8% and the election

Fall in jobless rate strips Romney of an argument

By David A. Fahrenthold and Philip Rucker, WashPost, Friday, October 5, 7:17 PM

For Mitt Romney, it was the number that proved everything. Since the very first speech of his campaign, the Republican candidate has used a simple figure to bolster his argument that President Obama couldn’t fix the U.S. economy: 8 percent.

In this campaign, begun in the midst of a staggering downturn, monthly unemployment reports have been a running scorecard. They distill a vast and complicated economy down to terms simple enough for a stump speech: a number and a direction, up or down.

For Romney, any number above 8 percent proved he was right and Obama was wrong.

Obama had promised, Romney told audiences repeatedly, never to let unemployment get that high. Instead, Romney said, the jobless rate blew past 8 percent and got stuck there.

Until Friday.

(More here.)