In Turnabout, Democrats Say GOP Has Dropped Job Focus

"Republicans waging losing war on health care while Democrats focus on jobs," said a headline Friday from the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

He told reporters that "we still recognize that our number one issue is jobs." He said he was preparing a small-business innovation bill "that would also create jobs."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sends daily "talking points" to colleagues with suggestions such as "another day, another opportunity lost for Republicans to work with Democrats on job creation."

In truth, there's only so much the government can do to create jobs, short of expensive stimulus bills or public works programs such as those launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Numerous and complex factors that affect the U.S. and global economies play a bigger role.

Curiously, perhaps, both parties have accused the other of fixating on health care instead of jobs. Health care, more than any other issue, energized the Democrats' liberal base in 2008 and 2009, and, conversely, fired up the GOP's conservative base as well.

Barack Obama campaigned on overhauling the health care system, and his backers saw his 2008 election as a mandate to follow through. In Congress, the process proved extremely difficult and partisan, with no Republicans voting for the final version.

Raucous protests against the legislation helped launch the tea party movement in 2009. Dozens of GOP candidates ran last fall on a promise to overturn the health law. Once elected, they claimed their own mandate to act right away on the issue, just as Democrats had done two years earlier.

Both parties risk appearing to cater to their hard-core supporters at the expense of political centrists worried mainly about jobs.

A new AP-GfK poll asked 1,000 adults to name the one thing they would want the federal government to do this year, if it accomplished only a single thing. The economy and jobs ranked first, cited by 38 percent of those surveyed. By comparison, 31 percent named health care, with some supporting Obama's health law and some opposing it.

No other issue exceeded 12 percent; abortion barely registered.

Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who oversaw GOP House campaigns in past years, defended the early focus on health care and abortion. "These are commitments we made" during the fall campaign, he said, adding that a heavier emphasis on jobs is coming soon.