The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has released its latest forecasts for unemployment over the next several years, and the news isn’t good. By the fourth quarter of 2012 –- election time –- unemployment is expected to be at 8.7 percent. Worse, unemployment isn’t expected to dip below 8 percent until 2014. This could change if growth speeds up over the next year, but the prospects for that aren’t good. For the unemployment rate to drop by any amount, real GDP needs to grow by at least 2 percent. To see a significant reduction in employment, GDP growth needs to reach 4 percent or higher.

Last weekend, in a meeting with CEOs in Honolulu, President Obama offered some mild criticism of himself and the business community when it came to attracting foreign investment:

“I think it’s important to remember that the United States is still the largest recipient of foreign investment in the world. And there are a lot of things that make foreign investors see the U.S. as a great opportunity — our stability, our openness, our innovative free market culture.

He's stumbled his way through nearly every debate, including one of the most uncomfortable moments ever seen in a modern debate. He started his campaign leading the polls, only to drop to the bottom of the field. He learned that religious moralizing doesn't forgive a slight divergence from the Tea Party line on immigration. Despite Mitt Romney's inability to win over social conservatives and the clownish makeup of the rest of the field, there is little reason to believe Rick Perry can still win the Republican nomination.

There’s apparently a meme developing in the early general election reporting that goes like this: I know Obama is in a difficult position heading into 2012, but I can’t just report on the poll numbers or the fact that everyone knows incumbents have a difficult time getting re-elected when the economy is doing poorly, so I’m going to seize on some piece of information that’s out of context to be “another sign” that Obama is in trouble.

After waiting all year, Wisconsin Democrats are now poised to challenge Scott Walker. They were forced to hold off until a year after he was first elected, but on Tuesday they officially began gathering signatures for a recall election against their unpopular Republican governor, who earned national attention and the ire of cheeseheads when he used the state's new Republican majority to strip public employees of their collective-bargaining rights.

So far, the Republican Party has held 11 presidential debates, and between audience cheering for the death penalty, attacks on gay soldiers, or huge candidate gaffes, each debate has shown the GOP candidates in one unflattering light or the other. With 14 more debates to go, The New York Times reports some Republican elites are worried about the effect they could have on public perception.

“This is the core of the Republican brand. You mess with it at your peril,” said Peter Feaver, a national security official under President George W. Bush. He compared the foreign policy flubs to reports about safety problems in Toyota vehicles.

As part of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Governor Rick Perry wants to “Uproot and Overhaul” Washington, D.C. with specific reforms to each branch of government. The proposals include a “fundamental reform of the judiciary” through judicial term limits, a “fundamental reform of the executive branch” through the elimination of three federal agencies (the Departments of Commerce, Education, and Energy), and a “fundamental reform of the legislative branch.” Here is Politico’s Mike Allen with details on the latter: