Since all the evidence says that elections depend on the rate of change of unemployment, not its level, this is actually bad news for Obama: he’s setting himself up for an economic stall in the months leading into the 2012 election.

Paul Krugman, caught in the act of being exactly right. Couple this with the decision to let these Bush tax cuts expire in an election year again, and you’ve got recipe for disaster.
On what planet do these (so called) Democrats live? Do they expect to learn from the messaging disaster they perpetrated in the ten year leadup to this battle? Nothing I’ve seen from anybody, dog catcher up to President, has shown me that they have any chance of even budging the conversation, much less crafting a winning electoral message on this in the face of a still-stagnant economy and ~10% unemployment come 2012.
Obama’s determination to be the “next Carter” is really remarkably strong. I’d say he’s one killer rabbit away from being little more than a punch-line.
Get out there and fight for something, anything. What is so hard to understand about that? Why is it so terrifying for them? This is why they fail.