Monday Open Thread [10.6.14]
Josh Marshall chimes in:
There’s a new meme emerging on the right which I’ve noticed in the last 24 hours. It goes like this: The ‘government’ or President Obama promised Ebola wouldn’t or couldn’t get to the United States. But now it’s here. So people, the argument goes, are rightly worried that the ‘government’ is lying to them or isn’t telling them the whole story. In other words, when you see the next ignoramus on Fox News jonesing on about how he’s not going to be a patsy for the virology elite, that’s the story.
I’ve now heard it on Fox, in National Review and a few other outlets. It’s hard for me to tell whether this is simply lying about what various officials including the President have said, ignorance of how contagious diseases (and particularly Ebola) work or just a blase willingness to fan hysteria. Unfortunately it seems like all three.
A party controlling the White House could not ask for much more from economic numbers than the Democrats got in Friday’s jobs report, issued a month and a day before the midterm elections. Unemployment fell to 5.9 percent, the lowest it has been since July 2008. The nation added 248,000 jobs, more than the forecasters had projected. What’s not to like?
President Obama, for one, is clearly frustrated that having inherited an economy that was at death’s door, he is getting remarkably little credit for getting it back on its feet.
Megan Thee-Brenan compares Americans’ views on the economy to Obama’s approval ratings:
The economy outpaced all other issues in importance to voters in a New York Times/CBS News poll in mid-September, and 44 percent of Americans rated the economy as good. This marked the highest positive reading since 2007. Even as Americans are feeling better about the economy, they decline to credit the president with its improvement. The Times/CBS News poll found 53 percent of Americans disapproved of Mr. Obama’s handling of the economy, and his overall job approval rating was under water, with 40 percent approving and 50 percent disapproving.
How Paul Waldman explains this disconnect:
[D]espite the healthy job growth, incomes aren’t rising.
A good economy isn’t just one where you’ve got a job, it’s one where you’ve got a job and you’re being paid what you’re worth. The income benefits of the recovery have all gone to the top. Millions of people are also still digging themselves out of the holes they got into during the Great Recession, whether it was foreclosure, credit card debt, or what have you. Even if you now have a reasonably good job, if you lost your home and cashed out your 401K on the way, it isn’t like things are looking spectacular.
And so they blame Obama, who saved the country from Depression, and are going to install the Republican Party, who promises to give even more of their money to the wealthy, and whose policies make another Depression likely.
No one ever said the American voter was particularly smart.
MICHIGAN–GOVERNOR–EPIC-MRA: Gov. Rick Snyder (R) 45, Mark Schauer (D) 39.
KANSAS–SENATOR–Gravis Marketing: Greg Orman (I) 47, Sen. Pat Roberts (R) 40
KANSAS–GOVERNOR–Gravis Marketing: Paul Davis (D) 48, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) 40%
KANSAS–SENATOR–NBC News/Marist: Greg Orman (I) 48, Sen. Pat Roberts (R) 38.
NORTH CAROLINA–SENATOR–NBC News/Marist: Sen. Kay Hagan (D) 44, Thom Tillis (R) 40.
IOWA–SENATOR–NBC News/Marist: Joni Ernst (R) 46, Bruce Braley (D) 44.
