Is This the Only Chart That Matters in Election 2012? Obama's Epic Unemployment FAIL

Over at the American Enterprise Institute's blog, economics writer James Pethokoukis re-ups a bigger version of what is quite possibly the only chart that matters for the 2012 election. It shows the unemployment rate with and without Barack Obama's recovery plan, including the bold projections of his economic advisers back before the first "recovery summer" was upon us like a plague of joblessness. Then just to rub it in, Pethokoukis includes the actual unemployment rate. Hat tip: INSTAPUNDIT

Pethokoukis is basically in the tank for Romney-Ryan, but that's neither here nor there. It's pretty clear that Americans aren't warming to Mitt Romney, who is totally meh as a candidate—given his creation of the nation's first healthcare mandate, support for stimuli past, lackluster style, and inability to actually discuss cutting government spending in any real way, that's not surprising. To pretend that Romney and the GOP offer a distinct choice from the policies of the past 12 years (GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan voted for many of the worst of them, including TARP, No Child Left Behind, The Patriot Act, Medicare Part D, and more).

But it may not matter, either, given Obama's demonstrated inability to goose the economy (and that's not even to mention his punts on other issues such as civil liberties and transparency that have disappointed even his ardent supporters).