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Obama and Clinton hit the trail as poor jobs figures released – US politics live Obama and Clinton hit the trail – US politics as it happened
(40 minutes later)
5.20pm: Scott Walker to Tom Barrett: I'll see your Bill Clinton and raise you a Sarah Palin. Hang on... 10.00am: Good morning and welcome to our Friday liveblog politics coverage. It's shaping up to be a colorful day on the campaign trail: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton both have scheduled events and unfortunately Donald Trump will speak at the North Carolina State Republican Convention. Tom McCarthy here in New York and here's where things stand:
Please remember to support Gov. Walker and Lt. Gov. Kleefisch in next Tuesday's recall election. Wisconsin is... fb.me/1IFBMlcUA • New labor department figures show the unemployment rate creeped up to 8.2% in May as the economy created a paltry 69,000 jobs, less than half of what economists expected. That's bad news for the incumbent president.
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) June 1, 2012 • Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney got a public boost last night from former President Bill Clinton*. Clinton sought to erase any notion that Romney is unqualified for the presidency. "There's no question that in terms of getting up and going to the office and, you know, basically performing the essential functions of the office, the man who has been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold," Clinton told Harvey Weinstein, who inexplicably was guest-hosting Piers Morgan's CNN talk show.
4.56pm: Congress is in session. God hates incumbents? *Bill Clinton is a Democrat.
#BREAKINGNEWS: Tornado warning issued for Washington, D.C. until 5:15. Take cover now.wapo.st/JZgJdz • Romney released a new campaign ad, A Better Day, featuring construction cranes, a welder, a man in a hard hat on a rooftop next to an American flag and a little girl wearing a soft-looking hat. We'll take a closer look at that in a bit.
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 1, 2012 • The recall election for governor of Wisconsin is down to its final few days, and the aforementioned Bill Clinton is wheels down in the Badger State to try to help challenger Tom Barrett overcome his polling deficit. That's right, Clinton hits the hustings – read all about it right here.
4.46pm: Who's volunteering to read it? 10.30am: Wall Street's take on the jobs report this morning:
Sorry – not yet available for pre-order on Amazon. BREAKING: Dow Jones industrial average drops 200 points after dismal report on US jobs. -BW
4.36pm: Yesterday John Edwards was given every reason to believe that he will never be convicted of violating campaign finance laws. Outside of court he said he doesn't think God is done with him yet. It sounded like the first step toward a character rehabilitation. But this might not help: — The Associated Press (@AP) June 1, 2012
CNN JUST IN Rielle Hunter will publish a memoir June 26th, her spokesperson RoseMarie Terenzio tells CNN To say the jobs report comes at a bad time for Obama is to understate the case. At the end of the Nato summit in Chicago last Monday, the president was asked about his attacks on Romney's record at Bain Capital – and how those attacks had been undercut by supposed Obama surrogate Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J.
— Vaughn Sterling CNN (@vplus) June 1, 2012 Obama defended his attacks on Bain. "That's what the election is going to be about," he said. It was the same message David Axelrod tried to send on the steps of the Massachusetts state house yesterday: Mitt Romney amassed personal mountains of money while failing to do anything for the average earner.
4.30pm: Our in-house political soothsayer Harry Enten counsels caution over the CNN poll showing that Obama's approval rating is up 2 points in the last month: It will be much more difficult for Obama's message to gain traction if it has to compete with headlines about a slumping national economy. You can't brag about pulling the country out of the economic ditch Bush dug if the car's still in the ditch.
Let's all jump at this CNN poll... Keep in mind, Obama's approval at 52% is somewhat of an outlier. If it were right, it'd be over. 10.43am: He's scheduled to speak in a half hour at Pere Marquette park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, alongside gubernatorial hopeful Tom Barrett.
— Harry Enten (@ForecasterEnten) June 1, 2012 Bill Clinton's remarks on Piers Morgan (temporarily the Harvey Weinstein show) last night about Mitt Romney's "sterling business career" were a reminder of how the former president can go off the leash while campaigning.
4.18pm: A new CNN poll of registered voters gives Barack Obama a slight 49-46 edge over Mitt Romney in the presidential race. After candidate Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2008 South Carolina Democratic primary, a visibly annoyed Clinton told reporters that Jesse Jackson had won South Carolina too – a huffy and racially charged remark that got all the wrong kinds of attention. In one of his first interviews after Hillary lost to Obama, the former president went on TV and called John McCain a "great man" and said Sarah Palin was an "instinctively effective candidate."
The poll found that 52% approve of the job Obama is doing, up from 49% in April. But is it really a screw-up for Clinton to say that Romney had a sterling career? Or does it subtly make the "instinctive" argument the Obama campaign is trying to make: that Romney's a rich guy, a silver-spooner, and out of touch?
