WASHINGTON — A strong US jobs report gave President Barack Obama an upbeat end to a startling week for both campaigns, while Republican challenger Mitt Romney finally addressed his secretly taped disparaging remarks about the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes, calling his words “just completely wrong.” The government's new jobs report Friday showed that the unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years. It's now at the level it was when Obama took office. Unemployment had been at 8.1 percent before Friday's report, and economists had expected the number to edge up instead. The report broke an important psychological barrier before the Nov. 6 election. No president has been re-elected with unemployment above 8 percent since the Great Depression. The report also had the potential to swing momentum back to Obama after he suffered through a weak first debate against Romney Wednesday. Romney said shortly after the jobs report that 7.8 unemployment “is not what a real recovery looks like.” The final monthly jobs report before the election will come just days before Nov. 6. The surprising report so soon before the election brought skepticism from some, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis found herself defending her work from suspicions that the Obama administration might have skewed the jobs numbers. “I'm insulted when I hear that because we have a very professional civil service,” Solis told CNBC. The new report quickly overran Romney's comments on his remarks about the “47 percent.” Romney's campaign had been hit hard by the secretly taped remarks that emerged last month, in which he said he couldn't convince nearly half the country to “take personal responsibility” for their lives. He slipped behind Obama in some of the key battleground states that will decide the election as people again worried that the multimillionaire Romney was out of touch with average Americans. But Romney's assertive debate performance against a tired-seeming Obama rallied Republicans again to his side. Obama notably did not mention Romney's “47 percent” comment during the debate, but Romney brought it up in a Fox News interview Thursday night, after a day of rallying conservative activists with his vision of his own inauguration. He told Fox that the remarks, which he had once dismissed as “not elegantly stated,” were wrong. “Well, clearly in a campaign, with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question-and-answer sessions, now and then you're going to say something that doesn't come out right,” Romney said. “In this case, I said something that's just completely wrong.” He added: “And I absolutely believe, however, that my life has shown that I care about 100 percent and that's been demonstrated throughout my life. And this whole campaign is about the 100 percent.” Widespread anger over Romney's remarks had helped to give Obama a bit of a lift in key polls, and many wondered why the president didn't use them to fight back in Wednesday's debate, which most people agreed the newly energized Romney won. Obama's campaign on Thursday promised “adjustments” would be made before the two debates that remain. And Obama woke up during campaign appearances Thursday to make a rebuttal, accusing Romney of being dishonest about how his policies would affect the tax bills of middle-class families. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that the vast majority of voters already have settled on a candidate, but 17 percent of likely voters are considered persuadable — either because they are undecided or show soft support for Obama or Romney. Their next debate is Oct. 16. — AP
