Ward Room: "Chicago Fixes Elections, Not Jobs Reports"

Well do Chicago politicians cook job report numbers? It's a slam against the President who cut his teeth in Chicago politics. This year as he seeks re-election we're hearing that more and more. Today we hear it from the former CEO of General Electric:

Former General Electric chairman Jack Welch says the new unemployment numbers issued by the Obama Administration are no more reliable than election totals issued by the Chicago Machine.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent, the lowest figure since President Obama’s first month in office. That’s also an important threshold because we’ve been hearing all year that no president has ever been re-elected when the unemployment rate is above 8 percent.

“Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers,” Welch tweeted on @jack_welch, his personal account.

It was essentially debunked:

Seasoned political veteran and former Chicago Alderman Dick Simpson, who recently wrote a book on Chicago corruption, said that's probably not the case.

"What Chicago's known for is fixing elections, not for cooking reports," he said. " ... that seems an odd argument."

It’s as though Short Pencil Louie, the infamous precinct captain who used to erase Republican votes and write in Democratic votes, has been promoted to director of the BLS.

All this to say many people are critical of these job numbers. In fact you can watch this example over at Newsalert. A common slam against the President is the economy particularly jobs and from those who want to see Obama gone from the White House we're going to see doubt about the jobs numbers.