That Said: Cautions for the other side, too. There's an article in National Review (not online) this week regarding the effect of unemployment on presidential elections. The author, Ramesh Ponnuru, wisely dismisses the notion that the jobless numbers will be Bush's weak spot. As Ramesh rightly observes, the jobless rate, about 6%, is low by historical standards. "Until the mid 1990s," he observes

many economists believed that the "natural" unemployment rate was between 5 and 6 percent, and that any attempt to drive it down further would ignite inflation. The unemployment rate in 1992, following the last recession, was 7.5 percent. it was still 6.1 percent in 1994, and nobody thought we were mired in a depression then.

I think this is right. Remember the old Capitol Steps song?

Hark, when Gerald Ford was king
We were bored with everything.
Unemployment 6 percent.
What a boring president.
Nothing major needed fixin’
So he pardoned Richard Nixon

Unemployment of 6% goes from being a yawner to "the worst economic performance since Herbert Hoover." Democrats can hype the 3% jobless figures from the late 90s, but the fact is that those numbers are a historical aberration. So 2 million people lost jobs since 2000. The question is, heartless as it may sound, were those jobs that needed to be lost based on the speculative hiring of the tech boom? And while it may be true that most unemployed people will vote Democratic, how many of the unemployed are chronically so? How many would vote Democrat anyway? It's a hard puzzle to put together, and any argument that a 6% jobless rate hurts Bush is conjecture.

People vote their pocketbook, I'm sure; but those employed right now are seeing business pick up. For 94% of the country, things are humming again. I've argued before that this might be as good as it gets, at least for a while. Seeing the NASDAQ double in the span of 3 years is not an economic necessity in my book, nor do I think it's a wise aim. I would caution any Democrat running on economic issues against citing the late 90s as a model. For one thing, history argues that the sort of growth we saw is unusual, to say the least. For another, we found out that such growth, when it's based on little concrete performance, looks like speculation -- but only after you've lost the principal. Finally, I think the sorts of incentives a president would have to offer to boost manufacturing -- where the job recovery is slowest -- would come with some unsavory economic consequences.

The better the economy gets, the more Democrats will have to hammer Bush on Iraq. Ironically, I think that's to their benefit. I think that's where they'll get traction, particularly if the press continues to play it as a failure. Bush has been unable to get his message across on our long-term commitments, the total cost, and what we expect out of it in the end. Until he does that, and does it well enough to bring the public around, he's vulnerable. Too bad he alienated John McCain. McCain could sell neoconservatism to the independents. Bush, so far, cannot.