning us to the same policies that got us in that situation (i.e. deregulation, increased military spending, tax cuts for the wealthy). It is the only thing these folks know how to do. They're that predictable. Gotta run for now.
Really that is a compliment. You aer certainly passionate about this.