Just a cautionary note to Republicans who may have been taunting, baiting or needling their liberal friends over Obama's falling ratings: Over the past four days, Obama's negative Rasmussen Approval Index has been cut in half as he rises from a low of -12 four days ago, to -6 today. In overall approval, he is back above 50%, to 51%.
Time will tell whether this is a temporary bump or a permanent reversal. In the meantime, it cannot hurt to heed the advice of Larry Kudlow. The economist and TV commentator has been tracking improving economic figures for days, believes we're in a new bull market and warns doom-and-gloom Republicans (emphasis mine): [T]he fact remains that numerous signs are now pointing to economic recovery. And the GOP needs to craft a smart political response to this. Obama and Biden will surely take credit for the better economic news, just as any White House would. It's the way the political game is played. But Republicans have to play the game, too.
A tremendous summer rally is going on in stocks, and it's being driven by better corporate profits and improved leading indicators - including a possible upturn in housing starts and sales, and a major downward spike in weekly initial jobless claims. So you have to believe the stock market is calling the tune for recovery.
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Senator DeMint told me... that the economy is getting better mainly because of the corrective forces of free-market capitalism in the private free-enterprise sector, and not from all this government spending and borrowing. Abstracting from the Fed's big stimulus effort, he's right.
But the White House is going to take credit for economic recovery anyway, and that's the newest political challenge for the GOP.
Ironically, as Kudlow points out in the above article, and others have written, the market seems to be going up as Obama's popularity and Obamacare's prospects go down. Does this mean, then, that as Obama's popularity and Obamacare's prospects improve, the stock market and economy will decline? Which, in turn, would drive Obama's numbers down and, subsequently, the market and economy back up? Whoever can figure a way to turn those ups and downs into a ride at Coney Island will make a fortune.
But in the meantime, if the economy continues to improve, the GOP, as Kudlow urges, needs to have a plan to make sure that the American business's resliency in the face of Obama's policies, and not the policies themselves, gets the credit.
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