During his press conference Friday, President Obama said that the “private sector is doing fine,” and that despite that, Congress should pass his stimulus bill. This leads to the question, if the private sector is really fine, what would his stimulus bill do?
But aside from that, is the president’s comment likely to dog him through the election? Or was it, as Democrat strategist Kirsten Powers said on Fox today, just an offhand comment?
There are gaffes and then there are gaffes. Some gaffes are embarrassing but tell us little or nothing at all about the candidate. Other gaffes end up telling us something fundamental about what the candidate thinks. During the GOP primary, Texas Gov. Rick Perry suffered the mother of all brain freezes when, during a presidential debate, he could not remember which government agencies he would eliminate. That gaffe reinforced a media image of Gov. Perry as not being very smart and killed his chances of capturing the GOP nomination. But it didn’t really get at Perry’s policies or what he would do as president, or tell us what he really thinks. It was a catastrophe mainly because it fed into a pre-existing caricature that the governor was already fighting to some extent. Texans with strong Texas accents have been fighting that caricature forever.
In 1992, President George H. W. Bush committed one of those image-reinforcing gaffes when he reportedly was amazed at super market scanners. The media characterization of that incident fed the caricature of Bush as a wealthy patrician who had little connection with everyday American life. It helped Americans decide to fire a president they personally liked but whose policies were failing, in favor of an untested southern governor who, whatever his other faults, at least seemed to understand what was going on in the average American household.
President Obama has committed his share of gaffes, from 57 states to “spread the wealth around” to “punished with a baby” to talking about his nonexistent sons, but outside the partisan press they have not yet done much damage. They seemed ideological or harmless to most Americans and did not connect strongly to policy at the time. His gaffe that the private sector is doing fine, though, is different. It will probably dog him from now to November. Here are a few reasons why.
1. It lit up social media. Within seconds of the president making his comment, Twitter went hot with a new trending hashtag: #doingjustfine. That hashtag, usually the province of people tweeting that they’re fine without someone they just broke up with, became an anti-Obama feed and shot to #1 in the U.S.It was probably the hot social media action that forced the president to walk the comment back later in the day. Twitter put the president’s comment directly into the American bloodstream before he even realized that it was a gaffe and could do any damage control.
2. It echoed what other unpopular Democrats think and believe. President Obama’s comment was not offhand, as Powers said on Fox. Sen. Harry Reid has said the same thing. Over the weekend, Obama adviser David Axelrod refused to repudiate the comment, even though the president himself had walked it back late Friday. The fact is, Democrats on the left (and who are largely unpopular beyond the left) believe that the answer to U.S. unemployment is to increase government spending and government jobs. Americans who have spent their lives in the private sector, though, know intuitively that government hiring only adds to their own tax bills. In one comment, Obama sided with Beltway liberals over Main Street. For those who really pay attention, it also exposes Obama for hypocrisy: When John McCain uttered a similar gaffe in Sept. 2008, Obama jumped on it and used it to maneuver himself to a position of strength on the economy. The more he and his allies complain about the GOP reaction to Friday’s gaffe, the worse they and the president look.
3. It hit two of Obama’s softest spots. Barack Obama has only held one true private sector job (at a Chicago law firm) in his career, and prior to the presidency he had never been an executive at any level. He has papered over this glaring hole in his resume with gauzy rhetoric, but saying that the private sector is doing fine, when it demonstrably isn’t, tore that hole wide open again — and it was Obama himself doing the tearing. The second soft spot the comment hit was the economy itself. The numbers are not good, and they’re easy to look up: In May 2012, the U.S. private sector economy created just 82,000 jobs. Over the past four years, the U.S. private sector is down nearly 5 million jobs. In no reasonable definition is the private sector doing just fine. By saying that it is doing fine, Obama exposed his own lack of private sector experience, and just how out of touch with real American life he is.
4. It capped an awful week for the president, driving the narrative that he is now a loser. Just last week, the president’s re-elect efforts suffered bad national jobs numbers, Big Labor’s recall debacle in Wisconsin, the three California municipal reforms, the swarm of scrutiny over the administration’s national security leaks, and the president’s own press conference. The president intended that press conference to generate some positive press and force the Republicans on the defensive regarding passing his stimulus bill. His previous stimulus bill failed, so there was already little interest in passing the second one. He also wanted to take the heat off the leak scandal by addressing it directly. He wanted to end a rough week on a positive note. But instead of generating positive press, the president finished off a bad week by making things much worse, and in a way in which he cannot blame anyone else. He said what he said, and everyone heard it. He seemed to be saying what he really thinks, and what he thinks is at odds with what most Americans know. His gaffe was not ideological, but practical: He spoke out of sync with what most Americans know and think. He looks like a loser now, and has given voters a reason to take a chance on giving someone else the job he currently occupies. Like the 1992 Bush gaffe, Obama tells voters that whatever his other merits might be, he is not familiar with their daily lives and thus is unlikely to be capable of making things better.