Neither candidate has an edge on handling of the economy in the poll. In response to the question "Who do you think better understands how the economy works?", each candidate drew 45%. 11.05am: BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray is on the scene in Milwaukee where Bill Clinton is scheduled to speak.
In the poll, 37% said their economic situations were better than a year ago, and 43% said worse. This dude with his "support Scott walker, not union thugs" getting into repeated arguments w/ ppl here twitter.com/RosieGray/stat…
Among registered voters, 52% said the economy was the most important issue, followed by the deficit (18%) and health care (14%). No other issue – terrorism, illegal immigration, Aghanistan or "policies toward gays" (2%) – scored in the double digits. — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) June 1, 2012
CNN on its methodology: Wisconsin's recall election has taken on a national profile, with national fundraising, the participation of national political figures and national media coverage. At the heart of the fight is Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to cut his state loose from budget commitments that labor unions see as basic to the well-being of anyone employed by the state. The clash has ramifications for the broader fight between the corporation and the worker.
The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International from May 29-31, with 1,009 adults nationwide, including 895 registered voters, questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points, with a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for registered voters. Walker has raised more than $30 million from across the country and challenger Tom Barrett has taken in more than $4 million. The vote may also be a sort of dry run for the presidential election, Monica Davey writes in the New York Times:
4.03pm: Here's an American politician asking for votes by displaying firearms prowess. Broadly, the results will be held up as an omen for the presidential race in the fall, specifically for President Obama's chances of capturing this Midwestern battleground — one that he easily won in 2008 but that Republicans nearly swept in the midterm elections of 2010.
This one's a Democrat. He's running in Oklahoma, so he's conceivably a hunter. Deer at a distance, by the looks of his rifle and scope. The water balloon target is kind of cool. When it explodes. 11.31am: My colleague Dominic Rushe has the White House response to today's dismal jobs report:
(h/t @amyewalter) The White House moved swiftly to dampen the political fallout of the report... Alan B Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said: "Problems in the job market were long in the making and will not be solved overnight. The economy lost jobs for 25 straight months beginning in February 2008, and over 8m jobs were lost as a result of the Great Recession. We are still fighting back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."
3.38pm: A late Friday endorsement pick-up for Mitt Romney: Former New York Braves pitcher John Rocker. Just a bad month, then? Dominic asks a business prof and an economist:
Romney gets endorsement of former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker, who you might recall for all the wrong reasons. abcn.ws/N4dRk2 Betsey Stevenson, professor of business and public policy at Wharton business school, said: "This is a very bad report. It changes where I thought the US economy was."
— Aaron Blake (@FixAaron) June 1, 2012 Gus Faucher, senior economist of PNC Financial Services, said he had been shocked by the numbers. "They were much worse than we had expected. There was a big drop in construction [down 28,000 in May] which is worrying, wage growth was weak. It is hard to see anything good in this report," he said.
Ah, John Rocker: 11.36am: Nate Silver offers up a line on unemployment the White House could maybe try out:
The now-retired athlete's untamable tongue and white-hot temper landed him a 14-day suspension in 1999 after he bashed foreigners and gay people during a Sports Illustrated interview. This jobs report is no big deal. Every economy has a few bad decades.
"The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners," Rocker said in the interview. "You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?" — Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) June 1, 2012
(via Amy Bingham/ABC) 11.38am: The sole entry in Mitt Romney's public schedule today is a fundraiser in Los Angeles at 6pm this evening. Here's hoping he makes it:
2.41pm: War. Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Romney stuck in LA traffic. When does USSS get traffic control?
So they say. But after watching this mashup of news coverage of various "wars" from the election cycle – from the "war on women" to the "war on marriage," we're inclined to point out that "war" is technically good for those times when media organizations want to drum up trend stories out of absolutely nothing. Huh! — Emily Friedman (@EmilyABC) June 1, 2012
1.53pm: The president is done speaking and is shaking a lot of hands at Honeywell. 11.42am: The Guardian's Gary Younge is in Milwaukee for the Clinton rally against Gov. Scott Walker.
The new program he announced to help military veterans find employment is an example of great news that doesn't measure up to the bad news. An online job search for veterans isn't very helpful if no one's hiring. "Placards saying lets take the 'con' out of 'Wisconsin,' he writes. "Currently singing 'Hit the road Scott, and don't you come back no more.'"
The president talked about how bad the economy was when he took office. He reminded the crowd of the even worse economic crisis that he says his administration averted. At the start of the year more Americans were still blaming Bush – and not Obama – for lackluster economic performance. 11.45am: Bill Clinton takes the mic in Wisconsin.
When will the blame shift? He shows off the notes he wrote to prepare for the speech, to prove no one is feeding him words and he's speaking from the heart.
1.45pm: President Obama announces he is taking executive action to ease the hiring of skilled veterans, with personalized job search services, an online jobs bank, and breaks for companies hiring vets. When did Clinton use notes? This is obviously some kind of ploy.
