For all the human pain it represents, today’s depressing jobs report in the wake of the Democratic and Republican conventions at least helped remind the presidential candidates what this election is supposed to be about — not who gives the best speeches, or who has the most loving (or at least most telegenic) family, but how to get the economy moving again.

After two years of Democratic control and things not getting better–or, in many cases, getting worse–Americans again voted for change.

Obama’s timidity on added economic stimulus is a self-fulfilling prophecy that would put Shakespeare’s Macbeth to shame.

While political reporting is often focused on tracking polls, fund-raising, and public scandals, the election is often decided by more important macro factors, like the health of the economy.