On Economy, White House Message Not Sticking

AP

The new CBS News Poll has some sobering numbers for the White House on the issue that matters most in the fall elections - the economy.

Now, 40 percent of Americans polled approve of President Obama's handling of the economy; 54 percent disapprove. That's down from 45 percent approval last month.

Seventy-one percent of those polled say that their local job market is bad and 70 percent say it's going to stay the same or get worse. Only 28 percent of respondents think the job market will improve.

The White House has consistently said that the economic mess was inherited, that the Recovery Act/stimulus package has worked, and that it's going to take time for the country to get back on track. Republicans and some business allies have countered that the health care law and other legislative priorities, like the proposed energy legislation, have cost the business community and make job creation difficult.

The poll numbers show that the White House's message of success, not so much in curing the economy, but success in doing what's right, doesn't seem to be sticking.

Last week at fundraiser in Missouri, the president acknowledged the difficulty he's had in convincing Americans that his administration has the right prescription to fix the economy. "You wouldn't know it from listening to folks, but we cut taxes for working families and for small business owners all across American to help them weather the storm," he said.

With a few months to go to November's midterm elections, the White House has big hill to climb to turn the economic numbers around. So they've begun to change the message.

As White House officials acknowledged this weekend, there is a real chance that Republicans can win the 40 congressional races to take control of the House of Representatives. For the administration, if what they have done to spur the economic recovery isn't getting credit for having worked, the best they can hope for is to convince voters that the GOP won't make things any better.

Here's the president himself making that point in a fundraiser last week in Nevada: "Basically, the other party, their whole argument is based on the notion, well, it hasn't moved fast enough. Well, I agree. I'd like to see us get out of this hole sooner, but you have to understand we are heading in the right direction. And what the other side is offering is basically to go back to the same ideas that got us into this mess in the first place. That's all they're doing."

Robert Hendin is a CBS News White House producer. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here.

[HemiHead66]

Obama's right, putting the Republicans in charge would be a mistake like no other. Just a few months ago when Obama popped up at that Republican meeting in Baltimore, the Repubs were still trying to get him to pass those crooked trade deals with Columbia, Panama & South Korea. But just because Obama isn't adding crooked trade deals doesn't mean he's fixing things. He promised during the election to correct this mess, and he hasn't done it. He did a few things, like kill that Mexican trucker program. He hit China with a tariff on steel & auto tires to save American jobs. And he got on China about their currency. But it's not enough. And the stimulus won't work unless trade is put of a level playing field. Today our trade deficit widened to an 18 month high of 42.3 billion. Even Canada ran a trade deficit over 500 million. There are a lot of Democrats in Washington that have had it with Obama on trade. And I'm sure there might be a couple Repubs, too. That's if the Repub leadership lets them be fed-up. I say we get rid of all these anti-American criminals and stock the house with people that'll look out for our best interest. Ya know, these so called multi-nationals don't pay any taxes. They only have to pay taxes if they bring money into the U.S. So they just keep putting it into places with slave labor. How do we compete against a zero tax rate, and workers making 40 bucks a week? But hey, that's fine, it's their company. But we don't have to open our markets to them. These creeps that call themselves American companies are robbing our country of billions in taxes, while having free access to our markets. We need to build our products here. They might cost a little more, but at least you'll have a job to be able to afford it. The products from overseas aren't that much cheaper, anyway. And the ones that are are garbage. If we only elected Ross Perot back when, we wouldn't be in this mess. Make sure everyone you vote for is going to look out for our best interest.

[ohiopolitico]

Obama lost his integrity with ObamaCare, he Rammed ObamaCare down our throats to meet his agenda of universal coverage. However he Failed to solve the real problem: healthcare costs. ObamaCare will Increase Healthcare costs. Massachusetts is prime example.
This was a Major, Fatal mistake for the Obama administration.
We cannot trust a president that does not listen to Americans and proceeds with a bad, bad ObamaCare bill.
Republicans had real solutions for healthcare but Obama ignored them, and pushed his agenda through.

[chosenson]

He should keep talking until the message sticks.

Have you heard what the Republicans are proposing? Cutting social security, and making people work until age 72 before they can retire?

And there are people out there who want to vote Republican?

[dtremaine]

stickbowman,
I agree with you except it's not that simple. First off, there are very few democrats that I would consider, good for America. Secondly, some republicans are also not good for America because they are also very progressive. Independent does not mean good, they can go anywhere, good or bad. We need a government that will uphold the constitution, a limited central government, but will keep our military strong. Today the military is more important than anytime in our history.

