The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Bad GOP candidates could help Democrats hold the U.S. Senate
In the November midterms, Republicans are widely expected to win control of the House — possibly by a landslide. However, the Senate is much more highly contested, and a G.O.P. victory is by no means a guarantee.
Nate Silver’s Fivethirtyeight gives Democrats a 57% chance of keeping control of the Senate, but gives the G.O.P. an 80% chance of winning the House.
This discrepancy is due to the weakness of swing-state Republican Senate candidates, whose extreme positions, lack of experience or personal vulnerabilities make them far more susceptible to defeat in a statewide race than a more mainstream and experienced Republican would be.
That being said, if 2022 ends up being a red-wave election like 1994 or 2010 — as most predict it will be — the weakness of individual G.O.P. candidates will be less important than the overall pro-republican tide.
In Arizona, Trump-backed venture capitalist Blake Masters just won the Republican nomination for Senate, and will face incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who Fivethirtyeight gives a 67% chance of winning in their forecast. Kelly also leads in all public polls conducted this summer by at least 5 points.
As one of the most extreme Republican swing-state Senate candidates, Masters champions far-right conspiracy theories, including Trump’s “Big Lie” about the 2020 election and the anti-immigrant Great Replacement Theory. He is also well outside the mainstream on key issues, as he is anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion and antiamerican aid to Ukraine.
In Georgia, former NFL star Herschel Walker, Trump’s handpicked nominee, is a highly problematic general election candidate. He openly echoes conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election, COVID-19 and evolution, and has been embattled in a number of personal scandals — including the discovery of three children and lying about working in law en
Or at least that’s what Desse said in 2008. Now that he advises a White House experiencing two quarters of negative GDP growth he says: “two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession.”
And so it goes. Bracing for the news, the White House started trying at least a day early to clean up the wreckage, according to Politico’s Chief Economic Correspondent, Ben White.
“Senior administration officials are hitting the airwaves and arm-twisting reporters in private, imploring anyone who will listen that the economy — despised by majorities of both Republicans and Democrats fed up with inflation — is still healthy,” White wrote.
Apparently, the White House’s efforts worked. The New York Times opined: “Is Recession Staring Us Down? Already Upon Us? Here’s Why It’s Hard to Say.”
The Los Angeles Times asked: “Why is it so hard to say if this is a recession?”
But the Huffington Post left no such wiggle room: “We’re Not In A Recession, But We Could Be Soon.”
And of course the gatekeepers of truth in Silicon Valley toed the line.
As reported by Nellie Bowles in Common Sense, Wikipedia’s “recession” page has been updated hundreds of times in the past few days and at one point even had an entry that said: “An outdated version of this article has been widely circulated. Please verify that claims or screenshots you may have seen are consistent with the actual content here.” Meanwhile, Facebook famously flagged a post from an economic historian about the definition fiasco with the warning “false information” and added a “fact check.”
“It’s not a recession if Biden didn’t see his shadow,” joked Bowles.
Jean-pierre offered strong jobs numbers as proof we’re not in a recession. It’s true that the economy added 528,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate is 3.5 percent. These are unquestionably good numbers.
And according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, employment is one of the factors of measuring a a recession, as is GDP (which is down), real earnings (which are down), industrial production (down), and wholesale-retail sales (which is up modestly after being slightly down last month).
Even if you’re scoring it based on NBEA, the White House has a weak case.
California’s long lost friend, Neel Kashkari, who ran for governor in 2014 and is best remembered for pretending to be homeless in Fresno for a day, now heads the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He says inflation is the biggest concern, according to CNBC.
Inflation last month hit a four-decade high, up 9.1% over a year ago.
“Whether we are technically in a recession or not doesn’t change my analysis,” Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I’m focused on the inflation data.”
Recession or not, the economy is having some problems. The White House and Congressional
Democrats are pushing forward with something called the Inflation Reduction Act, which is actually supposed to increase inflation, according to the Tax Foundation. It’s also not the first massive spending bill during Biden’s presidency to increase inflation.
Not too long ago, Congressional Democrats and the White House passed another spending bill, which was in response to COVID. Though prior COVID relief efforts were bipartisan, the American Rescue Act package was supported only by Democrats, with Republicans and many others questioning whether it was necessary. And it turns out the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found in March of this year that the American
Recovery Act did in fact increase inflation by at least three percentage points.
Even rosy forecasts are predicting the Inflation Reduction Act will increase inflation through at least 2024.
So to recap: The U.S. is in a recession and is suffering from rising inflation. In response, the White House is trying to rewrite the definition of recession, is planning to increase inflation and is hoping that good jobs numbers will make everyone forget that real earnings are down.
I couldn’t think of a better ending, so here’s Conan O’brien: “The White House now says it’s only a recession if you see a salamander wearing a top hat.”