Your first point is important.
Four years ago the Obama administration was praised for its use of social media.
But I’m not sure that the Republicans were beaten at the social media in 2008, or that the social media didn’t matter as much back then.
My guess is that the MSM’s credibility has fallen pretty far in four years, so something that couldn’t get traction in the new media back then, can get it now. The gatekeepers are now helpless little boys trying to plug up leaks that keep appearing in the dike.
Four years ago the Democratic social media wizzes benefited greatly from MSM support. That support is not there this year. It might be said that rather than being the first new media president; President Obama is really the last old media president.
– at the scanner incident. President Bush was just being polite because the grocers group wanted to show it to him. So don’t be polite in politics and keep pounding President Obama with his gaffe.
Obama didin’t just “clarify” his remarks. He slammed on the brakes. Then he peeled out while doing a complete 180, and barked the tires going into second gear.
The Dangers of Government Dependency
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW67kqPnWkU&feature=player_embedded#!
“The fact is, Democrats on the left (and who are largely unpopular beyond the left) believe that the answer to U.S. unemployment is to increase government spending and government jobs. Americans who have spent their lives in the private sector, though, know intuitively that government hiring only adds to their own tax bills.”
Darn right. Not only that, the more government UNION jobs there are, the more money is paid to Democratic politicians. And that’s the key, keeping the union jobs in place so that the cycle of money going to unions and then back to the Democratic party can continue. Isn’t it interesting that the government union jobs always support Democrats, but when you have non-union government workers, such as in the military, support for the Democrats falls dramatically? The non-union government workers are not dependent on the Democratic party for all its benefits, so these workers are free to elect who they want. But when you know your paycheck depends on how much power the Democratic party has, it’s no big surprise on how you’re going to vote.
The gaffe seemed perfectly consistent with my reading of “Radical-In-Chief” by Stanley Kurtz.
The private sector is doing just fine, if you hate the free market democracy in which it thrives and love the small c communism in which it does not.
It’s doing “just fine” if you are bitter about the Workers Party defeat in Wisconsin. The small c communists didn’t get their way there, so the free market democracy fought back. In the mind of the Fabian in the White House, that would make the “private sector” give off the impression of “doing just fine” in thwarting the overthrow.
Gaffe? What gaffe? It was a present sense impression that conveyed his true feelings. When the “automatic trigger” guts the military, when he rapes the taxpayers and soaks the “rich”, you can ask him again.
Last week, he was in no mood to hide his feeling that the “enemy” was doing “just fine” against his waged war on them.
The thing that struck me about the comment was the flawless execution.
I know most will disagree, but I think it’s indisputable that this guy is the consumate con man in all of history. Every detail of his posture and voice while he was saying “the private sector is doing just fine” was beyond perfect. It was exquisitely perfect. No uninformed person could possible view this master liar saying those words and not believe absolutely that a) he was absolutely sincere, b) that he is an intelligent analyst who has carefully assessed the problem and c) that his perspective is something that has to be disproven not to be believed.
The greatest actor could not approach the complete conviction Dear Leader showed; the mixture of concern, intelligence, thoughfulness and conviction. What an awesome display of utter utter deceipt and amorality. It was so complete that many pundits have declared he actually believes what he said. The execution was so perfect, it makes you wonder. Has he simply hypnotized himself or is he the most accomplished liar who has ever walked the face of the earth.
obozo’s solution to the economy is in trouble and the private sector is doing fine, is to hire more state/government employees, not realizing that every government/state employee must be paid for with tax payers paying more for them, as opposed to private sector that hires, removing one person from the need for taxpayers to support him and turns him into a tax payer.s
And in confirmation, it was reported that the Times has now reported that family income/net worth has dropped to a level not seen in decades.
Obozo said the private sector is doing just fine, and if one reviews his comments, he didn’t walk back the private sector doing fine, he said the economy isn’t, but if we just hire more teachers, fire fighters and police all will be fine.
So lets look at this in simplistic terms.
