President Obama loves anecdotes. Virtually every speech he gives includes a personal story, which he often claims to have received in the mail, from a hapless American who owes their livelihood to an Obama spending program. If a billion-dollar boondoggle made at least one person happy, it was worthwhile. The President looks upon the land of the free, and sees a nation of Julias.
Of course, the President never quotes from unhappy letters he has received. The Romney campaign decided to play his game by releasing a video called “A Few of the 23 Million.” The number refers to Americans who are “out of work, underemployed, or have stopped looking for work.” The latter two groups don’t show up in the official unemployment rate, whose tiny downward ticks Obama loves to celebrate, even though they are mostly (and last month, entirely) due to people leaving the workforce altogether.
The plural of anecdote is not “data,” but since the President is fond of embellishing his policy demands with a couple of moving stories carefully plucked from the vast American population – and since he’s been trying to place a personalized stamp of disapproval on Mitt Romney’s business career, by dredging up complaints about actions Bain Capital took years after Romney left – it’s only fair to hear from a few of the many folks who find Obama’s handling of the economy less than optimal.
