Guy Molyneux, a Democratic pollster, said that while the economy might not be the sole factor in deciding Obama’s political fate, it will set the overall frame of the campaign.
“If things get worse, it would take a great campaign or a terrible failure by his opponent for Obama to win,” Molyneux said. “And if this ends up being just a hiccup and we see strong growth next year, then a Republican victory starts to look pretty unlikely.”
President Obama sought to draw attention to the auto industry's rebound with a visit Friday to a Chrysler plant in politically important Ohio. (June 3)
See which industries are adding jobs and which are still in bad shape.
Obama’s advisers said Friday’s job report could be an aberration and should not distract from the president’s success in helping rescue the economy from the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said on MSNBC that the plant Obama visited would have been closed if any of the Republican candidates had been president.
The jobs report was used in sharp attacks from leading Republican presidential candidates.
“What [Obama] did simply was wrong,” former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said during a town-hall meeting Friday in Manchester, N.H. “On almost every dimension, what he did did not help the economy get out of the slide it was in, but instead he extended the downturn and made it deeper.”
Romney added: “He can’t keep blaming George Bush. This is now his economy.”
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty said in a statement, “Today’s underwhelming job numbers report demonstrates President Obama’s failure to address the tough challenges we face as a nation.”
GOP strategists pointed to recent polls showing Obama’s weakness on the issue. A CNN poll published late last month found that 58 percent of Americans — including nearly two-thirds of independents — disapproved of the president’s job on the economy. Independents are viewed by Obama aides as a group crucial to his reelection bid.
Still, other polling numbers show that Obama continues to enjoy some advantages, including personal popularity. Fifty-two percent of Americans approve of his overall job performance, and nearly two-thirds said he “cares about people like me.”
“The main worry for Republicans at this point is nominating a strong and credible potential president,” said Whit Ayers, a GOP pollster. “I think we will, but obviously if you want to replace a current president, you have to nominate a credible alternative.”
Staff writers Philip Rucker, Perry Bacon Jr. and Dan Balz contributed to this report. Balz reported from New Hampshire.
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