“I believe that America's free market has been the engine of America's great progress. It's created a prosperity that is the envy of the world. It's led to a standard of living unmatched in history. And it has provided great rewards to the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon for science, and technology, and discovery…We are all in this together. From CEOs to shareholders, from financiers to factory workers, we all have a stake in each other's success because the more Americans prosper, the more America prospers.”
— Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, New York, NY, September 17, 2007
Barack Obama and John McCain seized on Friday's jobs report to promote their own economic agendas and score some points against each other.
The report that the U.S. jobless rate jumped unexpectedly in August to 6.1% of the work force, a five-year high and the eighth-consecutive month of declining nonfarm payrolls, comes as Sen. Obama, the Democratic nominee, has sought to portray his Republican rival, Sen. McCain, as out-of-touch and out of ideas on the economy.
Sen. Obama immediately put the gloomy jobs statistic to work. At a town hall meeting with a hand-picked audience at a glass factory in Duryea, Pa., he reviewed the statistic for the crowd before launching the attack. "People are anxious because of the kind of statistics you see released today," Sen. Obama said. "If you watched the Republican National Convention over the last three days, you wouldn't know that we have the highest unemployment rate in the last five years…They spent a lot of time trying to run me down. What they didn't do was talk about you."
The Obama campaign smells blood on the issue. Public polls show that voters prefer the Illinois senator on the issue of the economy over his Republican rival. "John McCain said the other day he thought the economy was fundamentally sound," Sen. Obama said at the Duryea event. "What's more fundamental than having a job? I just think he doesn't get it."
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB122062987969004177.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_topbox
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/
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