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By Dave Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer
Donors in April contributed $96,424 to presidential campaigns from ZIP codes in the Almanac’s circulation area, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics.
April results from Atherton, Menlo Park, Portola Valley and Woodside add $65,924 to Mr. Obama’s coffers, bringing his local year-to-date total to $919,916 for this election cycle, as compiled by OpenSecrets.org, the website of the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. Former Gov. Mitt Romney received $30,500, bringing his overall local total to $537,490.
Mr. Obama led the month with 59 donors versus Mr. Romney’s 19.
The totals do not include political action committee fundraising, including the unlimited fundraising by super PACs, nor do they note any clustering of donations from Peninsula fundraising parties.
Under the law, individuals are limited to giving $2,500 per campaign per election. Since there are two elections this year the primary in June and the general in November an individual’s total gift can reach $5,000.
Because Mr. Obama is unopposed, his donors can give now for both the primary and general elections. Eleven donors gave $2,500 for the primary; 10 of them gave another $2,500 for the general, the report showed.
With the general-election donations factored out, Mr. Obama’s total for April drops to $40,924.
The fundraising sport is now generally conceded to be the determinant of our elections, considering the amount of space the media devote to it. Since this suggests that elections are determined by the frequent half-truths and misleading hints about opponents, we could save a lot of money and cancel the voting. Just tote up the dollar total and the winner is: democracy is dead, because the electorate lacks adequate intelligence.
Golly, great idea.
Not.
Or we could publicly finance elections. Have politicians owe their ‘favors’ to the people who voted, not to those with the deepest pockets, whether they be corporate or union.
Today Mitt Romney said that the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing the unemployment rate had ticked up to 8.2 percent, is “devastating news” for the nation and more proof that President Obama’s economic approach isn’t working.
The report showed 69,000 jobs were added in May, far below the 150,000 that many economists had forecast and the Obama administration had hoped.
“This week has seen a cascade of one bad piece of economic news after another,” Mr. Romney said in a news release. “Slowing GDP growth, plunging consumer confidence, an increase in unemployment claims and now another dismal jobs report all stand as a harsh indictment of the president’s handling of the economy. It is now clear to everyone that President Obama’s policies have failed to achieve their goals and that the Obama economy is crushing America’s middle class.”
The jobs report is another gut check for Mr. Obama, whose federal health care overhaul has been casted as a job-killer by Republicans and whose administration sold the $831 billion stimulus package on the idea that it would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.
But that has not happened in the 39 months since Mr. Obama traveled to Denver in early 2009 to sign the bill into law — giving Mr. Romney an easy target to attack on the campaign trail.
The lower than predicted job creation numbers also seem to buoy Mr. Romney’s argument that he is better equipped than the president to tackle the nation’s economic problems after spending decades in the private sector.
Survey after survey shows that while voters may see Mr. Obama as the more likable guy, they trust Mr. Romney more when it comes to improving the economy.
“The president’s re-election slogan may be ‘forward,’ but it seems like we’ve been moving backward. We can do so much better in America. That’s why I’m running for president,” Mr. Romney said.
Snore… just a cut and paste from Rev Syung Moon’s mouthpiece, the Washington Times.
Unatttributed copyright infringement of Seth McLaughlin’s material.
Snore.
Are the editors leaving it up?
Shall we point out the inaccuracies by Rev Moon’s blogger? or is it coming down anyway?
Feeble hiring by U.S. employers in May added gloom to an already darkening picture of the economy, which appears to be joining Europe and Asia in a spreading slowdown.
Employers added a seasonally adjusted 69,000 jobs last month, the smallest increase in a year, while numbers for the two prior months were clipped by a combined 49,000. The politically salient jobless rate ticked up—to 8.2% from 8.1% in April—and the report quickly became a flash point for a presidential election focused on the job-creating bona fides of the candidates.
Jobs were only one of the disappointing numbers out Friday that fueled anxiety about the U.S. economy. A separate report showed manufacturing growth cooled in May, with troublingly sharp drops in both production and exports. Another report showed consumer spending rose in April, but by more than incomes, suggesting the risk of consumers struggling to keep spending.
To be sure, the U.S. shows resilience in some areas. Inflation remains tame and auto sales continue to boom, while falling energy prices are helping ease some of the stress for consumers. But the larger picture is of a U.S. economy that seemed to be gaining traction earlier in the year only to start wobbling as the weather got warmer—a familiar pattern in recent years.
Stock markets tumbled in the wake of the job report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid more than 200 points, giving up its gains for the year, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 entered correction territory.
Jittery investors fled to bonds, with the 10-year Treasury’s yield falling below 1.5% for the first time ever. Gold surged above $1,600 and the dollar weakened against the euro and yen as traders positioned for possible stimulative action by the Federal Reserve.
But the central bank’s most influential decision makers have been hesitant to signal any additional moves. The report will give volume to the advocates of action and put pressure on officials to act, though it’s not clear this will result in a broader consensus for action right away.
Some Fed officials might want to wait to see more data before making what would surely be a controversial decision to do more to spur growth.
“The economy is shifting from ‘muddling through’ to paralysis,” Pierpont Securities economist Stephen Stanley said.
The jobs report came a day after the government downgraded its estimate of economic growth in the first quarter to a 1.9% annual rate, down from 3% in the fourth quarter of 2011. Some analysts said they planned to lower expectations for growth in the current quarter.
The U.S. recovery appears to be tracking a similar pattern of the three-year-old recovery, in which the economy gains steam early in the year only to slow down in the spring and summer. Previous slowdowns, however, have been more clearly linked to isolated events—such as a gas-price spike or a disaster such as last year’s Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Economists attribute the slower growth to several factors. A warm winter likely led companies to hire earlier than usual, boosting winter job growth but taking away from spring job growth.
Renewed concerns about Europe—including the prospect of a Greece exit from the euro and subsequent contagion in financial markets—is shaking consumer and business confidence. Uncertainty about domestic policy—including what happens with a variety of tax rates that are set to rise at the end of the year—could be causing businesses to hold off on hiring.
Friday’s labor-market report was disappointing nearly all around. Job growth over the past three months is less than half the average 250,000-plus jobs added in the three earlier months—and nearly every sector has been hit. Workers saw their weekly hours cut, a sign of weaker demand from customers. The ranks of the long-term unemployed rose.
Dude does like to steal content, doen’t he?
This time from a Murdoch paper, not Rev Moon
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