Rural unemployment in swing states called critical in deciding 2012 presidential election

The good news for President Obama is that unemployment in rural America is dropping. Some rural counties are even adding jobs, or were, judging from the numbers from February to March. But the Daily Yonder notes that political analysts are looking at the economies of states expected to be highly contested in the November presidential election -- let's call those "swing states" -- and, in those, rural unemployment is not so good. And the climb for the incumbent, analysts say, is all uphill.

As the map, above, shows, each state has its own issues. A look at the battleground states (go here for more charts) reveals 8 of the 13 agreed-upon battleground states have an unemployment rate that's above the national average. Four of those battleground states have unemployment rates above 10 percent. But Florida, a crucial election state, has a slightly lower jobless rate, with Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Mexico and New Hampshire all doing better than the national average.