Guest Blog: Presidential Debate Round One & One Person's Story

Presidential Debate Round One --- Obama vs Romney
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012 from 9–10:30pm on CT FOX Channel WTIC
Part 2 of a short series of articles by Tim D. Enchanter

What can be said about this debate which has not already been said? Perhaps the best indication of how good this debate was for the Republican Party was the published Unemployment Rate two days later. Seeing it drop below 8% for the first time in 4 years told me volumes about Mitt Romney’s debating skills.

Apparently, there are two surveys used to determine this rate as well as an estimate of how many people are still looking for work. The survey most people are familiar with is conducted with about 150,000 companies and has reported the creation of 114,000 new jobs. The other survey we are not familiar with is a phone survey of about 50,000 homes asking if anyone is working or doing anything to earn money. That survey shows 873,000 new jobs.

If someone is selling things they found in their attic on eBay to try to make ends meet then apparently that counts as someone now working or earning money. How they extrapolate 873,000 jobs from a phone poll of 50,000 homes is unknown to me but we are told that the government employees know what they are doing.

Meanwhile, the total population of people looking for work has decreased as those who have been unemployed for over two years are no longer eligible for unemployment insurance compensation. Apparently, the decrease of the estimated number of people looking for work and the increase of the estimated number of people working has resulted in a decrease in the unemployment rate, dropping that rate to 7.8%.

This good news will probably affect the expected “bounce” that Mitt Romney will receive from his debate performance, lowering that bounce by increasing President Obama’s Approval Rating.

It is certainly plausible that the poll numbers comparing President Obama to Mitt Romney will reflect the good news of the unemployment rate as well as Mitt Romney’s good debate performance. So when you see those poll numbers, you can assume that any increase in popularity Mitt Romney experiences would have been higher if the unemployment rate had not improved.

On a personal note, allow me to give some insight on how my life is affected by all this.
My career has been over for three years. Unemployment benefits expired over a year ago. The first year I went everywhere possible for job interviews. Being severely overweight, parking in handicapped spots, and using a cane to go everywhere did not help me land any job. Because I was competing for each job with hundreds of others selected from thousands of applicants, there is no way I could file any claim of discrimination against someone suffering from osteoarthritis in both knees.

However, after a second year of rapidly evaporating prospects, I ended up living on Social Security Disability Insurance because it is obvious that any company will hire the best people available and arthritis is a liability, even for a desk job.

Therefore, I am one of those people assumed to be “no longer looking for work” and am not counted in the calculations of the Unemployment Rate. From what we constantly hear, I am also one of the 47% of the population that depends on Government checks and therefore written off by Mitt Romney as a committed Obama supporter.

This is a shining example of Central Planners in Government and the News Media thinking that they know everything and getting it completely wrong.

For the past year, I have been working to improve my health so I can rejoin the workforce. I have also been actively looking for work, only to be told to apply online for almost every company even considering hiring people. Such applications get lost in the flood coming from others in similar positions.

Recruiting firms I worked with for 20 years have been told that they are only allowed to submit one applicant for each position out of the thousands looking for work and even then employers are choosing between hundreds of such submissions. The point here is that I am still looking for work while trying to live on a Government check.

When I saw the video clip of Mitt Romney supposedly writing off the 47% of the nation that support President Obama, it was clear to me that he was referring to the opinions polls. Those numbers are even more massaged than the unemployment rate and the tax revenue analysis produced by the Congressional Budget Office. Paul Ryan put is best when he was asked about those estimates on Fox News Sunday when he said, “If you torture them enough, statistics will confess to whatever you want them to say.”

I am one of those 47% that Mitt Romney has supposedly written off and yet I am voting for Mitt Romney. I am one of those no longer counted in the calculation of the unemployment rate as looking for work and yet I am still looking for work and not finding it. I am one of those assumed to have found work because I have had to sell personal property such as old clothing to buy food and gasoline. So the government does not count me as part of the labor force but counts me as having found work.

The unemployment rate is the ratio of those looking for work but not working divided by he total number of people who want to work and are looking for it. By erroneously removing me from the number of people who are looking for work, the government does not count me in the calculation of the unemployment rate. By erroneously counting me as having found work, the government removes me again from the number of people not working. If anyone is writing me off, it is the government, not Mitt Romney.

Why are they doing this?

Because Conventional Wisdom states that no President has ever been re-elected when the Unemployment Rate has been above 8% and any President who wants to be re-elected must try to lower that rate below 8% to even have a chance.

Those trying to help the current President get re-elected believe that if they change the numbers they can change reality. So they manipulate the interpretation of the numbers in order to change the results and it never occurs to them that it is the conditions which generate those numbers that need to change.

So I believe that the best statement on how well Mitt Romney did in that debate can be found in the release of the new unemployment rate. Since we have been consistently watching that number corrected a week later, watch what happens after the Vice-Presidential Debate.

How well Paul Ryan does may be reflected on the adjustment of that rate lower for the first time in four years. We may see the unemployment rate drop below 7% if Vice-President Biden entertains us enough.With two more Presidential Debates to follow, we may even seean Unemployment Rate below 5% by Election Day.

Eventually, if everyone stops looking for work, we may have an Unemployment Rate of Zero. Nobody will be working, but nobody will be unemployed.

“I am a lone voice crying in the wilderness and I know you can hear me but will you listen?”
---Tim D. Enchanter, Lone Wolf Patriot