Mitt Romney responds to this morning's dissapointing jobs report: 
 
 “If last night was the party, this morning is the hangover. For every net new job created, nearly four Americans gave up looking for work entirely. This is more of the same for middle class families who are suffering through the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression. After 43 straight months of unemployment above 8%, it is clear that President Obama just hasn't lived up to his promises and his policies haven't worked. We aren’t better off than they were four years ago. My plan for a stronger middle class will create 12 million new jobs by the end of my first term. America deserves new leadership that will get our economy moving again.” 
 
 The party last night is of course a reference to President Obama's speech at the Democratic convention. 
 
 Bloomberg reports on the numbers: ||||| Today’s unemployment report was disappointing: only 96,000 jobs created last month, and revisions reducing the previous two months by 40,000, it was not only well below expectations but, more importantly, below what the economy needs to do to get people back to work. A lot of people are suffering in this economy, and for each of them, this is bad news. 
 
 As far as the presidential race goes, however, there’s nothing here that changes the status quo significantly. Last month, before the report was released, I said that “anything between 50,000 and 150,000 is not a very big deal politically, and it would take either an actual negative number or something over 200,000 to really shake things up.” So this number falls comfortably within that “not a big deal” range. Moreover, the headline unemployment rate number fell a bit, from 8.3 to 8.1 percent, making this a more mixed and muddled picture. 
 
 To be sure: this month’s numbers are a bit more important to the presidential race than last month’s, because as many have said a dramatic number could have affected the postmortem coverage of the party conventions. That is: we simply are going to have more than the usual amount of presidential election news coverage over the next few days, and normally inattentive voters are still triggered by the conventions to focus on politics a bit more than they usually do. So anything that affects the tone of that coverage could have some effect. However, especially with the reported unemployment rate falling, it’s unlikely that this report is bad enough to really change the way reporters and pundits see the Charlotte and Tampa meetings. Of course, some will overreact, but overall, the tone of the media coverage won’t change enough to make a difference. 
 
 Now, continuing weakness in the jobs market may spur the Federal Reserve to take further action, which in turn could mean some much-needed help for those who are hurting, but it’s increasingly less likely that any effects could show up until after the election (although the already-healthy stock market could be further helped by Fed action). The truth is that the economic context of the election is pretty much set in stone by now: a recovery, but not a particularly lively one. And today’s jobs report just doesn’t change that, no matter how many times people claim the contrary. 
 
 What the political science models tell us is that those economic circumstances point to a close race, with perhaps a slight advantage for the president (depending on which model you look at). Which in turn means that campaign-level factors, from the quality and frequency of ads to get-out-the-vote operations to, yes, the effects of the conventions, could all be important. The bottom line of today’s jobs report is mainly just to keep that dynamic in place. ||||| 148 days ago 
 
 (CNN) – Friday's jobs report indicating only 96,000 jobs were created in August brought a quick end to any lingering Democratic euphoria from this week's party convention, bringing into sharp reality the challenges President Barack Obama will face in the two months until Election Day. 
 
 The monthly report, one of the few remaining before voters head to the polls November 6, showed the unemployment rate falling to 8.1% as more workers withdrew from the labor market. The 96,000 jobs created were also not enough to keep up with the population entering the workforce. 
 
 
 
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 Republicans, eager to portray Obama as weak on economic policy and jobs creation, quickly latched onto Friday's report as another indication that his time in office has been a failure, saying Obama's policies were hurting struggling Americans – and that the time had come for a change. 
 
 "After the party last night, the hangover's today," Mitt Romney, Obama's Republican challenger, told reporters ahead of a campaign stop in New Hampshire. "The jobs numbers were disappointing, for almost every new job created, approximately four people dropped out of the workforce. Seeing that kind of report is obviously disheartening to American people that need work and are having a hard time finding work." 
 