With 3 million veterans returning to civilian life in the last decade, it's a jobs initiative that may find plenty of takers. "The great thing about not being president is you can say whatever you want."
On another day, when the monthly jobs report was strong, the announcement might have looked like an extra boost in an economy that is making a comeback. The crowd cheers. They love him.
Instead it looks like a lifeline for vets who are returning home to an economy that is stagnant. "I was thinking about all my Wisconsin memories today. I remember being on a little farm, with an Irish farmer with nine children singing 'Danny Boy' to me..."
The way the executive action looks isn't as important as how it performs, or course – unless you're talking politics. OK get comfortable.
1.32pm: Biggest applause line so far: "I believe that no one who fights for this country should ever have to fight for a job when they come home." 11.50am: Clinton says the race in Wisconsin is of national consequence.
The president was introduced by a military vet who went to work as an electrical engineer at Honeywell after serving in Iraq. Wisconsin, he says, is "America's battleground, between people who want to pull together to solve problems, and people who want to divide and conquer."
The president went on for a while about the failure of Congress to act on his jobs legislation. At the time of Obama's inauguration, the stated strategy of the Republican Congress, per Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), as quoted by Robert Draper, was "we gotta challenge them on every single bill." 11.57am: Bill Clinton is stumping for Tom Barrett for governor of Wisconsin.
Now, has the Republican strategy worked? "To have a divide-and-conquer strategy is nuts."
We are now entering the blame Congress section of Obama's speech. "That is what is wrong with America today. It is not the road back. It is a road to a dead end. There's a reason all these people are pouring money in here, running all these negative ads against [Mayor Barrett].... Why are they doing this? Because times are tough and you've got to get up every day... and when people are uncertain and afraid, it's easy to get them confused and divided."
— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) June 1, 2012 "Look around this crowd today. That is our strength. We are still younger than Europe, younger than Japan. In 20 years we'll be younger than China."
1.27pm: The president says he has "not lost faith in the American worker." He accuses Walker of supporting laws to stop young people, the poor, immigrants and minorities to vote.
He moves on to the jobs legislation he says that Congress has blocked. "Congress has not acted on enough of the other ideas in that bill that would help make a difference and help create jobs right now. And there's no excuse for it..." "Show up Tuesday and elect Tom Barrett governor!"
"It's not lost on anybody that it's an election year, and I understand that. I've noticed." 12.01pm: Clinton refers to Walker and his supporters repeatedly as "this divide-and-conquer, no-compromise crowd."
The crowd laughs, and somebody yells "Four more years." He is decrying the disintegration of national politics into an elaborate machine of gridlock. He accuses "them" – Republicans – of making everything about Us vs. Them.
Obama says he told Congress that "now's not the time to sit on your hands." "I'm grateful to you. You voted for me twice."
1.21pm: President Obama takes the stage at the Honeywell plant in Golden Valley, Minnesota. Cheers.
He starts off with a Bears-Viking joke. For readers not in the know that's an NFL joke. The National Football League. Not that football. Oh forget it. "In 1992, when Wisconsin voted for me – if this were a divide-and-conquer state, you would not have voted for me. You want to know why? Because Wisconsin was one of two states that was actually doing better in 1992 than it was in 1988.
He says the economy is fighting back from the worst crisis since the Great Depression. He says jobs have been created but "as we learned in today's jobs report, we're still not creating them as fast as we want." "But you understood that over the long run, we had to build a nation of shared prosperity, shared responsibility: one nation!"
He mentions economic "headwinds" including gas prices and the eurozone crisis. Clinton makes a final call for "electing Tom Barrett governor!"
1.12pm: My colleague Dominic Rushe lists six discrete pieces of bad news for President Obama in the May jobs report. "Thank you!"
No. 4 is construction decline: Cue Bono and "Beautiful Day." He's out.
As this graph shows, construction has been hit hard in the US by the recession. Not only is the industry a big employer, it is also an indicator of the health of the broader economy. It's important not to read too much into one month's figures, but the loss of 28,000 construction jobs in May – when seasonal construction should be picking up – is not a good sign. 12.16pm: Bill Clinton has his work cut out for him in Wisconsin.
1.03pm: Mitt Romney cleaned up in that CNBC appearance. He started out talking about jobs, brushed aside questions about Donald Trump and this place called Europe to continue talking about jobs, kept talking about jobs and concluded by saying the president had failed to create jobs. Last week a Marquette poll found Democratic challenger Tom Barrett trailing Gov. Scott Walker 52-45. Barrett is being massively outspent.
Plus Romney got to bring up Bill Clinton's opinion of his career in business: Superb, sterling, call it what you will, Clinton's impressed. But Clinton looked good. His voice had a raspy edge but was plenty strong. He was punching at the crowd: "Turn out on Tuesday and vote for Tom Barrett for governor! Get out and vote on Tuesday and make Tom Barrett governor!"
