As President Obama rides the wave of good news after his policy change on immigration and the Supreme Court shocked the world by declaring Obamacare constitutional, economists are predicting that the gloom will soon descend when the latest economic news comes out.
For the first time in months, Obama is solidly ahead of Romney in the national daily tracking polls, but the euphoria may be short-lived.
The combination of Europe’s decline and a slowdown in manufacturing will create new jobs numbers for June in the range of 90,000, which won’t cause any budge in the 8.2 percent unemployment rate. Experts predict that Obama needs jobs numbers consistently in the range of 150,000 a month going into November for the economy to not be seen as a drag to his re-election chances.
Of course Republican challenger Mitt Romney is gleeful about any piece of bad economic news that he can pounce on, since the bad economy is the centerpiece of his campaign. Rocked by the Supreme Court decision and caught flat-footed by Obama’s renewed embrace by Hispanics, Romney certainly will be pleased about the stories that are sure to come about all the Americans still out of work.
But Romney also has added to his woes this week by allowing pictures to get out of him and his wife jetskiing on the scenic lake alongside his $10 million estate in New Hampshire. The shots are reminiscent of Democratic candidate John Kerry in 2004 allowing himself to be pictured windsurfing, which exaggerated his developing image as an rich, aloof patrician out of touch with common Americans. Romney has a similar problem—and pictures of him jetskiing can’t help that image.
