Washed It!

President Barack Obama rallied thousands of loyal supporters at the USC campus Friday, urging them to defy skeptics who have predicted losses for Democrats and turn out in force on election day to give his administration more time to turn around the nation’s flailing economy and deliver the change he promised in the 2008 election.

“We need all of you to fight on. We need all of you fired up,” the president told the roaring crowd of students and admirers — 37,500 of them, by USC officials’ estimates — who spilled out across the sun-soaked lawn of Alumni Park and the streets beyond. “We need all of you ready to go, because in just 11 days … you have the chance to set the direction of this state and of this country, not just for the next two years but for the next five years, the next 10 years, the next 20 years.”

“Just like you did in 2008,” the president said, “you can defy the conventional wisdom that says young people are apathetic, the conventional wisdom that says you can’t beat the cynicism in politics.”

In the combative tone that has defined his remarks in recent days, Obama offered a sharp rebuke of the Republican agenda, accusing the opposition party of embracing a strategy of “amnesia” after sitting on the sidelines saying “no to everything” while blaming him for the nation’s troubles.

“They figured that y’all would forget that they caused the mess in the first place,” he said. “…But Los Angeles, as I look out on this crowd, this tells me you haven’t forgotten.”

With a new Los Angeles-Times/USC poll showing a narrowing enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats, the president’s trip to California served the dual purpose of motivating his troops and raising money for endangered Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and attorney general candidate Kamala Harris. Boxer, Harris and state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, all spoke briefly at the event, asking Democrats to match the fervor of Republicans.

Actor Jamie Foxx also underscored the Democrats’ precarious position by alluding to Obama’s encounter with a woman earlier this year who said she was exhausted by defending him — and then prompting the crowd to chant: “We’re not exhausted.”

Boxer, who has been hit with millions of dollars’ worth of attack ads from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other outside groups, said the other side has “giant, wealthy, unlimited-spending special interests with them.” But, she said, “We have our own army.”

Unlike on his last visit to Los Angeles, the President sought to avoid the wrath of the city’s commuters by flying from LAX to USC on Marine One for the event organized by the Democratic National Party. He also attended a luncheon fundraiser for Boxer and sat for an interview with Spanish-language radio host Piolin in Glendale. Then he jetted off to Nevada for another Democratic rally and a dinner to benefit Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is in an uncomfortably close race of his own.

While some Democratic candidates have kept Obama at arm’s length — distancing themselves from the administration’s controversial healthcare legislation and the $814-million stimulus package — Boxer has welcomed his help in California. In this state, 56% of likely voters said in a recent Times/USC poll that they wanted a senator who supports the president.

Boxer has been an unfailing defender of Obama’s policies, even in the face of relentless criticism of Obama’s policies from her challenger, Republican Carly Fiorina. The White House has rewarded Boxer’s loyalty with multiple trips to California on behalf of the three-term senator, who is clinging to a slim lead over Fiorina.

The president’s visit will be followed next week by a fundraising event for Boxer featuring First Lady Michelle Obama. The efforts will provide a much-needed boost to Boxer’s coffers in the final stretch.

New fundraising reports covering the period from Oct. 1 to Oct. 13 showed Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, raising slightly more than Boxer, though Boxer still had twice as much cash on hand as her opponent. But Fiorina announced a new $1-million loan to her campaign Friday for the final push, in addition to the $5.5 million she gave herself for the primary.

At Friday’s rally, the candidates took care to avoid mentioning the names of their rivals but drew distinctions between themselves and their opponents.

Brown signaled that he would reject what he has criticized as the divisive tactics of his opponent: “We don’t scapegoat anybody, not public workers, not immigrants, not anybody because we’re all Californians together.”

And Obama argued that if Republicans were to regain control, they would cut “middle-class families loose to fend for themselves.”

“Their basic philosophy is — you’re on your own,” he said.

Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund called Obama’s visit “another rescue mission for Boxer” and said the fact that Boxer did not mention Friday’s new unemployment figures or her specific plans to address them in her short speech proved “just how out of touch she is with the reality that 1 in 8 Californians is without a job.”

