Last week, a Washington Post/ABC tracking poll found the presidential race tied nationally between President Obama and Mitt Romney, but more interesting was what it said about Americans’ perceptions of Obama’s actual job performance. “Among voters who say they are focusing their vote on [Obama’s] first-term performance, 58 percent back Romney, and 41 percent support the president,” the Post reported. “By contrast, the vote is reversed among those who say they’re voting more based on what he would do in a second term: among these voters, it is 58 percent for Obama and 40 percent for Romney.”

It’s not surprising that Americans who are basing their vote on Obama’s actual results are overwhelmingly backing Romney. On Friday, the nation received another reminder of Obama’s failures when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nation’s unemployment rate had crept up to 7.9 percent in October. That’s a far cry from the roughly 5.5 percent unemployment rate Obama’s advisers were promising by this time when the president was arguing for his $833 billion stimulus package.