'Serious Headwinds' — Rash of Disastrous Economic News Pounds Obama's Reelection Prospects

Like I've been saying, things aren't going too well for Baracky.

Where to begin?

Well, Telegraph UK has the dire headline on the poor economic data out yesterday, "Stock markets slump as slew of poor data bodes ill for world economy." And the Los Angeles Times has more, "Stocks end down more than 2% in broad sell-off." The Dow erased the gains from the entire year and we could be looking at a Black Monday when stocks start trading again after the weekend.

And at the video, a beleaguered president speaks in Minnesota. See: "Obama says jobs report shows economy faces 'serious headwinds'."

Plus, "If bad job news persists, advantage shifts to Romney":

Another month or two of downbeat jobs reports like Friday's, and the 2012 electoral advantage will shift to Mitt Romney.
At the moment, the election is still a coin flip.  But even before the latest evidence of slowing job growth, President Obama was no better than a 50-50 pick to win reelection (as noted Democratic pollster Peter Hart put it recently).  And with economic storm clouds building, it’s easy to imagine that Obama could be the underdog before too long.

“If the May report is a harbinger of what's coming, Romney’s message that ‘We can do better, but Obama can't’ will really resonate,” said Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution, a White House advisor in the Clinton administration.

The latest blow to Obama’s prospects – and the corresponding lift to Romney’s — illustrate the teeter-totter nature of a tight election contest in an evenly divided nation.

The Republican challenger, careful not to celebrate his good fortune at the expense of millions of jobless Americans, issued a statement from his Boston headquarters that termed the latest jobs report “devastating” for U.S. families.

“It is now clear to everyone that President Obama’s policies have failed to achieve their goals and that the Obama economy is crushing America’s middle class. The president's reelection slogan may be ‘forward,’ but it seems like we've been moving backward,” Romney said.

A top White House economic advisor acknowledged that more  needs to be done to recover from the worst economic downturn since the Depression of the 1930s.

“It is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data,” said Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors.

Actually, I'd say the advantage is already shifting. Obama is at 45 percent in Friday's presidential tracking poll at Gallup (more here).

So, again, things aren't looking too hot for old Baracky.

More later...