This means there have now been 23 consecutive months of private sector job growth and the unemployment rate has now dropped each of the past five months. All of this despite the Republican majority in the House doing their best to sabotage the economy for political gain.

If the economy continues to grow at this pace through November’s general election then President Obama will be very difficult to defeat regardless of who the GOP nominee is.

Obama can already point to a stock market that has nearly doubled in the last three years (the Dow is at 12,700 now and it bottomed out at 6500 in 2009 before Obama’s policies took effect) and now he can point to new jobs being created every month and an unemployment rate that is finally heading back down.

Change Happened

1. Osama Bin Laden Killed. John McCain said he would not go into Pakistan to get Bin Laden.

2. The Iraq War is Over. McCain said he would continue the Iraq war indefinitely.

3. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is History. McCain voted against ending DADT.

4. Two New Supreme Court Justices: Sonia Sotomayor & Elena Kagan. If McCain had won in 2008 the Supreme Court would look a lot different right now.

5. Health Care Reform. Yes; Obama does care. McCain voted no.

6. New START Treaty. START is a nuclear arms reduction pact between the US & Russia. McCain voted no.

7. Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. McCain opposed it.

8. Over 3 Million New Jobs. There have been 22 consecutive months of private sector job growth since Obama’s Stimulus plan went into effect. McCain opposed it. For comparison there were over 8 million jobs lost during just two years of the Bush Recession.

9. Ended Bush’s Ban on Stem Cell Research.

10. The Credit Card Bill of Rights.

11. Huge Stock Market Gains. Since Obama’s Stimulus plan was signed on February 17, 2009 the Dow has gone from 7552 all the way up to its current 12,709. This is a massive 68% gain over the past three years. And from its 2009 low of 6509 the Dow has nearly doubled (95% increase!)

Resources:

+ What The Heck Has Obama Done So Far?

+ Obama’s Achievements.

For some strange reason the fact that Barack Obama uses a teleprompter for most of his speeches makes some Tea Party types go absolutely crazy (or, more accurately, even more crazy.)

This is so strange because there is absolutely nothing unusual about Obama’s use of a teleprompter. Teleprompter use has been the standard in US politics for decades. And Mitt Romney & Sarah Palin use teleprompters too.

So this begs the question; What is the reason that using a teleprompter suddenly becomes an issue when Obama does it? (and why would using a teleprompter be worse than any other method of reading a speech?)

Unfortunately for Romney the latest polling shows him significantly behind President Obama in both states.

A recent NBC/Marist Florida poll gave Obama a 49% to 41% lead over Romney there and today PPP released new general election numbers in Ohio in which he leads all of the Republican candidates:

Obama 49% Romney 42% (+7)
Obama 51% Gingrich 39% (+12)
Obama 48% Paul 38% (+10)
Obama 48% Santorum 42% (+6)

Yes, Santorum actually comes closest to the President.

Romney’s High Negatives

People have been saying that Newt Gingrich is unelectable in a general election because of his very high negatives but now Romney’s are nearly as bad. Romney is seen favorably by only 28% of Ohioans while 56% see him negatively. That’s 2 to 1 against which is extremely bad.

In comparison Obama has a decent 48% approval rating (with 48% disapproval) among Ohio voters.

“I’m not concerned about the very poor.”

Most notably the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future spent $10.7 million in the state and over 90% of that spending was on negative ads against Gingrich ($9.9 million.)

It seems that because Mitt Romney can’t get Republican voters get excited about his candidacy, he has to make sure they don’t have any other choice but to vote for him; thus the millions of dollars spent destroying Gingrich in Florida.

But the ultimate winner of the Romney vs. Gingrich battle in Florida may actually be President Obama.

Update: Romney 46% Gingrich 32% Santorum 13% Paul 7%.

In 1983 taxes were 17.5% of GDP, in 2010 they were only 14.9% percent of GDP.

This fact makes it clear that the argument that the economy is slow because taxes are too high is senseless. But this is exactly the kind of argument we can expect to hear from Mitt Romney (who wants to cut his own already low tax rate in half.)

Mitt Romney will likely win the GOP Florida primary but it may actually be President Obama who is most benefiting from the Romney vs. Gingrich battle in the long run according to this new NBC/Marist Poll.

In a general election match-up Obama has a 49% to 41% lead over Romney in Florida. It is going to be virtually impossible for the Republicans to win back the White House without winning Florida.

Unfortunately for them, it appears that the more independent voters see of Romney and the rest of the GOP candidates the less they like them.