>>That is part of the problem - in order to get the republican nomination they need the fringe republicans on their side. The result of course is you end up with another wackjob. This goes back to what I was saying before about their party being out-of-touch with society (and reality in general in many cases)
>>Well their other option of doing Obama-bashing probably does not seem too appealing to them right now - the economy is better off now than we he took office - saved the auto-industry - got bin laden - took care of the housing bubble bust, unemployment is down - but then you listen to the republican wackjobs and they say that Obama wants to destroy America. Dick Cheney loves to say that.
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>Victor, I agree that the "Obama wants to destroy American" slogans aren't very productive. Having said that...
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>The unemployment rate statistic is down, but that is not very good news in this case. Labor force/civilian population rates are also down to their lowest levels in decades. The unemployment rate is an approximation at best and does not factor in long-term unemployment. If you applied the labor force rate that existed at the beginning of this current administration, the unemployment rate would be well over 10%. We have too many people who have been out of work for a long time and too many people in part time jobs.
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>Median wages have dropped, lower middle and middle class take home pay has dropped due to his increasing the payroll tax in early 2013 (at a time when he tried to give all members of Congress a pay raise), and more individuals are on Food Stamps (though I partly blame the government for incentivizing welfare at the state level). And then you have Hillary Clinton's "moment of clarity" this week when she said she was surprised to learn how much small businesses were struggling. The recover continues to be very slow - so slow in fact, that the federal government played a shell game with health care payments last fall to make the GDP growth appear artificially high. Senior citizens are turning increasingly against him because of the problem of interest rates.
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>I don't pin all the problems of the economy on the president, but I will say that the policies that came out of his first two years (when he had control of House and Senate) have pinned himself in a box that makes it very difficult to do anything.

Regarding the White House and the economy:
I'd have to say that Obama's rescue of GM was a major success.
There were some failures like Solyndra too.
Overall, I'd say that the effect of the White House on the overall economy is overestimated.
The Fed is really calling the shots.

>>Senior citizens are turning increasingly against him because of the problem of interest rates.
Yep. All my repub golf buddies say that too.
What possible connection does he have with interests rates?