The president is not the CEO as defined by a corporation. He is the Commander in chief of the armed forces as well as a leader. Congress is a separate entity that for the most part acts on their own as does the Supreme Court. Hence, the balance of power. When we have liberal democrats in control of all three branches, we get a wild swing toward a Socialist government. If they are all conservative we get a swing toward small government and a government based on the constitution. Now when you add a progressive slant you get huge governmental bodies. This is true from the democrats, republicans or independents. Bush grew the government because he was a progressive but he was not a Marxist. Obama and the Congress is both democrat and progressive. This is the worst case combination. We need to keep the 5-4 split in the supreme court to help put some reins on the other two. FDR had the same issue so he changed the number of justices so he could handpick people he knew would not stand in his way of his extreme liberal progressive government take over. We can not allow that to happen again. We must take back congress as a first step. This will prevent any more damaging legislation and hopefully the repeal of the most damaging stuff put out so far by this congress. Then we will have the power to neuter this president. Never send him a bill he likes and ensure it's veto proof.
Don

[dtremaine]

The meltdown came from the democrat controlled congress. Obama has the same congress and he is having a field day destroying America one new bad law after the next. We are following the same destructive path that has been hurting Europe. While China has taken a more business oriented approach. Which country seems to be winning the prosperity game?
We need to get rid of all the libtards

[Dave_P6]

The Dow Jones has been up over 10,000 consistently for months and months now, the economy has been growing, not shrinking for months. I've been checking Monster.com, there are a ton of jobs out there, you just have to put effort into looking for them. But if conservatives acknowledged any of this, why then they couldn't blame all of their problems on Obama.

[dtremaine]

Is that why my 401k dropped 7% two month ago and another 4% last month?

[stormerF3]

No wonder the liar-N-Chief is having trouble,his Stimulis has not worked and the Healthcare bill will cost us Billions not saving money as Obama said it would. I wonder if Obama really believes all the crapola he is spouting?

[HemiHead66]

Obama's right, putting the Republicans in charge would be a mistake like no other. Just a few months ago when Obama popped up at that Republican meeting in Baltimore, the Repubs were still trying to get him to pass those crooked trade deals with Columbia, Panama & South Korea. But just because Obama isn't adding crooked trade deals doesn't mean he's fixing things. He promised during the election to correct this mess, and he hasn't done it. He did a few things, like kill that Mexican trucker program. He hit China with a tariff on steel & auto tires to save American jobs. And he got on China about their currency. But it's not enough. And the stimulus won't work unless trade is put of a level playing field. Today our trade deficit widened to an 18 month high of 42.3 billion. Even Canada ran a trade deficit over 500 million. There are a lot of Democrats in Washington that have had it with Obama on trade. And I'm sure there might be a couple Repubs, too. That's if the Repub leadership lets them be fed-up. I say we get rid of all these anti-American criminals and stock the house with people that'll look out for our best interest. Ya know, these so called multi-nationals don't pay any taxes. They only have to pay taxes if they bring money into the U.S. So they just keep putting it into places with slave labor. How do we compete against a zero tax rate, and workers making 40 bucks a week? But hey, that's fine, it's their company. But we don't have to open our markets to them. These creeps that call themselves American companies are robbing our country of billions in taxes, while having free access to our markets. We need to build our products here. They might cost a little more, but at least you'll have a job to be able to afford it. The products from overseas aren't that much cheaper, anyway. And the ones that are are garbage. If we only elected Ross Perot back when, we wouldn't be in this mess. Make sure everyone you vote for is going to look out for our best interest.

[stormerF3]

It is hard to Export items if we do not have a trade agreement,nitwit.

[pasha128]

The Republicans already put us in a hole. Elect them to run congress and they already have the shovels out ready to dig that hole deeper.

[HemiHead66]

Why do you have a comment board if you're not going to post the comments???????????????????

[grif615]

You know,,, I've been a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, looked at the Tea Party, read about the John Burch folks. Ignored the whole political show for several years. Long story short: The folks in DC, all of them, white house, senate, congress, the press and the justice department are just not doing an acceptable job. The press I understand, they're in it for the money, market share and fame. Well,,, OK. But the rest of them have been hired to do a job. All we can do is keep voting them out for all the good it'll do.

No more incumbents.