Will Friday's job numbers help Obama recover?

[J. J.]

It depends what they are.

The numbers will be worse than when Obama took office.  A decline in rate and an increase in the number of employed will.  Bad numbers, and Obama is probably finished.

[J. J.]

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You mean like that 8 percent one he made back in 2008 that still hasn't happened 4 years later?

If Obama's campaign is hoping to fight the election on the economy - then Mitt's won. Plain as day. This economy is absolutely horrible.

You know, one debate and unknown employment numbers are not necessarily a sign of Armageddon.   

[J. J.]

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You have me confused with an Obama fan.

Oh, sorry, but I thought you'd like the increasingly rare distinction.   

[J. J.]

It depends what they are.

The numbers will be worse than when Obama took office.  A decline in rate and an increase in the number of employed will.  Bad numbers, and Obama is probably finished.

Haha, good one, JJ.

These job reports haven't really had any impact on the campaign and there's no reason to believe they'll start to now.

Well, I think they have, though not as much as other things.  36 hours before these numbers came out Obama was saying the economy was improving.  If the numbers show that the economy is not improving, it steps on his narrative for the next three weeks.

[J. J.]

They will only have an effect if they are much poorer than expected. The slowing in growth hasn't made many headlines either.

CNN will be covering it extensively.

There are two elements, unemployment rate and the actual number of employed people.  If both are static, it is very bad news for Obama.  He will be going into the election with higher unemployment numbers than any president since 1948; that is almost a given.  If the number of actual jobs drops or shows an anemic increase (90 K or less), Obama will be the first president since either FDR or Hoover that has had a loss of jobs prior to the election.  He probably could not survive that.

[J. J.]

ADP reported their numbers yesterday, which had private employment increasing by 162,000 in September.  As a result I would be shocked if the BLS numbers released tomorrow are not a six-figure number beginning with "1", so I expect tomorrow's job report to have no effect.  It will need to be <100,000 to help Romney and ≥ 200,000 to help Obama.  Even then the effect would be slight.

I think one of the keys will the number of people employed.  Obama needs to have that in positive territory.