"Devastating" was the word Romney used over and over to describe the jobs report, and he spoke the word with the alarm of a fire chief assessing the spontaneous combustion of a square block of pine-frame domiciles. Look, he was saying, this has gotten out of hand. We need to take the presidency back because this guy isn't cutting it. Still plenty of rah-rah in the man, enough to rah-rah out those lines. (No wonder so many politicians – Trent Lott, George W. Bush – are former cheerleaders.) His big white hair makes him stand out in a long-distance camera shot. He's the unmistakable eminence grise.
For how many more people is that message resonating today than it resonated for yesterday? Will it still ring true in September? October? His speech showed how deep national political experience can be applied at the state level. He talked about touring Wisconsin with Helmut Kohl, the former chancellor of Germany. He talked about the birth of progressive politics in Wisconsin. He talked about the elections of 1988 and 1992.
It's the most effective message for Romney. Clinton talked with the crowd about who they were, seeking to contrast the state's progressive history with what he characterized as the "divide-and-conquer, no-compromise" crowd seeking to steal its present.
But can he move those poll numbers?
12.24pm: From a Yahoo numbered list of "details from David Mariniss' 'Barack Obama: The Story'":

13. Obama was that guy in college who didn't study much but still got better grades than you.
Friends in his class at Occidental "returned from the library late one night and found Obama lounging on the Barf Couch, smoking."
...
"'Did you finish your project?'" they asked.
"'I've written it,' Obama responded. 'I just haven't written it down.' A while later Barry 'wandered off to the library' and pulled an all-nighter writing a paper that eventually got an A+."
12.35pm: Here's that new Mitt Romney ad.
What do you think? It's a positive spot that starts with the economy and pivots to the national "feeling" – "the feeling we'll have that our country's back" under a Romney presidency, as the ad puts it.
It's a play for the middle, an appeal to those voters who aren't inclined to hate any politician or party, who care about the economy but who aren't so hard-headed as to be unsusceptible to an emotional pitch about how we all feel about the country.
Where is that harbor at :12? Hong Kong? Now that economy certainly looks like it's working.
12.42pm: Barack Obama is about to address employees of the Honeywell facility in Golden Valley, Minn., on the economy.
Mitt Romney is about to go on CNBC to talk about the new jobs numbers.
We'll be covering both, on the off chance that their takes on the latest jobs numbers don't perfectly overlap.
Here's Romney, speaking now about the jobs report.
He says the president's economic policies have been dealt "a harsh indictment this morning."
12.48pm: Romney says Obama squandered an opportunity to start a jobs recovery by pursuing legislation – the health care law – that he, Obama, thought would cement his historical legacy.
"Jobs are jobs one for the presidency. And unfortunately this president put in place Obamacare."
Romney is asked about Europe and the potential collapse of the eurozone.

"We should be well into a robust recovery by now," even with what's happening in Europe, Romney says. The news out of Europe would be bad in any case, but "certainly not devastating. These numbers are devastating."
Romney says the president is always looking for somebody to blame. First it was Bush, he said; now it's the crisis in Europe.
Romney takes a question about the Fed.
"The Fed's stimulative effects have clearly run their course." He says the latest round of quantitative easing – pumping up the money supply – is through and we don't need QE3.
"The right course is to get the government, to get the president focused on the issue people really want the focus on: and that is Jobs. JObs in a down economy."
So Mitt Romney wants to talk a lot about these jobs numbers, it turns out.
12.52pm: Romney on CNBC: "What the president has done has made it less and less likely for investors to want to invest in America."12.52pm: Romney on CNBC: "What the president has done has made it less and less likely for investors to want to invest in America."
Romney is asked about Donald Trump's thesis that Barack Obama was not born in America.Romney is asked about Donald Trump's thesis that Barack Obama was not born in America.
"I disagree with it, there's no question that the president was born in the USA. But I don't go around telling my supporters what they should think or say.""I disagree with it, there's no question that the president was born in the USA. But I don't go around telling my supporters what they should think or say."
A question on Bain: Does Romney believe attacks on his record in private equity are unfair?A question on Bain: Does Romney believe attacks on his record in private equity are unfair?
"I'm happy to embrace my past in private equity," Romney says. "I'm very proud of my record ... certainly at Bain Capital, an enterprise I helped to found." Romney says 80 percent of the businesses Bain invested in grew."I'm happy to embrace my past in private equity," Romney says. "I'm very proud of my record ... certainly at Bain Capital, an enterprise I helped to found." Romney says 80 percent of the businesses Bain invested in grew.
Now Romney uses Bill Clinton's words against Obama.Now Romney uses Bill Clinton's words against Obama.
"I understand President Clinton said so yesterday. He called my record superb.""I understand President Clinton said so yesterday. He called my record superb."
