My inbox is filling up with Republican press releases about how the increased unemployment rate shows that the stimulus (or Obamanomics generally) isn’t working. RNC chairman Michael Steele gave a typical response: “[M]ore than 3 million Americans have lost their jobs since the president took office. The president’s economic experiment simply isn’t working.”

Like Larry Kudlow (if less influentially), I think conservatives and Republicans are overdosing on economic pessimism. If the jobs-on-Obama’s-watch number turns positive by the summer of 2010, will Steele be willing to say that the stimulus did work? Republicans are helping the Democrats take credit for a jobs rebound should one occur. And the information in today’s jobs report by no means suggests that we’re in a deepening recession. Private-sector payrolls saw their smallest drop in a year (even with a minimum wage increase and a concomitant drop in employment among teenagers). Wages seem to be going up.

Maybe I’m naive, but I think conservatives and Republicans need to have a much more solid, and less knee-jerk, economic message. My own stab at one would be: The economy’s regenerative powers are strong enough to overcome even seriously mistaken policies in Washington, but we would be recovering faster–and running less risk of ruinous debt and inflation–with better policies.

But at the very least, Republicans shouldn’t put all their eggs in the unemployment basket, especially since–to get back on one of my hobbyhorses–the influence of the unemployment rate on elections is vastly overrated.