Goin’ Down, Down, Down, Down, Down, Down

With apologies to Don Nix.

Obama gave his big “game changer” speech last night. Only nobody much seems to think it changed much. The left is hyperventilating over the remark by one, obscure South Carolina Republican member of the House, but not really trumpeting what the won said.

There might be a demographic problem:

To the great surprise of no one except Robert Gibbs, airing a reality show in lieu of yet another rerun of “If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep Your Plan” was a good idea – in all the important demographics, anyway. No word on what the over-50 crowd was tuned into, but given the way The One’s polling with seniors these days he’d better hope they had “Dance fever” too.

Hard numbers: 31.8 million total viewers across 10 networks for Obama’s speech. That’s a decent pick-up from his heath-care presser in July, which drew 25 million when no one was paying attention to the issue yet. But to put it in perspective, the snoozer he held in April to celebrate his first 100 days drew almost as many people as last night’s supposedly historic, hyper-hyped, Beyond Thunderdome Obama mega-event. He did 52 million for his State of the Union address in February; now his signature policy issue – and the cause of Ted Kennedy’s life, as we’ve been reminded eight thousand times in the past 10 days – earns him a little more than half that. Hopenchange fee-vah!

Obama lost the crucial – according to the press – younger demographic. But then it might be the dismally “bright” unemployment numbers:

There were 550,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Sept. 5, down 26,000 from a revised 576,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report.

A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 560,000 new claims.

The 4-week moving average of initial claims was 570,000 down 2,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 572,750.

“We’re still talking about declining at a slower pace, not outright job growth,” said Tim Quinlan, analyst at Wells Fargo, who noted initial claims were at their lowest level since July.

Or maybe it is the totally fabricated White House Claim of “saving or creating” a gazillion jobs at the same time people are seeing the real effects of real unemployment – instead of pipe dreams claims of salvation:

The nation’s economy started to turn around after the passage of President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package in February, his chief economic adviser said Thursday.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act created or saved slightly more than 1 million jobs through August, according to the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Or maybe it is the real rise in the poverty rate that we should be looking at:

The poverty rate rose last year to 13.2%, the highest level since 1997, said a report released Thursday.

That marks the first statistically significant annual increase since 2004, according to the annual Census Bureau report “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008.”

Obama’s White House claimed to have saved those gazillion jobs (a number precisely as accurate as their claim) yet more than a half a million people filed for initial unemployment. The poverty rate jumped last year – and experts are frankly terrified at what that means for 2009 and 2010 with the unemployment rising as it is.

Yet Obama is still trying to pass a plan that the majority of Americans do not want. 

It is still the economy, stupid.

You do not get it – and you cannot even manage to buy a clue.