Mitt Romney surprised President Obama with a dynamic debate performance Wednesday night, but he's been upstaged today by another October shocker as the unemployment rate plunged from 8.1 to 7.8 percent, its lowest since Obama took office in 2009.
The Labor Department report has triggered a mixture of cautious optimism from Democrats, who were looking for some good news after Obama's disappointing performance at the debate, and disbelief bordering on suspicion from Republicans and business leaders, some of them expressing doubts about the veracity of the figures.
"This morning we found out the unemployment rate fell to its lowest rate since I took office," an energized president said during a rally in Virginia. "More Americans entered the work force, more people are getting jobs.
"It's a reminder this country has come too far to turn back now," he said.
Republicans were skeptical about the numbers.
"It appears that Obama has hired infamous Iraqi Information Minister Baghdad Bob to calculate the unemployment rate. Anyone who takes this unemployment report serious is either naïve or a paid Obama campaign adviser," Americans for Limited Government, a conservative group, said in a statement this morning.
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Watch Video Baghdad Bob was known for claiming American forces were being routed in battle right up to the day U.S. troops occupied Baghdad.
"Unbelievable jobs numbers," tweeted former General Electric CEO Jack Welch. "These Chicago guys (Obama campaign headquarters are based in Chicago) will do anything… can't debate so change numbers."
The Romney camp was less colorful in its response, but joined a chorus of Republican leaders questioning whether the report could be taken as an accurate indicator of economic progress.
"This is not what a real recovery looks like," the Republican's campaign emailed about an hour after the report went public. "If not for all the people who have simply dropped out of the labor force, the real unemployment rate would be closer to 11 percent."
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., conceded that the "report offered some encouraging news," but it still "isn't good enough."
Top Democrats have been mostly quiet; careful not to be seen celebrating in what remains an unforgiving economic climate for many Americans, especially those in a number of swing states with unemployment rates routinely exceeding the national average.
"Too many middle class families that are still struggling to pay the bills," Obama said. "They were struggling long before the crisis hit. but today's news certainly is not an excuse to try to talk down the economy to score a few political points."
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House minority leader, was similarly careful.
"Today's jobs report marks the lowest unemployment rate in four years," she said in a statement. "But we have more work to do. Because of President Obama's leadership on the economy, we avoided another depression and now have registered 31 straight months of private sector job growth… The unemployment rate is lower than when he took office."
The Labor Department will issue one more jobs report before the election, unveiling November figures on election eve Nov. 2.
Not all Republicans are dismissing today's news. Florida Gov. Rick Scott seemed pleased enough, sharing in a tweet that "Tampa-St.Pete.-Clearwater and Miami area experienced largest unemployment rate declines in country."
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