Arguably historic? Ok, make your argument. Why was it historic?
Of course, there aren’t any historically memorable job reports. But that’s not the statement I was responding to. You said “Presidential elections are won or lost based on job reports”, which is roughly true in broad strokes: overall economic health, which is reflected by the job report, tracks closely with the electoral success of the incumbent party.
The highest viewership for a first Presidential debate since Carter vs. Reagan in 1980. According to polls, the biggest difference between who won and lost the debate (a 42% difference between those who thought Romney won, vs. Obama) in something like 50 years. And aside from the objective numbers, people were shocked to see how effective Romney looked, and how cowed the President looked. It’s safe to say that almost no one expected the debate to go this way. Having a first debate go like this strikes me as very surprising, which makes it historic.
The really historic thing was that Chris Christie was right.
It’s only surprising because Romney spent the last 2 months stepping on his dick. I don’t think crushing low expectations is historic. And why would the mere fact that it’s surprising make something historic?
Hugin
1986
All of this misses the point, which is the essential nature of news and public discourse.
The new thing pushes down the old thing, assuming the things are roughly the same size (WW3 or somesuch would be so big it would remain the “thing” even if other smaller stories came up).
The debate was the new thing yesterday.
The jobs report is the new thing today (with help from stupid conservatives spinning conspiracy theories about the jobs report being manipulated).
It’s not complicated, or even partisan (there’s more jobs report talk than debate talk today even at the major conservative sites).
I’m sure there’ll be some new nonsense tomorrow…well, what with the holiday weekend, maybe not major nonsense until Tuesday.
Yeah, what the hell is up with Republicans accusing the administration of manipulating the jobs report? It’s so demonstrably false it makes them look crazy and totally takes the focus away from Romney’s debate performance. Now we get to talk about reality have a definite liberal bias, again.
It’s only crazy to people who put a moment of thought into it, which accounts for what - 5% of the electorate?
Canuck
1989
It could be even worse than that.
“This is a very big deal. The staff and surveyors who work so hard on this go into total lockdown. They take it very seriously,” said Heather Bouchey, senior economist with the Center for American Progress in Washington.
“The process is highly respected globally. And that’s why people around the world make investment decisions based on their faith in this data,” she said. “So if an elected member of Congress is saying he doesn’t believe the American numbers, who should people around the world believe it? It’s just unconscionable.”
I almost feel sorry for Romney. He has a great debate performance and he can’t enjoy it for 24 hours before the crazy wing of the GOP wants to change the subject.
Republicans worried about looking crazy? Not likely. Hasn’t stopped them for years.
A nice, short description of a point I’ve mentioned before, courtesy of Nate Silver:
Historically, there has been no relationship at all between the unemployment rate on Election Day and the incumbent’s performance.
However, there has been a relationship between the change in the unemployment rate in the months leading up to the election and how well the incumbent does. The decline in unemployment under Mr. Obama this year since December is the largest in an election year since Ronald Reagan’s re-election bid, when it declined to 7.3 percent in Sept. 1984 from 8.3 percent in Dec. 1983.
corsair
1993
Mitt Romney - paying the way for QT3. I like that we are doing our small part to suck some money of his campaign with those banner ads at the top of the page!
You know, you’re right: I can’t think of a single historic event which involved someone beating low expectations. None at all.
News, yes. Public discourse, no.
I thought we were talking about public perception, not the newness of events. Yes, news sites are going to favorite the stories that are newer; that’s not the point. It’s that public perception of the debate results is going to last much, much longer than discussion of the jobs report. If nothing else, there are enduring images coming out of the debate which simply aren’t there in the jobs report. This is obviously anecdata, but I had multiple people talking to me about the debate yesterday and today, yet not one person came up to me to discuss the jobs report.
To the average voter, “Wow did you see the difference between both sides in the debate?” is a more enduring and interesting story than “Hey, did you see that the latest jobs numbers are slightly lower than expected?”
I almost feel like Obama purposely sandbagged this one just so the next two debates he can come out swinging and everybody will be like “Now there is the prez schooling Romney like he should have the first time.”
Plus I think if Obama steamrolled Romney, nobody would watch the next debates. Now everybody has a reason to see if Obama can be the comeback kid.
By the way, Romney’s face seemed to turn red a lot ad he was noticeably sweating during the debate. I think that will only get worse if Obama attacks him.
And that is another thing, now Obama can go full nuclear on him and nobody will say anything since Romney already attacked him the first go around.
In the same way Obama got the most votes of any US president ever - because the population keeps going up. The viewership was 67 million out of a 311 million population, or 21.5%. To pick the first example that came to mind, Clinton’s first 1996 debate was 46 million out of 265 million, or 17.3%. That’s not exactly an enormous gap. Bush-Kerry 2004’s first was 62.5 million out of 293 million, or 21.3% - virtually the same as last night’s.
Having a first debate go like this strikes me as very surprising, which makes it historic.
Other than it being boring as hell?
Yeah, the Fed is always behind the scenes. You’ll never see someone say “well Federal reserve action lead inflation expectations to increase 0.3%, so I increased orders”, but that’s the standard channel for resolving recessions. The effect is absolutely enormous compared to short-run tax and spending shifts, but it’s subtle and distributed, so no one picks up on it.
i wish my workplace was like where you guys work. no one here talks about current events like debates or job reports.
Hugin
1998
Ah anecdata. See, the talk of my office all day was the jobs report.
(Full disclosure, I work in an office full of economists, that might be a wee bit of a skewed demographic)
Anyway, my core point is, the debate was a bad day for Obama, the jobs report was a good day for Obama, following a bad day with a good day is good, certainly better than following a good day with a bad day or not having a good day at all.
Meanwhile, the second debate comes, Obama hopefully exhibits 20 percent more pep, and the narrative will be what an awesome comeback he made or whatever.
LOL, ya think. IIRC, you work for a think tank or the government right?
I’m going to a party girl’s birthday party tomorrow night. I might hear something about the debate, the mayor race conceivably, if I hear the job’s report mentioned I’ll know I’m in the wrong place.
I’m glad no one talks much about debates (and politics in general) at my work. Because I am pretty positive I don’t want to hear their opinions on the subject and they sure as hell don’t want to hear mine.
