Jobs report has something for Obama and Romney

With higher-than-expected job creation in July, President Obama avoided a major blow in Friday’s unemployment report. But the rise in the jobless rate to 8.3 percent, up from 8.2 percent, mitigated the positive news – and handed campaign fodder to Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Voters focus on the unemployment rate more than any other economic indicator, and the slight uptick feeds the narrative that the tepid economic recovery is losing altitude – a drag on Mr. Obama’s reelection prospects three months before Election Day.

Polls show the public still assigns much of the blame for the nation’s economic woes to former President George W. Bush, who left office in January 2009 amid an economic crisis. But with each passing month, Obama owns the economy, and he could pay the price for that in November. No president has been reelected with unemployment over 7.4 percent since the Great Depression.

IN PICTURES: On the campaign trail with President Barack Obama

“The job creation number is a little positive news that President Obama can maybe boast about,” says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey. “But when the unemployment rate goes up, that’s the headline.”

Even with unemployment at or above 8 percent for 42 consecutive months, Obama has held onto a slight advantage against Mr. Romney. The Real Clear Politics average of major polls show Obama leading by 2.7 percent points nationally and ahead by a higher margin in key swing states.

The Department of Labor’s employment report for July showed overall growth of 163,000 jobs in the nonfarm private-sector. Analysts had predicted growth of fewer than 100,000 jobs.

“That keeps the president in the ballgame” for reelection, says Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, Durham. “If the jobs numbers had come in below 100,000, I think voters – who are already in a bad mood – would have fairly quickly thrown in the towel on the president.”

Both Obama and Romney addressed the employment report Friday. In remarks aimed at pressuring Congress to extend tax cuts for the middle class, the president touted the job-creation number.

“We've now created 4.5 million new jobs over the last 29 months and 1.1 million new jobs so far this year,” Obama said. “Those are our neighbors and family members finding work and the security that comes with work. But let's acknowledge, we've still got too many folks out there who are looking for work.”

Mr. Romney called the rise in unemployment a blow to the middle class, and touted a five-point plan he released Thursday that he says will help the middle class.

The jobs report is “another hammer blow to the struggling middle-class families of America because the president has not had policies that put American families back to work,” Romney said at an event in North Las Vegas. “I do. I'll put them in place and get America working again.”

Romney promised to create 12 million new jobs in his first term. His plan aims to make the nation energy independent, improve schools, increase trade, help small businesses through lower taxes and regulation, and address the federal budget deficit.

The Obama campaign says the Romney plan cuts taxes for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

Romney advisers say that as voters get to know the former Massachusetts governor better, their comfort level with him will grow. Voters will start paying closer attention to the race with the conventions in late August and early September, then the debates in October.

Analysts expect the race to remain tight all the way to the end, barring some major unforeseen event.

“We’re in a gray zone, where the election could be decided on the margin,” says Mr. Scala. “It could come down to who has the better campaign.”

IN PICTURES: On the campaign trail with Mitt Romney

Related stories

Read this story at csmonitor.com

Become a part of the Monitor community

Quick, fire Scott Howson before he screws something else up (Trending Topics Extra)

Getty ImagesThe long-awaited Rick Nash trade finally came down on Monday and it turned out that Scott Howson got a decent enough return for his face-of-the-franchise former Rocket Richard winner.

Of course, he was lambasted for it. Part of that is because it's really easy and kind of required by custom to trash anything he does. The simple fact is he managed an NHL team that had designs on making the playoffs for years to come — see what he gave up in the Jeff Carter trade and the ridiculous contract for James Wisniewski as evidence thereof — into the ground in just over a calendar year. No Jeff Carter, no Rick Nash, no hope of being good in the next few seasons.

The cries for his job that have been echoing around Columbus and in fact the entire league didn't get much quieter as a result of the four "ifs" he acquired for Nash. Granted, Howson was constrained significantly by Nash's ability to dictate the teams to which he could be dealt, but nonetheless, this was not a good day at the ballpark by the GM's own definition. He wanted a home run. He got a solid double to the gap that plated a pair.

