Why stop at women?
Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney seems to have scored political points by claiming that women account for 92.3 percent of the jobs lost under President Obama. His methodology is fishy, as numerous news stories have pointed out. But that's beside the point, because facts barely matter in politics. What matters more is establishing a negative impression of a candidate in the minds of voters, whether accurate or not.
[Photo Gallery: Obama Behind the Scenes.]
So with that in mind, here are some other barbed claims Romney could make about Obama:
He has snuffed out the hopes of youth: Workers between the ages of 16 and 24 have accounted for 390 percent of all jobs lost under Obama, if you crunch the numbers similar to the way Romney did the math on female workers. That means women and young workers combined account for a shocking 482 percent of all jobs lost under Obama. No president has ever been so hostile toward working moms and their children. (Don't think too hard about the math—suffice to say you can have more than 100 percent of something if there are negatives on the other side.)
He has ruined retirement for more than a million Americans. There are 1.1 million more people over 65 who are working now than when Obama took office. Those deserving Americans should be playing golf and strolling on the beach, not slaving for gin money during their golden years.
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He's threatened to wreck the planet. Under Obama, planet Earth has endured unusually warm weather and the two wettest years on record. Another four years of this could turn the whole country into one giant swamp.
He's cheapened our culture. Jersey Shore debuted toward the end of Obama's first year in office. Don't let anybody tell you that was a coincidence. Also, harem pants came back into fashion under Obama.
He's made Congress look bad. Americans' trust in Congress has fallen from 17 percent in 2009 to 12 percent in Gallup's latest survey. That must be what Obama was up to when he wrecked the debt-ceiling compromise graciously offered by House Republicans last summer.
Of course, Obama could use the same types of tricks to make his performance over the last three years look unusually good. Here are some things Obama could claim credit for since he became president:
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The stock market has soared. The S&P 500 stock index is up 72 percent since the day Obama was sworn in. That's one benefit of taking office during the depths of a recession—there's nowhere to go but up.
Tax receipts have plunged. That's mainly because millions of workers lost their jobs and a lot of companies went out of business during the recession. But taxes are evil and paying less of them is the main thing. Whether you have a job is secondary.
Americans have slimmed down. The obesity rate has fallen over the last three years. That might be because people have less money to spend on food, but details don't matter in politics.
Tiger Woods finally got caught. Somebody had to bring the philandering golf star back to earth and steer the nation back toward sound moral bearings. Obama was the man to do it.
The iPad arrived. It may not seem like Obama had much to do with the debut of the iconic gizmo, but fair or not, the president gets the credit and the blame for what happens on his watch. That suggests a new Obama campaign slogan: "The iPad president." It might help voters stop thinking about his horrible record on working women.
Rick Newman is the author of Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback to Success, to be published in May. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
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