Candidates push jobs message even though it's mostly beyond power of local offices

Surrounded by local labor chiefs at a campaign rally last week in Landover, Rushern L. Baker III, a candidate for Prince George's County executive, made a bold promise:

"We need to make sure that Prince George's County puts people back to work, and that's what we're going to start doing today," Baker (D) said to applause as a campaign staffer distributed his three-page jobs plan.

Baker is one of several Washington-region candidates who have made "job creation" a pillar of their platforms this election year, piggybacking on the recession-era strategies of presidential and gubernatorial candidates who have tried to let voters know they feel their pain. But economists and political observers say that jobs rhetoric is, for the most part, just lip service and that candidates will find they have little power to actually make a dent in the unemployment crisis if elected to city and county posts.