But at the same time, Howson may have also built a fairly decent young roster that, while it probably won't be able to win much more than 30 or so games this season, could actually be half decent in a few years. Whether this was an accident is, one supposes, up for interpretation. Nonetheless, guys like Brandon Dubinsky, Cam Atkinson, Derick Brassard, Ryan Johansen, Artem Anisimov, Nikita Nikitin, Tim Erixon, Ryan Murray, David Savard, Jack Johnson, Allen York, and so forth are all decent enough players and all could, approximately, be called young. This isn't anything world-beating by any stretch of the imagination but it is, at least, something to start with.

And that's why they have to fire Scott Howson immediately.

There were a few reports after that whole disaster last season that Howson wouldn't be fired by Columbus' higher-ups, likely in the same way judges on courtroom dramas say "I want to see where he's going with this," as counsel goes spectacularly off the rails with a witness. Howson has somehow been given the chance to dig himself out from this mess he created all by himself, but it wouldn't be all that surprising to see him bash himself in the face with the shovel a few times before really getting after it in earnest.

Having colossally screwed even the slightest attempt at "going for it," to use Jay Feaster's favorite term, Howson can't have the keys going forward. Case in point: He got Los Angeles' first-round pick in 2013 along with Jack Johnson in exchange for Jeff Carter — not the best trade-off considering what he gave up just months earlier — but rumors over the weekend said he could be required to ship that back to the Kings if a trade for Jonathan Bernier were to come to fruition.

This is, of course, after saying that he was content to enter the season with Steve Mason and Sergei Bobrovsky as his goaltenders. That in itself shows he has a complete lack of judgment on the subject of what is an acceptable goaltending tandem, as if last year's faith in Mason wasn't enough evidence. But to then throw away a pick on an unproven netminder like Bernier, whose even-strength save percentage last season was an appalling .901 (worse than Jonas Gustavsson's) on an appreciably better team.

In no way should this man be allowed to oversee a worst-in-the-league team's efforts at even a modest rebuild. He's been running the Blue Jackets since 2007, when Doug MacLean got the axe, and in that time made the postseason with a team he largely inherited thanks to a freakishly good and as-it-turns-out uncharacteristic start from Mason, then a rookie. Since then, well, it hasn't gone well. Five fifth-place finishes in a division that is, admittedly, not easy to win against. But more to the point, has gotten actively worse in that time.

What's more, prior to this latest draft, Hockey's Future had the Blue Jackets' system ranked a stunning 29th out of 30, ahead of only the San Jose Sharks. Of course, that's probably because the latter team picked in the top 15 just once since 2006, thanks to all that winning they've been doing. Columbus, well, their best season in that time (okay, ever) saw them earn a whopping 92 points.

Repeatedly awful team? Bad drafting? Howson is, to put it nicely, demonstrably bad at his job. This was his chance to make up ground against those who would nay-say his efforts, which is to say "everyone."

He turned down Rangers offers at the deadline and draft that were arguably better than the one he eventually settled for (the sticking point being whether you prefer Artem Anisimov to a pair of prospects) and took on money to offload his franchise's only good player ever. This after basically asking for the moon in all negotiations, which he was more than happy to make extraordinarily public. No one would think he got ripped off in the Nash deal if he hadn't done that, and even when the Rangers were desperate to get the star winger over fears that Shea Weber could be smothering their forwards for the next 14 years, he failed to command any kind of better return.

There's simply no clear indication of the plan Howson has in mind. He's clearly happy to roll a top-six next season of R.J. Umberger, Brassard, Atkinson, Vinny Prospal, Anisimov and Dubinsky. That is, somehow, a worse top-six than Calgary rolled last year, and the Flames actually had a good goaltender behind them. His insistence on obtaining NHL talent — hence his decision to nix the earlier Ranger offers — seems ill-founded.

That's the reason you can't let him clean up his own mess. It's impossible to guess either if or when he'll trade one of his team's few decent prospects and a lottery pick for Ales Hemsky, but really, do you want to take that chance? Worse things have already happened.

Ryan Lambert is a columnist for Puck Daddy. Follow him on Twitter or whatever.