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| US President, Barack Obama [Photo:Reuters] |
After a month in which his re-election campaign picked up momentum, hard economic realities are about to hit President Barack Obama as he takes to the road on a campaign bus trip through the Rust Belt.
Poor manufacturing data earlier this week followed by a likely weak jobless report on Friday are reminding Obama that he has a lot of work to do to convince voters he is bringing the economy back to full health.
A Supreme Court victory for Obama on healthcare and a surprise expansion of immigration laws that put Republican opponent Mitt Romney on the defensive on the issue may soon fade from memory.
"By Friday, the Supreme Court will be in the rear-view mirror and everybody will be talking about the state of the economy," said Greg Valliere, an analyst for institutional investors at Potomac Research Group.
"I think the debate on Friday will be whether the economy is still growing or whether we've hit a brick wall," he said.
U.S. manufacturing activity contracted in June for the first time in nearly three years, data showed on Monday, stark evidence of a slowing economic recovery and that Europe's debt crisis is weighing on the U.S. economy.
And the monthly jobless figures, the most closely watched economic indicator, are expected to be lackluster.
Economists polled by Reuters expect nonfarm payrolls to have risen by only 90,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate will stay unchanged at 8.2 percent.
Employers likely increased hiring, but not enough to dispel concerns that the economy is losing steam.
The fiscal gloom allows Romney to re-energize his charge that the White House is not creating jobs quickly enough, after his nonstop economic criticism was drowned out by last week's Supreme Court ruling that Obama's 2010 healthcare law is constitutional.
"From day one of his administration, the president has pursued policies that have hurt job creators, hurt the manufacturing sector, and left millions of Americans struggling to find work.
It's going to be hard for the president to argue Americans should gamble on a second term while on his bus tour," Romney campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said.
