ECONOMY Bush tries to capitalize on job gains

Kerry said the economy continues to be too 'painful' for many Americans.
WASHINGTON POST
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- An ebullient President Bush sought political momentum Friday from the largest gain in U.S. employment in four years, saying the creation of 308,000 jobs in March was proof that his tax cuts and other economic policies are succeeding.
With the economy hovering as the issue most critical to voters in the November elections, Bush appeared in high spirits. "The economy is growing and people are finding work," he said during a visit to a community college in the swing state of West Virginia.
The March job statistics offer the strongest piece of good news for Bush since the economy began to grow again 28 months ago, and Republicans said they believe the upturn will shift the dynamics of the presidential campaign against the presumed Democratic nominee, Sen. John Kerry, Mass.
"The Democrats have been hanging their hat on the lack of job growth, and here we have an extraordinary number of jobs," GOP political strategist Whit Ayres said. "It just cuts the legs right out from under their biggest argument for replacing the president."
Spinning the numbers
For months, Republicans have tried to spin bad numbers to their advantage, with limited success, some concede. Now, they say, Democrats will be the ones digging below the obvious news to look for underlying issues that work to their advantage. That won't work come election time, said Katon Dawson, GOP chairman in hard-hit South Carolina.
"It's the simple message that's going to get through to voters in the fall, not the real complex ones," he said.
Democrats Friday insisted they will continue to hammer Bush on his jobs record. The job figures will not alleviate widespread economic anxiety, fueled by the movement of jobs overseas, rising gas prices and a sense that the Bush administration has no plan to counter those trends, said Jim Jordan, spokesman for America Coming Together, a new Democratic group financing attacks on Bush.
Kerry's message
Kerry issued a statement that called the one-month rise in jobs "welcome news" and said, "I hope it continues." But he said, "for too many families, living through the worst job recovery since the Great Depression has been, and continues to be, far too painful."
The senator huddled with former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, but his spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, said the campaign has no intention of changing its message.
The investment banking firm Goldman Sachs & amp; Co. told clients Friday that although Bush is "likely to be re-elected," the president remains vulnerable on the jobs issue, even after the March jobs report: "Although the labor market is likely to improve between now and the election, it is unclear whether the recovery will be fast or powerful enough to benefit President Bush."
Leading in poll
A new poll in Michigan on Friday showed Kerry clinging to a 44 percent to 43 percent lead over Bush, with Ralph Nader garnering 3 percent. That is down from a four-point lead in February in a state that has suffered a large loss of manufacturing jobs and once appeared out of the president's reach, said Michigan pollster Ed Sarpolus.
"The jobs issue is what's saving Kerry in Michigan," he said. "If they allow themselves to get off message, if they allow the debate to be over Iraq and war for too long, they will lose the presidency."
Even Kerry supporters conceded that Friday's news was good for the president.
"I'm not going to say the world has turned inside out because the secretary of labor has created some job numbers," said Leo Girard, international president of the United Steelworkers of America, speaking on behalf of the Kerry campaign. But, he added, "I do worry that the echo chamber of Republican campaign will attempt to turn this into something it's not."
Inside the numbers
Employers have still shed 1.84 million jobs since Bush came to office. The economy would have to create 263,000 jobs a month if the president is to break even on job creation.
For economists looking for reasons to worry, the March jobs report had plenty. The unemployment rate ticked up because 182,000 more people said they were unemployed. Weekly wages fell. Manufacturing halted its 43-month employment slide, but failed to add any workers. Indeed, there were 3,000 fewer production workers than there were in February.
Some 117,000 more people were unemployed for at least six months, bringing the total number of long-term unemployed to nearly 2 million, the highest level since the recession of 1983.
And the broadest measure of labor-force problems continued to worsen. Counting unemployed workers, people working part-time against their will and discouraged workers no longer searching for a job, the "labor force underutilization" rate jumped to 9.9 percent in March, from 9.6 percent.