Brown’s Republican rival, Meg Whitman, meanwhile, campaigned in San Jose on Friday with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He had held the all-time record for self-funding a campaign until Whitman, who has put $141.5 million into her gubernatorial bid, surpassed him.

The former EBay chief executive said the Obama administration’s efforts to revive the economy had been a failure.

“The progress has been terrible,” Whitman said. “Look at the unemployment rates we face in California and we face in the country.”

maeve.reston@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Times staff writer Michael J. Mishak in San Jose contributed to this report.
In USC speech, Obama urges 37,500 Democratic voters to ‘fight on’

With the 2008 Democratic primary race all but won, Barack Obama appeared at a massive outdoor rally here and delivered a message that was unique by the cutthroat standards of American political campaigns.

“We’re not going to worry about what other folks are doing,” Obama told a crowd of 75,000 at the waterfront event in May 2008. “We’re going to try to focus on what we think we can do for America.”

Obama returned to Portland on Wednesday night and delivered a different sort of speech. His message of national unity and reconciliation had been replaced by a stark warning against cynical Republican tactics, vague threats to America’s political system and the urgent need to keep the GOP marginalized.

There was less hope, more fear.

Obama conveyed much the same message Thursday during a rally in Seattle, and the appeal is not expected to vary significantly as he campaigns in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Minneapolis over the next two days.

Obama in Portland suggested that “foreign-controlled corporations” were bankrolling a “misleading, negative” ad campaign that serves Republicans, but offered no evidence.

“We don’t know,” he said.

Whereas his 2008 speech said that Americans needed to “start trusting each other again, start working together again,” he said at the Oregon Convention Center rally this week that even if Republicans cooperate more with the White House, they would be forced to “sit in the back seat.”

Two years ago, he said Americans are “tired of a politics that’s all about tearing each other down.” On Wednesday, he painted a grim picture of life under Republican leadership: The chronically ill, the unemployed, the student who can’t afford college tuition — all would be cut “loose to fend for themselves.”

The shift in tone reflects the realities of Obama’s political predicament. With Democrats facing the likelihood of major losses in the midterm election, Obama wants to fire up his base and make sure voters go to the polls. Instead of letting the campaign become a referendum on his first term at a time when the unemployment rate is nearly 10%, Obama is instead framing the election as a clear choice.

David Axelrod, a senior White House advisor who helps craft Obama’s speeches, said the aim was to lay out the stakes in the Nov. 2 election.

“Everything looks different through the gauzy recollections of the past,” said Axelrod when asked how Obama’s message has changed in the last two years. “We offered a fairly strong critique of the Republican policies of 2008…. Every election is a choice. People need to understand what the contrast is.”

Obama has been delivering a similar version of the Portland speech recently. Speaking in Columbus, Ohio, earlier in the week, he imputed a motive to lawmakers who’ve resisted his agenda: Republicans opposed his proposals because they want him to founder, cynically positioning themselves to pick up seats in the upcoming election at the nation’s expense.

Appearing in Boston last week, he told the crowd that with the country facing an historic economic downturn, Republicans “didn’t lift a finger to help.”

The darker message may be rooted in Obama’s experience as president. Nearly two years into the job, the partisan divisions are not going away.

“As a candidate in 2008, Obama made an appealing but naive promise to bring Republicans and Democrats together in Washington and end the bitter partisan standoff,” said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies and writes about governance. “He learned that was easier said than done.

“He is now giving voice to a reality that he was hesitant to accept.”

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

cparsons@latimes.com
In two years, a fearful turn in Obama’s speeches

California’s deeply troubled labor market took another hit in August as employers laid off more workers than expected, renewing fears that the state’s economic recovery has stalled.

Employers cut 33,500 jobs, marking the third straight month of losses and pushing the state’s unemployment rate to 12.4%, up from 12.3% in July, according to data released Friday by the Employment Development Department. California has lost 113,100 jobs since August 2009.

Last month’s losses were widespread, hitting almost all sectors, including construction, manufacturing, financial services, leisure and hospitality, trade, transportation and utilities. Government was the biggest loser, shedding 9,200 jobs, most of them temporary census positions.

