newyorker:

 John Cassidy posts on how the bad jobs report could cost Obama the election: http://nyr.kr/KiETnM

“These jobs numbers are pathetic,” Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, said on CNBC this morning. “And I think it cries out now for us to try something new…. The policies coming out of the Administration have not worked.”

That is the Romney argument, of course. “This week has seen a cascade of one bad piece of economic news after another,” Romney said in a statement. “Slowing GDP growth, plunging consumer confidence, an increase in unemployment claims, and now another dismal jobs report all stand as a harsh indictment of the President’s handling of the economy.”

From an economic point of view, this is misleading. Obama’s policies helped prevent a Great Depression. Since the spring of 2010, payrolls have risen by more than four million. If the do-nothing Republicans in Congress had passed the Administration’s American Jobs Act, which contained more financial help for cash-strapped states that are still laying off teachers and other employees, many more Americans would be working.

In short, the Republicans are full of it. But politically speaking, their argument is a potent one—and Obama’s campaign knows it.