Actually Clinton called Romney's record "sterling." So, well, so there.Actually Clinton called Romney's record "sterling." So, well, so there.
Interview ends. Romney is out.Interview ends. Romney is out.
We're waiting for Obama to pop up in Minnesota.We're waiting for Obama to pop up in Minnesota.
12.48pm: Romney says Obama squandered an opportunity to start a jobs recovery by pursuing legislation – the health care law – that he, Obama, thought would cement his historical legacy. 1.03pm: Mitt Romney cleaned up in that CNBC appearance. He started out talking about jobs, brushed aside questions about Donald Trump and this place called Europe to continue talking about jobs, kept talking about jobs and concluded by saying the president had failed to create jobs.
"Jobs are jobs one for the presidency. And unfortunately this president put in place Obamacare." Plus Romney got to bring up Bill Clinton's opinion of his career in business: Superb, sterling, call it what you will, Clinton's impressed.
Romney is asked about Europe and the potential collapse of the eurozone.
/>
/>"We should be well into a robust recovery by now," even with what's happening in Europe, Romney says. The news out of Europe would be bad in any case, but "certainly not devastating. These numbers are devastating." 		"Devastating" was the word Romney used over and over to describe the jobs report, and he spoke the word with the alarm of a fire chief assessing the spontaneous combustion of a square block of pine-frame domiciles. Look, he was saying, this has gotten out of hand. We need to take the presidency back because this guy isn't cutting it.
Romney says the president is always looking for somebody to blame. First it was Bush, he said; now it's the crisis in Europe. For how many more people is that message resonating today than it resonated for yesterday? Will it still ring true in September? October?
Romney takes a question about the Fed. It's the most effective message for Romney.
"The Fed's stimulative effects have clearly run their course." He says the latest round of quantitative easing – pumping up the money supply – is through and we don't need QE3. 1.12pm: My colleague Dominic Rushe lists six discrete pieces of bad news for President Obama in the May jobs report.
"The right course is to get the government, to get the president focused on the issue people really want the focus on: and that is Jobs. JObs in a down economy." No. 4 is construction decline:
So Mitt Romney wants to talk a lot about these jobs numbers, it turns out. As this graph shows, construction has been hit hard in the US by the recession. Not only is the industry a big employer, it is also an indicator of the health of the broader economy. It's important not to read too much into one month's figures, but the loss of 28,000 construction jobs in May – when seasonal construction should be picking up – is not a good sign.
12.42pm: Barack Obama is about to address employees of the Honeywell facility in Golden Valley, Minn., on the economy. 1.21pm: President Obama takes the stage at the Honeywell plant in Golden Valley, Minnesota.
Mitt Romney is about to go on CNBC to talk about the new jobs numbers. He starts off with a Bears-Viking joke. For readers not in the know that's an NFL joke. The National Football League. Not that football. Oh forget it.
We'll be covering both, on the off chance that their takes on the latest jobs numbers don't perfectly overlap. He says the economy is fighting back from the worst crisis since the Great Depression. He says jobs have been created but "as we learned in today's jobs report, we're still not creating them as fast as we want."
Here's Romney, speaking now about the jobs report. He mentions economic "headwinds" including gas prices and the eurozone crisis.
He says the president's economic policies have been dealt "a harsh indictment this morning." 1.27pm: The president says he has "not lost faith in the American worker."
12.35pm: Here's that new Mitt Romney ad. He moves on to the jobs legislation he says that Congress has blocked. "Congress has not acted on enough of the other ideas in that bill that would help make a difference and help create jobs right now. And there's no excuse for it..."
What do you think? It's a positive spot that starts with the economy and pivots to the national "feeling" – "the feeling we'll have that our country's back" under a Romney presidency, as the ad puts it. "It's not lost on anybody that it's an election year, and I understand that. I've noticed."
It's a play for the middle, an appeal to those voters who aren't inclined to hate any politician or party, who care about the economy but who aren't so hard-headed as to be unsusceptible to an emotional pitch about how we all feel about the country. The crowd laughs, and somebody yells "Four more years."
Where is that harbor at :12? Hong Kong? Now that economy certainly looks like it's working. Obama says he told Congress that "now's not the time to sit on your hands."
12.24pm: From a Yahoo numbered list of "details from David Mariniss' 'Barack Obama: The Story'": 1.32pm: Biggest applause line so far: "I believe that no one who fights for this country should ever have to fight for a job when they come home."

/>13. Obama was that guy in college who didn't study much but still got better grades than you.
/>Friends in his class at Occidental "returned from the library late one night and found Obama lounging on the Barf Couch, smoking."
/>...
/>"'Did you finish your project?'" they asked.
/>"'I've written it,' Obama responded. 'I just haven't written it down.' A while later Barry 'wandered off to the library' and pulled an all-nighter writing a paper that eventually got an A+." 		The president was introduced by a military vet who went to work as an electrical engineer at Honeywell after serving in Iraq.
