Own the jobs conversation, President Obama: A 9.1% unemployment rate spells doom all around

All eyes will be on President Obama on Thursday night during his jobs speech.
All eyes will be on President Obama on Thursday night during his jobs speech. (Joe Raedle/Getty)

Now that the dustup over "schedule-gate" has settled, and we can rest assured that neither the GOP presidential debate nor a football game will be interrupted by yet another speech, we can look ahead to President Obama's jobs address Thursday night with the undistracted attention it deserves.

As the pundits speculate on what Obama is going to say about the soul-crushing 9.1% unemployment rate the country is facing, I find myself at a crossroads. When it comes to jobs, what is the proper tone to take?


How do you channel the plainspoken confidence of an FDR fireside chat while avoiding the infamous "malaise speech" that a dour Jimmy Carter delivered in 1979? Obama was supposed to be a communicator on the level of Reagan, but we still don't know how he intends to get the nation back to work.

If I wanted to be partisan, I'd say that nearly three years into his first term is a little late to be addressing one of the primary problems Obama was ostensibly elected to solve, and perhaps the only problem all Americans can agree needs fixing, pronto. If his speech relies on the kind of high-minded, academic theorizing Obama is fond of, instead of specific goals, I'm not sure that it will accomplish much this late in the game.


If I wanted to be snarky, I might muse on the President's previous attempts at job creation: An economic stimulus plan that promised to keep unemployment below 8%; relying on Vice President Biden - who famously miscounted even the letters in the word "jobs" - to help deliver Obama's economic growth message; and a magical misery bus tour through the heartland. I doubt the nation's unemployed millions are thinking, "Yes, what we need right now is a speech." When it comes to jobs, the American people aren't impressed by bus tours and rhetoric. They want results.

And if I simply wanted to send you leaping off a bridge, I would remind you that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the unemployment rate will remain above 8% until 2014, and that full employment won't return until 2017. To quote CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, "A great deal of the pain of this economic downturn still lies ahead of us." One address to Congress isn't going to fix that. Smart policy will.

But as easy as it would be to rely on partisanship, blistering snark and apocalyptic fear-mongering, this is an issue that crosses the political spectrum and requires some sensitivity. That's why it's important that on Thursday night, Obama finally strike a tone that respects the seriousness of the issue.

See, when it comes to jobs, the problem isn't political. It's personal, and the American people have no sense of humor. They also have zero tolerance for the kind of political partisanship, bickering, name-calling and finger-pointing that we reluctantly stomach when it comes to other debates.

Put it this way: The debate over raising the nation's debt ceiling was as "macro" as it gets, and the country still had it up to here with the partisan squabbling. Think how low the threshold is for an issue as personal as unemployment. You're not talking about some esoteric credit downgrade. You're talking about someone's livelihood.

Joblessness and the very serious realities of life without the prospect of a steady income truly set this issue apart from the rest. So if the President is planning on using his address to the joint session of Congress as an opportunity to merely attack Republicans - calling them "hostage takers" as he did over the tax cut compromise in 2010, for example - I can promise him that his abysmal approval numbers are only going to continue to decline.

I'm not optimistic. At a labor rally sponsored by the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO earlier this week, the President told a ginned-up crowd of Teamsters, "We're going to see if we've got some straight shooters in Congress. We're going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party." This, after Teamsters head James Hoffa attacked the Tea Party and implored the President to "take these son of a bitches out."

But as skeptical as I am that the President's tone will be measured and respectful, we should all look forward to hearing his jobs plan, regardless of our expectations. And while I expect much will mirror the stimulus plan - dumping more taxpayer dollars into more government programs - we should all hope that his proposal will at least lay out a path for Republicans and Democrats to work together toward meaningful job creation in the coming months.

Which raises another final warning, this time to Republicans, who should read the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll with great concern. An alarming 82% of voters disapprove of the job Congress is doing, and a majority would vote out every single member of Congress if they could.

So in the GOP response to the President's plan, Republicans should also take caution in their tone, and approach the issue of unemployment with sobriety and enthusiasm to work toward a solution, instead of reflexively attacking the President's proposal simply to look defiant.

That doesn't mean they should approve of bad fiscal policy or roll over for massive spending increases. But it does mean acknowledging that in the hearts and minds of voters, joblessness isn't a political punch line or an opportunity to score points. They want solutions, and they don't care who gets the credit.

Let's see if anyone can get the tone right.


S.E. Cupp, whose column appears on Wednesdays on NYDailynews.com and often in the print edition of the newspaper, is a political commentator and author of the book "Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity." She is also co-author of "Why You're Wrong About The Right." She hosts a daily show on GlennBeck.com and is a contributing editor at Townhall magazine. She lives in New York City.

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