Q: Who created more jobs: Branstad or Culver? A: Neither

The accusations started to fly almost as soon as the candidates took the stage at Coe College's Sinclair Auditorium on Thursday:

Branstad cooked the books. Culver's budget could give you whiplash. Culver is reckless. Branstad breaks promises. So's your old man.

But let's talk about jobs. After all, Iowa's unemployment rate was nearly 7 percent in August. Too high.

More than 114,000 Iowa residents are out of work. We want to know what our next governor is going to do about it. But the debate only left us wondering who to believe: Did Branstad lower unemployment or renege on his promise to create jobs? Is Culver's Iowa grim and jobless or leading the country out of recession?

It's true that when Branstad took office in 1983, the state unemployment rate topped 8 percent. When he left in 1999, it was under 3 percent. It's true that rate was only slightly higher when Culver took the helm in 2007.

What isn't true, experts say, is that either had much influence on the numbers.

Iowa's unemployment rate marches along in lock-step with the national rate - if, thankfully, on the lower end. As the national rate goes, so goes Iowa, more or less.

“These [candidate] claims of: ‘I created 300,000 jobs.' Um, no,” John Solow, an associate professor of economics at the University of Iowa, told me on Friday. “It happened on your watch.”

When it comes to jobs, politicians take credit for the good and blame for the bad. But the bottom line, is they don't have all that much influence, Solow said. They can try to sweeten the pot – tinker with regulations and taxes - but it's all on the margins. Our economies are so intertwined that the bigger numbers are pretty much out of a governor's control.

Don't believe me? Take a look at South Dakota - the state with the most business-friendly tax structure. No offense, but it's not as if companies flock to set up shop there just for a break.

UI Political Science Associate Professor Tim Hagle agreed: “The main thing a governor, or if you look at the national numbers, the president, can do,” he said, “is get out of the way.”

Candidates throw the numbers around for votes, of course. “It sounds good,” Hagle said. He's an optimist, too: “I would hope that at least some level they would think they could achieve those particular goals.”

But if they can't, then how do you decide who to vote for? One thing's for sure: You might want to look behind the numbers.

They might not lie, as the saying goes, but in a gubernatorial debate, they sure do wiggle around.

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