'04 The Issues: Jobs And The Election: Can They Find a Good Employment Line?

Of all people, George W. Bush, a son of a one-term President, should certainly understand the importance of getting the script and the staging just right when it comes to demonstrating how committed he is to helping Americans get and keep good jobs. The economy was improving on Election Day 1992, but voters could still recall images of George Herbert Walker Bush buying four pairs of socks at J.C. Penney the previous Christmas season and exhorting them to shop their way out of bad times. Or how, as he prepared to tee off at a Kennebunkport, Maine, golf course in the summer of 1991, the elder Bush declared the recession over and then blocked funding to extend unemployment benefits. Though people understand their President can't guarantee their jobs, they want to know that he's doing what he can and that, at a minimum, he's paying attention.

So this President Bush makes sure to plant himself as often as possible on the factory floor, surrounding himself with happy workers--as he did last week at a window-and-door factory in Tampa, Fla.--and touting the job-creating power of his tax cuts, even as he acknowledges that many people are still out of work.

But as hard as Bush tries to show that he is both optimistic about the economy and empathetic to the plight of people who haven't felt the turnaround yet, there are some discomforting realities. Chief among them: Bush looks certain to go into the election with the distinction of being the first President since Herbert Hoover to see the total number of jobs shrink during his term in office.

Democrats point that out often, like whenever they move their lips. "Everywhere I go, I'm meeting people who are talking about working harder, working longer, not getting ahead, wages frozen, health-care costs going up. People feel very anxious, as manufacturing has slipped away," Democratic front runner John Kerry told TIME. "During Clinton, we had 23 million jobs created. That's almost 3 million a year. Under Bush, we've lost 3 million in three years."

It does not help that a White House that has set the modern standard for message management has been sending up flares in recent days that illuminate for the most jittery Americans the fragility of their situation. First came the observation by Bush's top economist Gregory Mankiw that outsourcing jobs overseas is "probably a plus for the economy in the long run." That may be true in theory, but the statement was so impolitic that even such staunch Bush supporters as House Speaker Dennis Hastert were furious. "An economy suffers when jobs disappear," Hastert said. And so do politicians.