There is little question that President Obama’s Friday press conference did major damage to his reelection effort. In case you have been on another planet, Obama was asked to defend his economic record, without blaming Europe, and he responded, “The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine.”

Within minutes, the Republican National Committee had a video up using the president’s quote in a carbon copy version of the ad Obama using Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., September 2008 quote,”the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” And within hours Obama tried to walk back his gaffe, telling the press at a photo-op later in the day, “It is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine.”