Message Discipline at the RNC

The unexpectedly good job numbers — only 11,000 lost in November, revisions that kicked overall unemployment down to 10 percent — have been slotted into Republican National Committee attacks that read like they were written for a much gloomier economic report.

Yesterday, President Obama hosted a ‘jobs summit’ at the White House in an attempt to convince the media and the American public that his administration is concerned with unemployment. Unfortunately this so-called ‘jobs summit’ was not about creating jobs – it was about creating a distraction to hide the fact that President Obama has managed to create more bureaucracy in Washington than jobs for American families.  More than 11,000 Americans lost their jobs in the month of November, meaning more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus passed, and the national unemployment rate remains in double digits.  If President Obama is truly interested in job creation, then he should stop campaigning for reelection, stop pushing ‘Stimulus II,’ and start working with Republicans on common-sense conservative solutions.

“Common-sense conservative” is, for what it’s worth, a favorite phrase of Sarah Palin. “Common sense” full stop is the phrase more often used by beltway Republicans.

The focus on “double-digit unemployment” is a little jarring with unemployment at 10.0 percent. If there’s any drop whatsoever next month, it hands a huge victory to White House spin doctors. By comparison, here’s how Rea Hederman of the Heritage Foundation greeted the news:

[T]his is very good news for the labor market. We know that the mass layoffs and firings ended in early spring. This report indicates that the next step in the recovery is commencing. Employers are starting to hire new workers in a variety of new fields, as seen by the strong growth in professional and business services.

The question now will be how strong the recovery is.