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A spate of figures including a highjobless rate, reduced consumer confidence and a sluggish firstquarter do not look good for U.S. President Barack Obama'sre-election chances in November. On Friday, the U.S. jobless rate rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1percent, marking what economists call the flimsiest economicrecovery since the Second World War. Unemployment has hovered abovethe 8 percent mark for more than three years now, and there remainmillions of people who have been out of work for more than 27 weeks-- the so-called "long term unemployed." Friday's disappointing jobs report led to lower consumer confidenceby some counts -- on Monday Rasmussen's consumer confidence hadsagged five points. And on Thursday, U.S. first-quarter gross domestic product grew apaltry 1.9 percent, missing economists' already weak 2.2-percentinitial estimates. The news does not look good for Obama, who is running neck-in-neckwith Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the lead-up to November'spresidential election, in which the economy and jobs overwhelminglytop the list of voters' concerns. "He's not going to get any help from the economy. The big questionfor him is ... to make sure the economy just doesn't get muchworse," said Republican strategist Ford O'Connell. TEAM OBAMA JABS BACK In a bid to counter many voters' perceptions that the president hasbeen a poor steward of the economy, team Obama is blasting the GOPfor having what it said was no plan to create jobs and accusingRepublicans of blocking a number of Obama's jobs initiatives. "They need to get off their hands and stop rooting for failure,"said Stephanie Cutter, the president's deputy campaign manager,said on ABC's This Week on Sunday. Top Obama strategist David Axelrod charged Republicans withcelebrating bad economic news. "These are the architects ofobstruction and now they' re complaining about the pace of therecovery," he said Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. "They shouldput down their political hats and join us and help solve theseproblems." O'Connell, however, said the finger pointing is hurting rather thanhelping the president, who ran an uplifting hope-and-changecampaign in 2008. "The one thing that had been keeping Obama afloat for a long timewas his likability. And the more he's attacking Mitt Romney ...it's actually hurting him," he said. Indeed, former Democratic President Bill Clinton, a top Obamafundraiser and ally, in an interview Friday on CNN's Piers MorganTonight contradicted Democrats' populist attacks on Romney for hisrecord as a wealthy executive. "I think he had a good business career," Clinton said, adding thatRomney had a "sterling" career and that he himself has friends inprivate equity, Romney's former line of work. In a Gallup poll released Monday, challenger Romney had a 49percent to 45 percent edge over Obama among middle-income voters --those whose annual household income is between 36,000 U.S. dollarsand 89,999 U.S. dollars per year. Romney has the same lead amongupper-income voters, while Obama maintains a wide advantage amonglower-income voters. Still, the two candidates are running neck-in-neck, with the mostrecent Real Clear Politics poll average showing Obama leading bynearly 2 points, which is not enough to make a real difference,experts said. "(Friday) was a pretty devastating jobs report and it remindedpeople how fragile this economic recovery is," said Karlyn Bowman,senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "That said, itremains to be seen whether people think Romney could do a betterjob." "Although President Obama's numbers on handling the economy aremore negative than positive, the two candidates are at this point,pretty evenly matched on handling the economy," she said. Related: U.S. economic growth in first quarter revised down to 1.9 percent WASHINGTON, May 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. economic growth slowed to anannualized rate of 1.9 percent in the first quarter of the year,down from an initial estimate of 2.2 percent, revised figures fromthe Commerce Department showed Thursday. Full story Special Report: U.S. Presidential Election 2012. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as ND Yag Laser Machine Manufacturer , Erbium Laser Machine Manufacturer, and more. For more , please visit ND Yag Laser Machine today!
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