Jobs Numbers Could Affect Presidential Race

At the New York Times, "Stakes for Jobs Figures Rise as Voters’ Views Start to Solidify":

WASHINGTON — Economists are slashing their already tepid growth forecasts. The unemployment rate seems stuck at around 8 percent. It is a tense time for the American economy. It is also the time that some experts believe the country’s undecided voters are beginning to cement their presidential picks.

That is why many political scientists and consultants consider Friday’s jobs report and the ones immediately following it to be so important — perhaps more so than those of the previous three years.

“I don’t know whether it is because American voters are myopic, or because they are forward-looking,” said Andrew Gelman, the director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University. “But they appear to care most about change in the economy in the year preceding the election,” rather than the state of the economy over an incumbent president’s first four years.

Some narrow the critical period even more, arguing that what happens from April until October of an election year weighs especially heavily on voters’ minds.

“It’s difficult to sort out the electoral effects of specific slivers of economic conditions,” said Larry M. Bartels, a Vanderbilt University professor of political science. But he cited the economic climate of the middle of the election year as unusually important — a time when even wavering voters begin to lock in decisions on the presidential race and lock out conflicting reports about the economy.

This political reality is not lost on the Obama and Romney campaigns, which have sparred over the state of the economy to the near exclusion of every other issue.

Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, has centered his campaign on the notion that President Obama’s incompetence as an economic steward has made recovery weaker than it need have been — with unemployment too high and job growth too slow.

Mr. Obama has countered that Mr. Romney’s business record at Bain Capital epitomizes the profits-at any-cost philosophy that has cut middle-class jobs. As for his own record, he argues that pushing the 2009 stimulus program through Congress has helped the economy rebound and that without it, the nation would be in worse economic straits.

“Throughout history, it has typically taken countries up to 10 years to recover from financial crises of this magnitude,” Mr. Obama said recently, noting the sustained recessions in Europe. He added, “Our economy started growing again six months after I took office, and it has continued to grow for the last three years.”

The question now is which economic messages will sink in among the pool of voters — roughly one in 10 — who tell pollsters they are undecided.

RTWT.

Also, a surprisingly lame piece at the Los Angeles Times, "Analysis: Impact of jobs report on presidential contest minimal."

I think O's looking like Carter in 1976, or perhaps G.H.W. Bush in 1992 --- in other words, I expect him to lose. Romney's had a rough week coming out of the NFIB decision and the campaign's lame response, but he'll get back on top of his game. He's going to be hammering this president. And there's still a while to go.

See also James Pethokoukis, "June jobs swoon: America’s labor market depression continues."

And at Instapundit, "INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: 10 reasons why jobs market even worse than weak June employment report."