“The thing that is disconcerting is that we have lost jobs in virtually every industry,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economist and UC Channel Islands professor. “At this stage of an economic recovery, we should be doing much better.”

California has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, well above the national rate of 9.6%.

The deteriorating job market is bad news for the Golden State’s 2.3 million unemployed workers. Almost 1 million of them have been jobless for more than six months. And nearly 200,000 have exhausted their unemployment benefits, which last up to 99 weeks.

Some of the unemployed — discouraged or depressed — have quit looking for work. About 926,000 such Californians who are no longer counted as unemployed said they want a job, according to the most recent state government figures. Some are going back to school or retraining for other careers. Others are retiring early or applying for disability insurance.

California’s labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the population working or actively seeking a job, fell to 64.2% in July from 66% in July 2008. Economists said that’s a worrisome decline that could hurt the state’s productivity down the road.

“When the economy turns south, people exit the labor market,” said Mary Daly, a vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco who has studied the trend. “They search and search and don’t find anything, so they just stop looking for work.”

Applications to the Social Security disability insurance program are projected to reach 3.3 million in the 2010 fiscal year, a 27% jump from 2008, according to Mark Hinkle, a spokesman for the agency. In California, applications increased to 287,000 in the 2009 fiscal year, up 12% from the year before.

“As the economy has gotten worse, the applications have gone up at a pretty steady correlation,” said Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue.

Mark Allen Jr., 29, lost his job at a mortuary in downtown Los Angeles in April and has been unable find new employment. His car was repossessed two weeks ago and he’s barely making his rent. Allen said he had been battling medical problems for a few years. After consulting a lawyer, he’s now in the process of applying for disability benefits.

“It’s absolutely a last resort,” he said. “I really don’t know where to turn before I am totally out on the street.”

Other unemployed workers are going back to school. Community colleges throughout the state are experiencing “unprecedented demand,” said Paige Marlatt Dorr, a spokeswoman for California Community Colleges, the largest higher education system in the nation.

But because of funding cuts, campuses had to turn away 140,000 students in the 2009-10 school year, she said.

Rosemead resident Queenie Luc, 52, is studying commercial and medical billing at Los Angeles City College. She lost her job in 2008 when the garment factory that she managed closed.

“I just want to finish so I can find a job,” Luc said.

But so far, California employers have shown little confidence in the strength of the economic recovery.

“Businesses are still really cautious and are taking a wait-and-see attitude,” said Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast.

Los Angeles County lost 12,800 jobs in August as the unemployment rate rose to 12.6% from a revised 12.4% in July. Manufacturing, information and government experienced significant job losses. But construction and professional and business services gained jobs.

Orange County’s unemployment rate fell to 9.6% in August, from a revised 9.9% in July. The county lost 2,300 jobs, with the biggest losses in government, educational and health services and trade.

In the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area, the unemployment rate fell to 14.8% from a revised 15.1% in July. Job losses were modest, with payrolls down by only 100 positions. Still, that area has lost 22,700 jobs over the last year.

San Diego County lost 2,200 jobs in August, and its unemployment rate dropped to 10.6% from a revised 10.9% in July. Ventura County added 500 jobs as its unemployment rate fell slightly to 11.2% from 11.3% the month before.

Cristina Molinari, 60, has been out of work since July 2008 and ran out of benefits in April. The Woodland Hills resident worries that because of her age no one will hire her. A onetime computer programmer, she says she has been told that her skills are outdated, or, alternatively, that she’s overqualified.

She recently called the Social Security Administration to inquire about receiving benefits early. They said she was too young for Social Security but recommended she apply for disability insurance.

“It’s ironic that I’m too young for that. Because as far as the job market, I’m too old to be hired,” she said. “It’s pretty tough.”

alana.semuels@latimes.com

Job losses cut wide swath in California

Moving into campaign mode, President Obama on Saturday cast the Republicans as an obstructionist force bent on impeding the nation’s economic recovery for political purposes.

Obama used his weekly radio address to deliver a message that Senate Republicans are also blocking an extension of jobless benefits to millions of unemployed Americans suffering in a tough economy.