Obama leads in polls, despite a sour economy

Talking heads from the Left and the Right agree: the economy is bad.

But will an economy with 8.2 percent unemployment hurt Obama's reelection this November?

The pundits aren't too sure.

Debating on ABC's This Week, conservative commentator George Will said if seven million people had not left the workforce, the unemployment would be 10.9 percent with no one talking about a recovery. He noted the recovery looks like a hockey stick.

Blaming Obama's advisors early in the administration, Will said they assured Obama that unemployment would never reach 8 percent if they provided an economic stimulus package.

But after TARP was created and money sent to municipalities across the country and used to protect the automobile from bankruptcy, Will said America is in a growth recession that doesn't even accommodate the population growth, leaving millions jobless.

Gwen Ifill, a professed Obama supporter and editor of PBS's Washington Week, said people feel anxiety, not whether they will have a job next month but whether Obama or Romney will be able to help them in the long run. "If Romney can't convince them that their lives will be made better, they'll just stick with the one they know," she said.

Washington Post commentator E.J. Dionne noted that Obama is maintaining a lead in the face of very bad economic numbers, leading in almost every poll, including in swing states.

"If the numbers are falling, Obama is in trouble. But they're not, so at the moment Romney isn't offering much but tax cuts or regulation cuts. There's a feeling that it won't work."

With a message that even though the American job machine is broken, unemployment could have been worse, Obama could be reelected on saving the automobile industry, especially in swing states such as Michigan and Ohio.

Will reminded the panel, though, of 1980 where a week before the election, Reagan had a single debate with Carter. Before the debate, ABC and Time magazine had Carter slightly ahead of Reagan in the polls, a statistical tie. A week later, Reagan carried 44 states. "The country will, at some point, throw a switch and say this isn't working," Will said.

But Dionne disagreed, saying there are three problems with Will's metaphor: Romney isn't Reagan, Obama isn't Carter, and hostages aren't in Iran.