First off, let me say that I am proud to be a TCF customer – they are the first organization to fight back and force their way out of the TARP stranglehold, even though the penalties they had to pay to do so were exorbitant. Geithner’s stranglehold on every other bank, however, is still very much in effect. What effect will it have on the economy, and what effect will the economy have on the 2010 midterm elections? Well, it depends on your definition of economic recovery.

Traditional wisdom holds that economic indicators, as the name suggests, precede downturns in the market. But if you look at jobs lost in each month or hiring trends, then the indicators tend to lag behind the actual turnaround of an economy. Companies have to have that trust in the administration’s plans to unfreeze the credit market and have confidence in the promises to improve conditions enough for them to expand. After things improve for a bit, companies feel secure in moving forward and taking risks again. So business picks up for a period before actual hiring trends are shifted and unemployment is eased.

Experts are divided on when that recovery might come, with many not expecting us to reach the bottom until sometime in 2011. Even if the optimistic projections are correct, and the economy starts to improve in time for the 2010 elections, unemployment figures should still be trending poorly. The economy might be getting better, either because or in spite of the administration’s heavy hand, but few outside of the experts will really trust that to be true. Given that situation, do congressional Republicans jump on unemployment figures to make 2010 a referendum on the stimulus?

The public appears to expect them to, with 53% expecting the next President to be a Republican. For better or worse, voters expect themselves and their peers to hold the government accountable for their policies and judge them by any fiscal turnaround, or lack thereof. What they have seen so far suggests that a different approach will be favorable by the time Obama is done in office – even though his partners in the press pipe up about a recovery being right around the window, the people on the street see more of their neighbors coming home jobless every day.

Yes, the economy must improve before hiring can bottom out and begin to recover, but isn’t that the point of a good economy – to create and maintain jobs? At the end of the day, economic recovery is going to be measured in the public discourse by how many people are losing jobs and whether anyone is gaining them. Whether or not Republicans choose to tap into that situation to help their cause next year, the opportunity will most certainly exist for them to do so.

Last 5 posts by Gideon D'Assandro

• The Reality of Racial Politics - August 17th, 2009
• Thank God Obama's President - August 3rd, 2009
• Health Care Coverup - July 23rd, 2009
• The Suppressed EPA Report’s Effect on Healthcare - July 12th, 2009
• Social Conservatism Going Forward - July 5th, 2009