POLITICS DEPT:
Not-so-good economic news for the Democrats:
"The U.S. economy created a modest 83,000 private sector jobs in June, adding to concern that the economic recovery is tepid at best and highlighting the political danger to President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats heading into a tightly contested midterm election cycle in which control of the House and perhaps the Senate are at stake. The unemployment rate ticked down slightly from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent....The president, in comments after release of the figures, chose to highlight "the sixth-straight month of job growth in the private sector" and the nearly "600,000 jobs created this year," a "stark turnaround," he added, from the massive monthly losses during the recession."
It's tepid, and everyone knows it. This kind of stagnant growth reminds of how the economy was performing in 1994. And we all know how Republicans did that year.
And I'm amazed at the rather pathetic spin job President Obama tries to do here. 600,000 jobs? Really? He knows, and anyone paying any attention to politics and the economy knows, that over half of those jobs he touts are TEMPORARY jobs, created by the Census! They'll be gone before you know it. Our economic woes, it appears, won't.
So Republicans for now continue to be in decent shape.
In polling news, here's more evidence of that, more signs of the times:
In 2006, the Democrats regained control of the Maryland governorship, with Democratic challenger Martin O'Malley solidly defeating Republican incumbent Robert Ehrlich. Most therefore assumed that, in crab state politics, Ehrlich was done. Maryland tends to be a Democrat-leaning state anyway, so it was expected that O'Malley would have a long gubernatorial tenure.
Note also that Republicans continue to have a huge advantage in voter enthusiasm:
"The Republican Party now holds about the same advantage in enthusiasm among its party’s voters that the Democratic Party held in June 2006 and the GOP had late in the 1994 campaign. Moreover, more Republicans than Democrats are now paying close attention to election news (64 percent vs. 50 percent)."
That's from the very nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
And all of this news should only heighten GOP enthusiasm...
Nope--Ehrlich will run this year to reclaim his old position.
And guess what--a poll today shows him leading O'Malley by 3 points.
