Gratitude? Fuggedaboutit

As Ken Burns’ superb documentary on the Roosevelts reminded us, “Happy Days Are Here Again” is one of the most evocative anthems in the history of the Democratic Party. You have to ask: Why aren’t the Democrats, and the country, singing it loudly now?

A party controlling the White House could not ask for much more from economic numbers than the Democrats got in Friday’s jobs report, issued a month and a day before the midterm elections. Unemployment fell to 5.9 percent, the lowest it has been since July 2008. The nation added 248,000 jobs, more than the forecasters had projected. What’s not to like?

President Obama, for one, is clearly frustrated that having inherited an economy thatwas at death’s door, he is getting remarkably little credit for getting it back on its feet.

“As Americans, we can and should be proud of the progress that our country has made over these past six years,” Obama said in a speech at Northwestern University the day before the new figures were released. “Right now, there are more job openings than at any time since 2001. All told, the United States has put more people back towork than Europe, Japan and every other advanced economy combined.”

And here is the conundrum of the 2014 campaign. In 2010, House Speaker John Boehner’s battle cry that helped Republicans win their landslide was, “Where are the jobs?” Obama and the Democrats are nowin a position to reply: “Here are the jobs!”

But Boehner isn’t asking that question anymore.

Why doesn’t this good news matter more to the electorate?

Voters who are still concerned about the economy tend to be focused not on its successes but on what it is failing to do for them. The unemployment rate is way down, but it’s still not low enough to create rapid and widespread wage growth.

There is still a month to go before election day, enough time to develop a sustained argument that highlights both howmuch better the economy is and how much we still have to do to spread prosperity more widely. If today’s obstruction had been the rule in 2009, we’d still be in the soup.