12.16pm: Bill Clinton has his work cut out for him in Wisconsin. The president went on for a while about the failure of Congress to act on his jobs legislation. At the time of Obama's inauguration, the stated strategy of the Republican Congress, per Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), as quoted by Robert Draper, was "we gotta challenge them on every single bill."
Last week a Marquette poll found Democratic challenger Tom Barrett trailing Gov. Scott Walker 52-45. Barrett is being massively outspent. Now, has the Republican strategy worked?
But Clinton looked good. His voice had a raspy edge but was plenty strong. He was punching at the crowd: "Turn out on Tuesday and vote for Tom Barrett for governor! Get out and vote on Tuesday and make Tom Barrett governor!" We are now entering the blame Congress section of Obama's speech.
Still plenty of rah-rah in the man, enough to rah-rah out those lines. (No wonder so many politicians – Trent Lott, George W. Bush – are former cheerleaders.) His big white hair makes him stand out in a long-distance camera shot. He's the unmistakable eminence grise. — Philip Klein (@philipaklein) June 1, 2012
His speech showed how deep national political experience can be applied at the state level. He talked about touring Wisconsin with Helmut Kohl, the former chancellor of Germany. He talked about the birth of progressive politics in Wisconsin. He talked about the elections of 1988 and 1992. 1.45pm: President Obama announces he is taking executive action to ease the hiring of skilled veterans, with personalized job search services, an online jobs bank, and breaks for companies hiring vets.
Clinton talked with the crowd about who they were, seeking to contrast the state's progressive history with what he characterized as the "divide-and-conquer, no-compromise" crowd seeking to steal its present. With 3 million veterans returning to civilian life in the last decade, it's a jobs initiative that may find plenty of takers.
But can he move those poll numbers? On another day, when the monthly jobs report was strong, the announcement might have looked like an extra boost in an economy that is making a comeback.
12.01pm: Clinton refers to Walker and his supporters repeatedly as "this divide-and-conquer, no-compromise crowd." Instead it looks like a lifeline for vets who are returning home to an economy that is stagnant.
He is decrying the disintegration of national politics into an elaborate machine of gridlock. He accuses "them" – Republicans – of making everything about Us vs. Them. The way the executive action looks isn't as important as how it performs, or course – unless you're talking politics.
"I'm grateful to you. You voted for me twice." 1.53pm: The president is done speaking and is shaking a lot of hands at Honeywell.
Cheers. The new program he announced to help military veterans find employment is an example of great news that doesn't measure up to the bad news. An online job search for veterans isn't very helpful if no one's hiring.
"In 1992, when Wisconsin voted for me – if this were a divide-and-conquer state, you would not have voted for me. You want to know why? Because Wisconsin was one of two states that was actually doing better in 1992 than it was in 1988. The president talked about how bad the economy was when he took office. He reminded the crowd of the even worse economic crisis that he says his administration averted. At the start of the year more Americans were still blaming Bush – and not Obama – for lackluster economic performance.
"But you understood that over the long run, we had to build a nation of shared prosperity, shared responsibility: one nation!" When will the blame shift?
Clinton makes a final call for "electing Tom Barrett governor!" 2.41pm: War. Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
"Thank you!" So they say. But after watching this mashup of news coverage of various "wars" from the election cycle – from the "war on women" to the "war on marriage," we're inclined to point out that "war" is technically good for those times when media organizations want to drum up trend stories out of absolutely nothing. Huh!
Cue Bono and "Beautiful Day." He's out. 3.38pm: A late Friday endorsement pick-up for Mitt Romney: Former New York Braves pitcher John Rocker.
11.57am: Bill Clinton is stumping for Tom Barrett for governor of Wisconsin. Romney gets endorsement of former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker, who you might recall for all the wrong reasons. abcn.ws/N4dRk2
"To have a divide-and-conquer strategy is nuts." — Aaron Blake (@FixAaron) June 1, 2012
"That is what is wrong with America today. It is not the road back. It is a road to a dead end. There's a reason all these people are pouring money in here, running all these negative ads against [Mayor Barrett].... Why are they doing this? Because times are tough and you've got to get up every day... and when people are uncertain and afraid, it's easy to get them confused and divided." Ah, John Rocker:
"Look around this crowd today. That is our strength. We are still younger than Europe, younger than Japan. In 20 years we'll be younger than China." The now-retired athlete's untamable tongue and white-hot temper landed him a 14-day suspension in 1999 after he bashed foreigners and gay people during a Sports Illustrated interview.
He accuses Walker of supporting laws to stop young people, the poor, immigrants and minorities to vote. "The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners," Rocker said in the interview. "You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?"
