Report leaves Romney, Obama wary

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The nation’s steady-but-modest job growth presents political challenges for both of November’s all-but- certain presidential rivals.

Republican Mitt Romney needs an ailing economy to fully exploit his image as a “Mr. Fix-It” who can restore the nation’s financial health, as he turned around the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics. President Barack Obama needs job-creation momentum to convince voters that things are moving in the right direction, even if millions of people remain unemployed.

Friday’s neither-hot-nor-cold jobs report leaves both campaigns unsure of whether they can sell their narratives. Employers added 120,000 jobs last month, about half the December-February pace and well short of the 210,000 economists were expecting. Still, the unemployment rate declined from 8.3 percent in February to 8.2 percent, the lowest since about the time Obama took office.

GOP leaders were quick to note that the rate dropped largely because many Americans stopped looking for work and were not counted in the government survey.

Romney called Friday’s jobs report “weak and very troubling.”

“Millions of Americans are paying a high price for President Obama’s economic policies, and more and more people are growing so discouraged that they are dropping out of the labor force altogether,” he said in a statement.

Obama was more upbeat at a White House gathering. “Our economy has now created more than 4 million private-sector jobs over the past two years and more than 600,000 in the past three months,” he said.

“There will still be ups and downs along the way,” the president said. “We’ve got a lot more work to do.”