That’s what Jim Pinkerton calls the failure of the stimulus plan to create real jobs and reduce unemployment. One of the reasons Katrina caused a lasting slide in George W. Bush’s approval numbers is that it shook the post-9/11 conviction that he was prepared to meet any national crisis head-on, whether terrorism or non-manmade disasters. Continued joblessness could similarly shake the popular belief that Barack Obama is a deliverer of economic Hope and Change for the masses.
There are only two potential problems: There will not be a sustained media drumbeat to make sure that Obama takes all of the blame for the economy in the same way that Bush more or less did for Katrina. (Many Louisiana voters were close enough to the facts on the ground to apportion the blame more widely.) The media reluctance to blame Obama will be compounded by the fact that the economic hurricane first hit land under Bush’s watch. Even if the unemployment rate doesn’t soon improve, how long will it take for Bush’s recession to become Obama’s? When will people demand results in exchange for the (borrowed) trillions being spent?
