winner as a political speech. if that s the speech he gets to deliver and the backdrop he enjoys for the entire campaign, he s going to be hard to beat. but the question is, what s going to happen four, five, six months from now? are we going to reach a point where the skulls are we going to have june, july, august where unemployment drops. if that s the backdrop, we revert to where we were in 2010, where that republican message of he made it worse, saying it over and over again, that kind of works. but there s been a pivot, because the obama message was, here s what it s going to do. now it s about bragging about, here s what it did. and that s a much more confident place to be. and that s the democratic calculus on this. in terms of the republican calculus on this, while the economy is moving in the directions that we are seeing it move in, and while he s making speeches like that about the auto bailout, does that drive republicans towards campaigning on social issues? that s i
months from now? are we going to reach a point where the skulls are we going to have june, july, august where unemployment drops. if that s the backdrop, we revert to where we were in 2010, where that republican message of he made it worse, saying it over and over again, that kind of works. but there s been a pivot, because the obama message was, here s what it s going to do. now it s about bragging about, here s what it did. and that s a much more confident place to be. and that s the democratic calculus on this. in terms of the republican calculus on this, while the economy is moving in the directions that we are seeing it move in, and while he s making speeches like that about the auto bailout, does that drive republicans towards campaigning on social issues? that s interesting. and i think you reach a point, if we don t have bad news this year. if the good news sort of continues, let s face it, obama s basically going to be unbeatable for re-election. because at the end of th
joining us now is steve kornacki, the political news editor for salon.com. steve, thank you for coming in. sure. have we turned a corner, where the thing that was thought to be president obama s big electoral weakness may now be his strength? for the moment we have. i mean, i d say the recovery at this point is as tenuous as obama s poll numbers are, really. i mean, we ve had five straight months of declining unemployment. we re now down to sort of the lowest unemployment level since the first full month of his presidency. you ve got the dow, you ve got nasdaq, and you ve got polls really starting to show that voters for the first time really in his presidency are feeling more confident about the direction the country s going in. so that s when that s sort of the backdrop for a speech like yesterday, that s going to be a winner as a political speech. if that s the speech he gets to deliver and the backdrop he enjoys for the entire campaign, he s going to be hard to beat. but the
obama with 56% of their vote. today, it s down to 38%. african-american voters will not forsake barack obama. we know that white liberals normally would never abandon the first black president, not if it means voting for some vanilla liberal democrat white guy. but if they get a chance to vote for hillary clinton, they can make history twice. the first time they elected the first black president. the second time it will be the first woman president. and this will go a long way in easing their white liberal guilt which normally knows no bounds. now, if things change, if the economy takes off, if unemployment drops, if the tooth fairy leaves, you know, a couple of trillion dollars under barack obama s pillow, fine. but if miracles don t happen, all i m saying is keep an eye on hillary.
obama with 56% of their vote. today, it s down to 38%. african-american voters will not forsake barack obama. we know that white liberals normally would never abandon the first black president, not if it means voting for some vanilla liberal democrat white guy. but if they get a chance to vote for hillary clinton, they can make history twice. the first time they elected the first black president. the second time it will be the first woman president. and this will go a long way in easing their white liberal guilt which normally knows no bounds. now, if things change, if the economy takes off, if unemployment drops, if the tooth fairy leaves, you know, a couple of trillion dollars under barack obama s pillow, fine. but if miracles don t happen, all i m saying is keep an eye on hillary.