Tomorrow Americans across the land will vote in Super Tuesday primary elections. Ohio — the prototypical swing state — is once again ready to swing.
The latest polls show that the race between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney in the Ohio Republican presidential primary is too close to call. The polls indicate that Romney has made up a fair amount of ground over the past few days and is doing well with late-deciding voters. There also are indications that Ohioans are not exactly straining at the leash to address “social issues” and would rather that the focus remain on the economy.
I’m not surprised by any of these results. Although Ohio has some folks at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, in my experience most Ohioans are middle-of-the-road, pragmatic people. They don’t seek out conflict. They are fully capable of having a political conversation with a friend or co-worker who has a different political viewpoint without seeing the discussion devolve into name-calling or cheap shots. Ohioans largely keep to themselves and expect their neighbors to do likewise. And, if they think there is a problem, they just want to fix it, without paying too much attention to who gets the credit.
This year, Ohioans know all too well that the economy has been poor, and they are interested in seeing how that problem can be fixed. I expect that tomorrow’s results will give the country a pretty good idea of which Republican candidate middle America thinks is best suited to that job.
Some mayors have lost patience with protests that disrupt neighborhoods and interfere with commerce. In other areas the “Occupy” protests appear to have attracted the attention of criminal elements who sense the presence of trusting souls who are ripe for the picking. In still other places the protesters look to be lashing out indiscriminately, and doing curious things like deciding to occupy random buildings
So, the President’s speeches, radio addresses, and instructions to “pass this bill right away” failed to drum up support for his bill. No shocker there! Any request for another half trillion dollars in “stimulus” spending and tax increases was never going to pass Congress with Republicans in charge of the House, although it may be surprising that the bill couldn’t even get the unanimous support of Senate Democrats. In any case, the President can now rail against a “do-nothing” Congress during next year’s campaign — which may have been part of his motivation for proposing the doomed measure in the first place.
Some participants are protesting “corporate greed,” others object to the role of corporations in politics, and still others appear to be venting general anger and frustration about our economic problems. Similar protests have occurred in other cities, too. (The story linked above says “A group in Columbus, Ohio, also marched on the capital city’s street” — which makes our fair city sound like a one-horse town. Hey, AP! For the record, we’ve got more than one street in Columbus.)
he great thing about America is that the First Amendment allows the anger and frustration to be vented through peaceful protest, and the act of protest allows the protesters’ message to reach a wider audience. If the protest strikes a chord with a sufficiently large segment of the population, as happened with the Tea Party, then stray protests can become a movement. It remains to be seen whether the Wall Street protests have that kind of broad impact or staying power, but we’ll find out soon enough. Until then, I say let them protest, and applaud their exercise of their First Amendment rights.
The times in Cleveland are so challenging that, when 
The first part of the speech seemed like “same old, same old,” and I think it will generally be perceived as such. It appears to be more of the “stimulus” concept that has been tried and — in the views of many people, at least, including me — has been found wanting. We’ll see what the bill itself says, but funding road and bridge construction projects to benefit construction firms and construction workers, extending unemployment benefits for yet another year, and arguing that the federal government should pay for the hiring of teachers, among other proposals, all sounds very familiar. How is any of this different from the massive 2009 stimulus bill that has come, been borrowed and spent, and gone, and nevertheless left unemployment above 9 percent?
The media is reporting that 
That’s right: a big, fat zero. Nada. Zilch. A goose egg. Naught. Zippo. What could be a more apt and powerful description for the moribund state of our economy? Neither up nor down. Dead in the water and becalmed. Not really doing anything. It’s the first time since 1945, 66 years ago, that the government reported a net job change of zero.
Why is consumer confidence so low? Well, wouldn’t it be fairer to ask why consumer confidence should be higher? The American consumer is like a punch-drunk fighter that has been absorbing repeated haymakers for months now. Whether it is the continued high unemployment rate, record numbers of home foreclosures, unending deficit spending, or paltry economic growth, there just isn’t any good news to grab onto. Why should consumers have confidence when the trading patterns of the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street have all of the stock exchange indices jacking up and down like a bungee jumper and our political leaders can’t or won’t present any plans that plausibly seem capable of changing things for the better?
* It’s knocked the stories about the Ohio State football program off the front page
Why did the market drop like a drunken sailor after his last mug of grog? Who knows? The zig zags of the market are beyond the ken of mortal investors. Perhaps the Wall Street wizards have come to recognize what most of us have realized for a long time — the economy sucks wind like an overweight sprinter, and its not getting whipped into shape by the expensive “cures” emanating from Washington, D.C.
My grandmother told me, however, that I should always look on the bright side. I’ve tried to do that about the current sad state of the American economy, and have come up with the following possible silver linings:
The most recent analysis of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, released Friday, estimates that the “stimulus” has cost $666 billion and produced between 2.4 million and 3.6 million jobs. The 2.4 million jobs estimate was developed using the “CEA Multiplier Model” and the 3.6 million estimate was based on the “CEA Statistical Projection Approach.” 
