Well, at least Romney won Florida last night.

Gingrich has been using scorched earth tactics ever since he lost Iowa.

Didn't realize there wasn't another debate for a while. That'll certainly help Romney keep the momentum, as long as he doesn't say anything else stupid that can sound bad out of context like he did this morning.

True, true. Although those numbers are deceptive because 1.2 million people dropped out of the workforce and the labor force participation rate is now at an all time low of only 63%. You know things are bad when we're happy about 8.3 unemployment, when Obama's plan promised it would never go above 8% and that it would be at 6% by now. My underemployed friend who was on unemployment for two years before she was able to find her current, crappy job said she laughed when reading all the positive news stories yesterday. For this to be a normal recovery, we need 13 million more jobs than we currently have. It's simply a weak recovery fill of crappy McDonalds jobs, just like the early part of the recovery in the mid 00's. The manufacturing jobs have mostly disappeared the last 10 to 15 years...

Man, Romney's head to head stats with Obama have depreciated the past few days. Must be a function of that dumb gaffe he made and the superficially good economic numbers. Gas prices look to be going up soon with Spring on the horizon, that won't help Obama's numbers....Regardless, it a long way till November...

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

Try not to sound too excited about economic decline. I for one want the economy to recover because it's a good thing.

Sorry if it sounded that way. I certainly don't enjoy being gouged at the gas pump.

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

And the numbers aren't superficial. For the last 6 months, the economy has averaged 200,000 jobs created per month.

If we want to fully get into the boom period that typically follows a recession, we need to be averaging 500-750K per month, which is extremely difficult even in a good economic environment. Slow is a good descriptor of this "recovery." I would also say "anemic."

There seems to be some problems with the way they calculate the unemployment rate. Even the CBO says the real rate is actually around 10%. As I said above, the latest drop in the unemployment rate was partly from the 1.2 million people that no longer "counted" in the way they calculate it because they "dropped out" of the workforce. I remember democrats saying that same thing from 2004 to 2007, but I dismissed it because we were under 5% unemployment then, showing at least that in spite of any weird calculations, we had employment as high as it can normally go. When it gets as big as 7 or 8% or higher though, it makes me wonder, as that stat is bad regardless.

Also, there's all the people that had to take jobs below their skill level and earning potential because of a lack of better jobs. I have several friends in that situation, and I'm in a similar situation where I can't find a better job now that I've decided I don't want to be involved in the legal field. Still, it's all better than being unemployed...

Ha, I wonder who leaked that memo. Thanks for linking to it, it was a good read. The media is really talking about Santorum's victories last night, but that memo spelled out well why it doesn't matter too much. Like they said on CNN last night, McCain lost plenty of states after winning Florida the last go around, and still easily won. Santorum & Gingrich simply don't have enough organization or money.

The only good thing about this though is that the Illinois primary might actually matter for once.

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

Probably the head honchos in the campaign. When you can tout odds like that, you want people to know about it, particularly coffers that can put money in your pocket.

Yeah, well said Fighter.

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

I'll admit that I was a bit surprised to see Santorum win Iowa.

I guess the social conservative wing of the party just has its tenterhooks on the GOP vote out there unfortunately - even when economics are largely more important in this election.

Yeah, I was sort of implying any and all states he's won anyway.