If the government hires one more police man, they need the money to hire him. Where does that money come from. Hint, states can’t print money, so it comes from taxes. So the government hires that policeman and the tax payers have to pony up to pay for that position. Does the police man produce anything of value, that can be taxed and used to help the economy? Not that he isn’t doing a valuable function, but this job doesn’t produce any income.
Now what happens if you take two people that are on welfare, and put them into the private sector. The government says money, and the two people now pay into the government.
So let’s have a pool of 100 people that are unemployed. If you put them all to work as firefighters/police/teachers/ that is a lot of money that has to be paid to them, and probably even more than the unemployment benefits. net loss of income to the government, more taxes to the tax payers.
Now take the 100 people off welfare and put into private sector. immediately government doesn’t pay for these 100 people, huge plus, and now they are contributing to tax base, huge.
So what do you think is better private sector jobs, that remove people from government benefits and have them contribute, or putting them on government jobs and needing tax payers to come up with the additional funds to pay them.
Seems an easy question.
Sort of like asking a thirsty person if they would like something to drink. But then I will be waiting for the libs to respond that this doesn’t make sense to them, and that the rich need to pay their fair share, never defining fair, and that I must be racist, homophobic or something else to even suggest this.
I came across this over the weekend. Not directly commenting on Obama’s confusion about the private sector but really demonstrates why the private sector isn’t fine and why more government isn’t the answer to anything.
Here are two charts which show why both increased regulation and policy uncertainty are very significant.
Chart 1 shows the growth in full-time equivalent government employees in regulatory functions (excluding TSA employees) There’s been a 25% growth since 2007.
“The second chart shows the number of provisions in the tax code that are expiring each year. This is part of an index used by Baker, Bloom, and Davis. It shows a substantial increase in the past few years in policy uncertainty. ”
Look at the exponential growth in regulatory churn since 2007.
This shows the problem with government isn’t an Obama problem, it is a Democrat problem. Who took over Congress in 2004 and so were able to start the growth of government employees and tax code churning that kicked in in 2007? Anyone? Question is, has the Republican success in 2010 created a correction that will kick in in time for the inauguration? If not, perhaps we need some different Republicans as well?
I’ve been saying this since 10 minutes after he So-Called Walked back his statement.
In the original interview he said the Economy was doing Badly.
No equivocation, the Economy is in trouble.
But, the private sector is doing fine
it’s the public sector that’s pulling the Economy down.
In his clarification he said, “The Economy is not Doing fine.”
Because, the public sector is pulling it down.
no mention of Private Sector.
This was NO Different than his ‘Compromise’ on Religious Insititutions paying for Contraception – A New Frame on a Bad Piece of Art.
NO WALKBACK, just words designed to look like a walkback.
32 D’oh’s in 15 Seconds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6GuEswXOXo&feature=player_embedded
This is exactly how any ivory tower leftist would view the private sector.
Ivory tower leftists only care about the private sector to the extent that it has money for them to loot – like the way pirates cared about of spanish galleons – they were doing “just fine” if they could stay afloat long enough to get the treasure off.
Since our private sector still has plenty of money for the looting, it is, in the eye of a leftist, “doing just fine.”
Yup. Think you’re on to something, there! Add to it this: Since to a New Left Prog it’s all just one big collective pot to dip into, His Royal Highness the Dog-Eater keeps getting public and private confounded. Off the cuff, he becomes confused and can’t really keep the two conceptually separated. Something to do, also, with too much Choom in his youth?!
A classic case of “Who you gonna believe–me or your own lying eyes?”
“It helped Americans decide to fire…president [Bush] in favor of an untested southern governor [Clinton]
Enough of this falshood already.
Bush never got fired in favor of Bubba.
Bubba won by accident, thanks to Ross Perot.
6 of every 10 voters, voted AGAINST Bubba, BOTH times.
I’ve never met a single Perot Voter in my life that ever would have chose Bubba Clinton in any two way race.
You could also say that in 1992, 6 out of every 10 voters voted against Bush 41.
In fact, the entire Perot candidacy would never have arisen except for public disenchantment with Bush 41. (Polls taken in 1991 showed that given a choice between Bush 41 and Perot, a majority preferred Perot.)
Now is the perfect time for Republicans, and Romney particularly, to woo away the Democrats’ old stand-by’s: private sector unions and Blacks. The GOP policies will assist both groups in landing good paying jobs through private sector growth, productivity and prosperity. To undo Obama’s 3 years’ worth of damage that has destroyed 20 years of prosperity.