President 2012: Can’t America Do Better Than the Obama Economy?

I think Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post (one of my favorite writers, I must admit, along with Mickey Kaus) has hit upon the GOP Presidential nominee’s theme for the 2012 Presidential race: Can’t America Do Better Than the Obama Economy?

In January 2009 our unemployment rate was 7.6 percent, and 11.6 million Americans were unemployed. In February 2011 the rate is 8.9 percent, and 13.7 million Americans are out of work. In that same time frame African American unemployment has gone from 12.6 percent to 15.3 percent, while Hispanic unemployment has gone from 9.7% to 11.6%.

The stimulus plan was supposed to keep unemployment from exceeding 8 percent. It didn’t do that, and in fact the figures are worse than they seem because of the dramatic drop in labor participation. (…)

We can always imagine that things could be worse. That’s the White House line about the stimulus plan. But the question, as it will be in the 2012 election, is: Can’t we do better than this? If the answer (or the hope) is that we can, then we’d better come up with pro-growth, pro-jobs policies that will produce different results than Obamanomics.

The answer is Yes We Can – with the GOP nominee – whoever that will be.

This issues agenda is set.