Obama’s 8-Month Nightmare Could Begin Tomorrow

Image: The White House

For months now, the pundits have predicted doom and gloom for Barack Obama and the Democrats come November.

But we’re not totally convinced.

A very likely storyline goes something like this (as we’ve already written): Healthcare passes. On Friday, April 2 at 8:30 AM the March jobs numbers come in, and they show for the first time decisive job growth (very possible). Finally Case-Shiller shows the housing rebound that stalled out over the winter, and voila, the recovery looks credible. Obama then uses the next 8 months to keep juicing the economy, thus riding to a narrow, not-devastating loss in November.

It’s very possible.

But it’s also very easy to envision the nightmare.

Healthcare fails. The jobs numbers look ugly and suddenly there will only be one storyline: why on earth did the Democrats spend so much time pursuing a healthcare bill, when unemployment hovered around 10%, and there was no job growth to speak of?

What the hell were they thinking?

And it’s not just jobs. Calculated Risk lays out various downside risks to the economy: the savings rate begins to creep up rapidly again (something that should happen, though for the right-now that’s seen as a negative), wage deflation picks up again, while small businesses continue to suffocate without access to credit.

In just a few days, starting tomorrow, this could all be the storyline, and then that will go from here until November, at which point John Boehner & Co. will mop the floor with the Democrats, removing the gavel from Nancy Pelosi’s hands for good.

If Obama doesn’t get much sleep tonight, we won’t blame him.