Why Bush is on the carpet with Hoover

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Why Bush is on the carpet with Hoover

"As Bush's term has followed the eight years of economic boom under Bill Clinton, the Hoover comparison is one that hurts.

It hands Democratic challenger John Kerry one of his strongest cards in the campaign.

It has been touch and go all year as to whether jobs growth, measured by monthly non-farm payrolls data, would be sufficiently rapid to save Bush from having to adopt the Hoover mantle.

But the low new jobs figure of 32,000 in July, compared with a Wall Street forecast of a 220,000 gain, combined with a downward revision of 50,000 to the jobs numbers of the previous two months, means Bush needs almost a quarter of a million new jobs a month between now and the end of the year to replace all the jobs lost since he took power in 2000."