No Time Left for Economy to Rally for Democrats

Democrats have been hoping over the past few weeks for the economy to show some signs of life to save them from an election slaughter at the hands of Republicans. Those hopes have been dashed, Politico reports.

In his Jan. 27 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said, “We are on track to add another 1.5 million jobs by the end of the year.”

It didn’t quite work out that way. Through September, only 613,000 jobs have been added, and economists say the total for the whole year could drop below that level, as many employers are now shedding workers.

Announcing numerical economic goals has backfired on Obama.

“One of the rules of public policy is that you don’t put a number and a date in the same sentence,” says Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution.