Bill Boyarsky: The Ambiguous Battle for Jobs!

It's the great unanswered question of the presidential campaign. Just how can America actually create jobs? President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are ducking the specifics, tearing each other down and offering little hope to the 15 percent of Americans without enough work. The rhetoric of the campaign, and the coverage by political journalists don't deal with the subject, except in the context of the back and forth insults that have marked this contest. For example, last month Obama, talking about why the rich should pay their fair share of taxes, stated the obvious: "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. The Internet didn't get invented  on its own. Government research created the Internet, when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together." Any successful entrepreneur with a restaurant or retail operation on an interstate highway would probably agree. But Romney picked it up as more evidence of Obama's rejection of the national entrepreneurial spirit: "It shows how out of touch he is with the character of America," Romney said. Obama isn't out of touch with the American character, but the negativity of his unrelenting attacks against Romney puts him out of touch with the main American need, specific ways of lowering the unemployment rate. Away from the campaign trail, in the real world, life is different, and the entrepreneurial spirit exists to a great extent because workers, business people and governments work together on the complex and frustrating task of actually creating jobs. The New York Times reported Sunday how state government, using financial incentives and salesmanship, with a little help from Congress, persuaded Nissan to build cars in Tennessee. Now, the Times said, Tennessee has more than 60,000 jobs related to automobile and parts production. The state unemployment rate, once above the national average, is now slightly below it.