Unemployment Numbers: Good News for Obama, Bad News for Rod

New unemployment numbers are out, and there's two pieces of good news for Obama's campaign and more bad news for Rod Blagojevich.

First, the good news for Obama:

1. National unemployment numbers are at a five year high, underscoring his argument for Change.

2. Unemployment in states with Democratic governors is .2% LOWER than unemployment in states with GOP governors, which bolsters the argument that Democrats are better at managing the economy.

Now, the bad news for Rod:

1. Blagojevich has the second-worst jobless numbers (7.3%) of any Democratic governor, second only to Gov. Granholm, whose home state of Michigan has been decimated by the collapse of the U.S. auto industry.

2. Illinois has the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the nation, behind only MI, MS, RI.

Part of the reason this is such bad news for Rod and Illinois is that because of the diversity of our economy, Illinois is traditionally one of the last states to feel the effects of a recession but also one of the last states to rebound. In other words Campers, things are likely to get a lot worse.

By the way, if you're expecting the Capital Plan being discussed in Springfield to make a dent in Illinois' unemplyment numbers, think again. There are roughly 15,000 unemployed construction workers in Illinois, but 491,300 unemployed people overall. That's makes construction workers only 3% of all unemployed workers, and wouldn't even move unemployment numbers a tenth of a percent.