 "There's almost nothing the president has done in the last three and half four years that give the people confidence that the president knows what he's doing when it comes to jobs and the economy," Romney continued. "And there's certainly nothing he said last night that give the American people confidence that he knows what he would do to create jobs or build a stronger economy." 
 
 Obama himself told a crowd in New Hampshire the numbers were "not good enough." 
 
 "We need to create more jobs faster," Obama said. "We need to fill the hole left by this recession faster. We need to come out of this crisis stronger than when we went in." 
 
 Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, said on CNBC the numbers were "not even close to what a recovery looks like." 
 
 "This is not what President Obama promised," Ryan said. 
 
 While jobs numbers aren't the only important economic figures, they are the most highly scrutinized. No sitting president facing an unemployment rate higher than 8% has won another term since Franklin D. Roosevelt. 
 
 Even a confident Wall Street will do little to pad the blow to Obama following Friday's report. On Thursday the Dow Jones industrial average surged 245 points, or 1.9%, and closed at the highest level since December 2007. The S&P 500 climbed 2% to its highest level since January 2008 while the Nasdaq shot up 2.2% to its highest level since November 2000. 
 
 "These numbers really reinforce my sense of where the race stands after both conventions," CNN Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein said after Friday's numbers were released. "To me, it felt like neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama really demonstrated a second gear that would really expand their coalition beyond what they came in with. And thus the race seems poised for just trench warfare with each side fighting to move very small margins among their various constituencies." 
 
 "This is not catastrophic enough to drop the bottom out from President Obama, but no tailwind behind him at all. And just setting us up for grinding trench warfare," he continued. 
 
 David Frum, another CNN contributor and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said the numbers meant more people were giving up hope – and that was bad for Obama. 
 
 "For the president's point of view and the president's party, when people give up on looking for work, they also give up on trying to vote," Frum said. "They become detached from society. And those are the people he needs to motivate. They have to at least have hope. And here they are demonstrating when they quick looking for work they are giving up on hope." 
 
 In a statement released by the White House, Alan Krueger, the chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, wrote that the report did indicate the economy was recovering. 
 
 "While there is more work that remains to be done, today's employment report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression," Krueger wrote. "It is critical that we continue the policies that are building an economy that works for the middle class as we dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession that began in December 2007." 
 
 As reflected in Democrats' struggles over answering the question "are you better off today than you were four years ago," the president's team must maintain a balance between touting the ways the economy has improved, while still recognizing the dire circumstances facing millions of Americans. 
 
 Former President Bill Clinton, speaking to delegates Wednesday, summed up the Democrats' challenge this way: "Many Americans are still angry and frustrated with the economy. Though employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend and even housing prices are picking up a bit, too many people don't feel it." 
 
 If Obama is re-elected, Clinton said, "You will feel it." 
 
 The president himself made a similar pitch Thursday, saying "change will not happen" if voters turn him away in November. 
 
 "The truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades," Obama added.
– Mitt Romney is pouncing on today's jobs report, which found lowered unemployment but fewer jobs created than were expected. "If last night was the party, this morning is the hangover. For every net new job created, nearly four Americans gave up looking for work entirely," Romney says in a statement, according to the Weekly Standard. Citing "43 straight months of unemployment above 8%," Romney says that Americans "aren't better off than they were four years ago." Here's how others are reacting to the report: At USA Today, Susan Page calls the news middling. It "wasn't good enough to significantly boost President Obama or bad enough to significantly help Republican Mitt Romney," she writes. "Instead, it was one more sign of a slow recovery that gives talking points to both sides." For Americans, the report is bad news, writes Greg Sargent at the Washington Post. But for Obama and Romney, "there’s nothing here that changes the status quo significantly." A "big deal" report would require either a "negative number" of jobs created or "something over 200,000." CNN offers several perspectives: Kevin Liptak calls the report "a blow to Obama," bringing "a quick end to any lingering Democratic euphoria" after the convention. David Frum notes that "when people give up on looking for work, they also give up on trying to vote." But to Ron Brownstein, it just means more "trench warfare."