We’re living through another Great Depression? Who knew?

For months now, we’ve heard the clarion call of the Democrats that the country has lost millions of jobs since the start of Bush’s term (although I think we’re officially down to 1.2 million fewer jobs). We’ve also heard that this is the worst record of job creation since Herbert Hoover. Yet the unemployment rate stands at a historically lower-than-average level of 5.4%. The question is: do Americans really feel that the job market has reached Depression-era levels when over 94% of them are working? (Unemployment during the Great Depression topped 20%). I’ve always felt this was a quixotic argument to make, and I’m not the only one:

First, trying to compare Bush to Hoover is a dead end, in my opinion. For one thing, it is demonstrably the case that the current economy, net job losses or not, simply does not look like Hoover’s. For another, do most voters know who Hoover was?

And here’s Mickey Kaus explaining why focusing on economic issues is a dead-end for Kerry:

4.) The economy's not in such bad shape--by which I mean not that the statistics are OK, but that the ordinary lives of Americans aren't in such bad shape, despite the wishfully downbeat reporting of a cocooning anti-Bush press;
5.) Whatever shape the economy is in, it's something the voters know about. Kerry can't convince them the economy is better than they know it is or worse than they know it is.
6.) To the extent voters' economic lives are worse, many of them realize at some level that there is little Kerry can do to, e.g., stop the forces of globalization and technology that are changing the economic game;

Therein lies the final flaw of Kerry’s new approach: even if he could somehow convince Americans that the economy is poor, most understand that there’s very little the Democrats could do to make things better. In fact, many of the their proposals (raising taxes, increasing regulation) could make the economy significantly worse.

So there you have it: on the two issues of greatest importance to American voters – the economy and the war on terrorism – Kerry is completely boxed in.

Update - Dick Morris in the NY Post: “But in its focus on the economy, the Kerry team is likely to lose sight of one basic problem: In running against a bad economy, it is helpful if the economy is bad. With an unemployment rate approaching 5 percent, they'll have a hard time making the case.”