"Show up Tuesday and elect Tom Barrett governor!" (via Amy Bingham/ABC)
11.50am: Clinton says the race in Wisconsin is of national consequence. 4.03pm: Here's an American politician asking for votes by displaying firearms prowess.
Wisconsin, he says, is "America's battleground, between people who want to pull together to solve problems, and people who want to divide and conquer." This one's a Democrat. He's running in Oklahoma, so he's conceivably a hunter. Deer at a distance, by the looks of his rifle and scope. The water balloon target is kind of cool. When it explodes.
11.45am: Bill Clinton takes the mic in Wisconsin. (h/t @amyewalter)
He shows off the notes he wrote to prepare for the speech, to prove no one is feeding him words and he's speaking from the heart. 4.18pm: A new CNN poll of registered voters gives Barack Obama a slight 49-46 edge over Mitt Romney in the presidential race.
When did Clinton use notes? This is obviously some kind of ploy. The poll found that 52% approve of the job Obama is doing, up from 49% in April.
"The great thing about not being president is you can say whatever you want." Neither candidate has an edge on handling of the economy in the poll. In response to the question "Who do you think better understands how the economy works?", each candidate drew 45%.
The crowd cheers. They love him. In the poll, 37% said their economic situations were better than a year ago, and 43% said worse.
"I was thinking about all my Wisconsin memories today. I remember being on a little farm, with an Irish farmer with nine children singing 'Danny Boy' to me..." Among registered voters, 52% said the economy was the most important issue, followed by the deficit (18%) and health care (14%). No other issue – terrorism, illegal immigration, Aghanistan or "policies toward gays" (2%) – scored in the double digits.
OK get comfortable. CNN on its methodology:
11.42am: The Guardian's Gary Younge is in Milwaukee for the Clinton rally against Gov. Scott Walker. The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International from May 29-31, with 1,009 adults nationwide, including 895 registered voters, questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points, with a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for registered voters.
"Placards saying lets take the 'con' out of 'Wisconsin,' he writes. "Currently singing 'Hit the road Scott, and don't you come back no more.'" 4.30pm: Our in-house political soothsayer Harry Enten counsels caution over the CNN poll showing that Obama's approval rating is up 2 points in the last month:
11.38am: The sole entry in Mitt Romney's public schedule today is a fundraiser in Los Angeles at 6pm this evening. Here's hoping he makes it: Let's all jump at this CNN poll... Keep in mind, Obama's approval at 52% is somewhat of an outlier. If it were right, it'd be over.
Romney stuck in LA traffic. When does USSS get traffic control? — Harry Enten (@ForecasterEnten) June 1, 2012
— Emily Friedman (@EmilyABC) June 1, 2012 4.36pm: Yesterday John Edwards was given every reason to believe that he will never be convicted of violating campaign finance laws. Outside of court he said he doesn't think God is done with him yet. It sounded like the first step toward a character rehabilitation. But this might not help:
11.36am: Nate Silver offers up a line on unemployment the White House could maybe try out: CNN JUST IN Rielle Hunter will publish a memoir June 26th, her spokesperson RoseMarie Terenzio tells CNN
This jobs report is no big deal. Every economy has a few bad decades. — Vaughn Sterling CNN (@vplus) June 1, 2012
— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) June 1, 2012 4.46pm: Who's volunteering to read it?
11.31am: My colleague Dominic Rushe has the White House response to today's dismal jobs report: Sorry – not yet available for pre-order on Amazon.
The White House moved swiftly to dampen the political fallout of the report... Alan B Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said: "Problems in the job market were long in the making and will not be solved overnight. The economy lost jobs for 25 straight months beginning in February 2008, and over 8m jobs were lost as a result of the Great Recession. We are still fighting back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." 4.56pm: Congress is in session. God hates incumbents?
Just a bad month, then? Dominic asks a business prof and an economist: #BREAKINGNEWS: Tornado warning issued for Washington, D.C. until 5:15. Take cover now.wapo.st/JZgJdz
Betsey Stevenson, professor of business and public policy at Wharton business school, said: "This is a very bad report. It changes where I thought the US economy was." — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 1, 2012
Gus Faucher, senior economist of PNC Financial Services, said he had been shocked by the numbers. "They were much worse than we had expected. There was a big drop in construction [down 28,000 in May] which is worrying, wage growth was weak. It is hard to see anything good in this report," he said. 5.20pm: Scott Walker to Tom Barrett: I'll see your Bill Clinton and raise you a Sarah Palin. Hang on...
11.05am: BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray is on the scene in Milwaukee where Bill Clinton is scheduled to speak. Please remember to support Gov. Walker and Lt. Gov. Kleefisch in next Tuesday's recall election. Wisconsin is... fb.me/1IFBMlcUA
This dude with his "support Scott walker, not union thugs" getting into repeated arguments w/ ppl here twitter.com/RosieGray/stat… — Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) June 1, 2012
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) June 1, 2012 5.30pm: We're going to suspend our live blog coverage for the evening. Not end it – suspend it. This way we can continue to collect donations to pay down our debt. If you need more politics this weekend, we direct you to the web site of the North Carolina State Republican Convention, happening all weekend long. The featured convention speaker tonight: Mr. Donald Trump.
