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Job data bad news for bush Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1078528211387&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1078528211387&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724
Mar. 6, 2004. 01:00 AM
Job data bad news for Bush
21,000 new jobs in U.S. last month far below forecast But election rival Kerry has his own
worry ... Nader
TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON—For the second consecutive day, U.S. President George W. Bush's nascent re-election campaign found itself back on its heels, this time over a pathetic job creation report.
The monthly job report showed only 21,000 jobs were created in the United States last month, far below the 125,000 most private economists had anticipated, delivering another blow to the incumbent president's credibility.
Successive polls here have ranked jobs as the Number 1 concern of American voters and the first Friday of each month, when job figures are released, is fast becoming a key recurring date for the Republicans in the 2004 campaign.
The White House came under fire last month when it predicted 2.6 million jobs would be created this year only to have Bush immediately distance himself from the forecast.
To meet that increasingly fanciful goal, the U.S. economy would have to create 300,000 jobs a month for the rest of the year.
The U.S. unemployment rate remained at 5.6 per cent but job growth under Bush during the past nine months was roughly half what would be needed merely to keep pace with population growth.
The jobs figures came as Bush continued to face criticism from firefighters and families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks for using images of the carnage that killed nearly 3,000 people in his re-election ads.
At a campaign stop in Louisiana, Democratic challenger John Kerry tied the issues together. The Massachusetts senator said the U.S. president was trying to "scare America'' and "change the subject" by using images of the terrorist attacks.
"You understand why he's doing that," Kerry said at a rally in New Orleans. "He can't come out here and talk to you about jobs. He can't come out here and talk to you about protecting the environment. He can't talk to you about balancing the budget."
The Bush campaign again refused to apologize for the ads yesterday.
Bush is to visit a memorial to the victims Thursday in Long Island's Nassau County, one of New York's suburbs, before attending a fundraiser that night in East Meadow, N.Y, his spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Meanwhile, the Democrats were grappling with new polling figures that appear to confirm some of their worst fears.
Though the poll for Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs showed Bush and Kerry in a virtual dead heat, independent candidate Ralph Nader drew a surprisingly strong 6 per cent support, again raising the spectre of a spoiler role for the consumer advocate.
The poll of 771 registered voters, conducted Monday through Wednesday, showed Bush with 46 per cent of committed support and Kerry with 45 per cent.
It also shows Bush's job approval rating sticking stubbornly at 48 per cent, virtually unchanged from a month ago.
Nader, who entered the race Feb. 22 over Democratic pleas to stay out, won only 2.7 per cent of the vote in 2000 when he ran under the Green party banner.
This year, without party backing, he faces an uphill struggle to have his name placed on the ballot in many states. In 2000, he was on the ballot in 43 states and Washington, D.C.
In an interview on John McLaughlin's One on One to air this weekend, Nader says "liberals'' are prepared to give Kerry a free ride because of the "Anybody but Bush" mentality in the Democratic party.
"(That's) another way of saying to John Kerry: `We're not going to demand any mandates. We're not going to look at your issues and your positions, because it's anybody but Bush, and you're anybody,'" Nader said.
"He's going to get a free ride. That's not good for him. It's not good for exciting the public or turning out new voters or putting the Republicans on the defensive."
The AP-Ipsos poll margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Additional articles by Tim Harper
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