Recession? Depression? The politics of the thing...
Many folks object to calling our current global situation a depression because it is not as bad as The Great Depression of the 1930s. But by that standard any conflict smaller than World War Two wouldn't count as a war. This thing is not as bad as the 1930s was but it is a depression of some sort.
Why do I say that? Because whatever it is, it looks nothing like any other economic downturn we have seen since the Great Depression. It isn't just the depth of the downturn at its worst, it is the durability of it. In every recession in living memory we would have recouped all the jobs lost by now, but in this thing we are still further behind in net jobs as some recessions were at their worst.
So what are the politics of this? If today was September 2012 I would say grit our teeth and pray we make it over the November finish line before things get much worse. But this is June, 2012. There is probably no miracle in the offing and things can, both in reality and in public perception, get worse before election day.
So President Obama... get in front of this thing for once. A "morning in America" strategy will not work. If things take another leg down then bragging on the recovery with actually be alienating. At least cover yourself against the possibility of bad future developments. Europe may knock 10% off the stock market. Unemployment in October may be 9%. These are very real possibilities.
Be aware of the reality and craft the best politics for the reality. You're a good politician so I do not presume to delineate what is best for that reality, but we cannot have all our eggs in the recovery basket. (After all, if recovery happens then it won't matter what anybody said. We will win. So the difficult set of political calculations is dealing with a stagnant or worsening economy.)
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