If that was Barack Obama's summer of recovery, Americans will be relieved to see Labour Day.
As the government announced that the unemployment rate rose a notch to 9.6 per cent in August, a new poll out Friday showed that four-fifths of Americans think the country is still in a recession.
The news sent Democrats into a state of panic as the campaign for the fall midterm congressional elections moves into third gear. More and more members of the President's party are disowning him to save their own skin.
As Mr. Obama prepares to unveil proposals next week for a renewed round of shock therapy for the economy, he faces a wall of opposition from not only Republicans in Congress, but increasingly even from moderate Democrats whose seats are on the line in November.
In many ways, Mr. Obama is paying the price for the self-congratulatory tone his administration adopted earlier this year when it looked like healthier job growth was on the horizon.
At the outset of beach season, the White House whizzes came up with a gimmick: Send Vice-President Joe Biden, and when possible the President himself, to fan out across the country to highlight a flurry of active projects financed by the $814-billion (U.S.) stimulus package. Thus was born the administration's "Recovery Summer" - replete with a logo and blog.
Instead of building support for the stimulus among skeptical voters, the Recovery Summer campaign exposed the White House to shovelfuls of ridicule. When Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner published an op-ed last month entitled "Welcome to Recovery," it suggested an administration out of touch with reality as most Americans continued to feel plagued by economic duress and uncertainty.
The administration's image wasn't helped when Michelle Obama vacationed in Spain with an army of staff and Secret Service agents in tow. When Mr. Obama this week unveiled an Oval Office makeover - derisively dubbed the Audacity of Taupe - it came off as self-indulgent.
The President made the best out of Friday's employment report, calling the creation of 67,000 private-sector jobs in August and the upward revision of estimates for June and July "positive news." But he acknowledged that "it's not nearly good enough."
Mr. Obama normally does not take questions during such appearances, but he could not resist a reporter's bait when asked whether he regretted the whole Recovery Summer idea.
"I don't regret the notion that we are moving forward because of the steps we've taken," Mr. Obama deadpanned.
The problem is, Americans think those steps were the wrong ones. A USA Today/Gallup poll out Friday indicated that solid majorities disapprove of, respectively, the bank bailouts (61 per cent), the health-care reform package (56 per cent), the aid to auto makers (56 per cent) and the stimulus (52 per cent).
Mr. Obama promised that, next week, he will release a new set of proposals to boost the economy that are believed to include some form of payroll tax holiday and the renewal of recently expired research and development tax breaks. Just don't expect the administration to call them "stimulus" measures. That word is now verboten.
The centrepiece of next week's package, however, will be details of the President's plan to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class that are set to expire at year-end, while raising income taxes on households earning more than $250,000. The devil will be in specifics, such as whether Mr. Obama wants to make the middle-class tax cuts permanent (widening the deficit) and whether the tax hikes for the wealthiest are to come all at once or be phased in.
It may all be moot, anyway. Moderate and conservative Democrats alike are increasingly lining up with Republicans in calling for an extension all of the Bush tax cuts for everyone, both rich and not-so-rich.
"My boss is my constituents … and they don't believe in tax increases on anybody at this point in time," insisted Alabama congressman Bobby Bright, one of several Democrats in the House of Representatives to come out this week against the administration's plan.
Mr. Obama will have a hard time persuading them otherwise. The USA Today poll gave Republicans a 49 per cent to 43 per cent advantage over Democrats on the so-called "generic ballot" question U.S. pollsters typically ask. Combined with a presidential approval rating of 43 per cent and the unprecedented 78 per cent of Americans who are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, it all suggests a "wave" election on Nov. 2.
All Democrats seem to have going for them (other than war chests built up when Mr. Obama was still popular) is the possibility that Republican support may have peaked too early.
It may be their only hope for a Recovery Fall.
Konrad Yakabuski