Wisconsin's recall election has taken on a national profile, with national fundraising, the participation of national political figures and national media coverage. At the heart of the fight is Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to cut his state loose from budget commitments that labor unions see as basic to the well-being of anyone employed by the state. The clash has ramifications for the broader fight between the corporation and the worker. Here's a summary of the latest developments:
Walker has raised more than $30 million from across the country and challenger Tom Barrett has taken in more than $4 million. The vote may also be a sort of dry run for the presidential election, Monica Davey writes in the New York Times: • Mitt Romney hit the president hard on the anemic May jobs figures and rising unemployment rate. Calling the numbers "devastating," Romney said the president had squandered his chance to get the economy back on track by focusing on health care legislation.
Broadly, the results will be held up as an omen for the presidential race in the fall, specifically for President Obama's chances of capturing this Midwestern battleground — one that he easily won in 2008 but that Republicans nearly swept in the midterm elections of 2010. • President Obama announced an executive order creating an employment aid program for military veterans. Speaking to Honeywell employees in Minnesota, the president attributed the May jobs figures to the seriousness of the Great Recession, high gas prices and eurozone chaos (and Congress' failure to act on the American Jobs Act).
10.43am: He's scheduled to speak in a half hour at Pere Marquette park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, alongside gubernatorial hopeful Tom Barrett. • A new CNN poll shows Obama with a 52% approval rating and a 49-46 lead over Romney among registered voters. That approval rating looks a little inflated, our numbers team said.
Bill Clinton's remarks on Piers Morgan (temporarily the Harvey Weinstein show) last night about Mitt Romney's "sterling business career" were a reminder of how the former president can go off the leash while campaigning. • Former President Bill Clinton stumped for Democratic challenger Tom Barrett in the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election, to be held Tuesday. Gov. Scott Walker leads in most polls going into the election.
After candidate Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2008 South Carolina Democratic primary, a visibly annoyed Clinton told reporters that Jesse Jackson had won South Carolina too – a huffy and racially charged remark that got all the wrong kinds of attention. In one of his first interviews after Hillary lost to Obama, the former president went on TV and called John McCain a "great man" and said Sarah Palin was an "instinctively effective candidate." Have a great weekend everyone.
But is it really a screw-up for Clinton to say that Romney had a sterling career? Or does it subtly make the "instinctive" argument the Obama campaign is trying to make: that Romney's a rich guy, a silver-spooner, and out of touch?
10.30am: Wall Street's take on the jobs report this morning:
BREAKING: Dow Jones industrial average drops 200 points after dismal report on US jobs. -BW
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 1, 2012
To say the jobs report comes at a bad time for Obama is to understate the case. At the end of the Nato summit in Chicago last Monday, the president was asked about his attacks on Romney's record at Bain Capital – and how those attacks had been undercut by supposed Obama surrogate Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J.
Obama defended his attacks on Bain. "That's what the election is going to be about," he said. It was the same message David Axelrod tried to send on the steps of the Massachusetts state house yesterday: Mitt Romney amassed personal mountains of money while failing to do anything for the average earner.
It will be much more difficult for Obama's message to gain traction if it has to compete with headlines about a slumping national economy. You can't brag about pulling the country out of the economic ditch Bush dug if the car's still in the ditch.
10.00am: Good morning and welcome to our Friday liveblog politics coverage. It's shaping up to be a colorful day on the campaign trail: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton both have scheduled events and unfortunately Donald Trump will speak at the North Carolina State Republican Convention. Tom McCarthy here in New York and here's where things stand:
• New labor department figures show the unemployment rate creeped up to 8.2% in May as the economy created a paltry 69,000 jobs, less than half of what economists expected. That's bad news for the incumbent president.
• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney got a public boost last night from former President Bill Clinton*. Clinton sought to erase any notion that Romney is unqualified for the presidency. "There's no question that in terms of getting up and going to the office and, you know, basically performing the essential functions of the office, the man who has been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold," Clinton told Harvey Weinstein, who inexplicably was guest-hosting Piers Morgan's CNN talk show.
*Bill Clinton is a Democrat.
• Romney released a new campaign ad, A Better Day, featuring construction cranes, a welder, a man in a hard hat on a rooftop next to an American flag and a little girl wearing a soft-looking hat. We'll take a closer look at that in a bit.
• The recall election for governor of Wisconsin is down to its final few days, and the aforementioned Bill Clinton is wheels down in the Badger State to try to help challenger Tom Barrett overcome his polling deficit. That's right, Clinton hits the hustings – read all about it right here.