Mary Altaffer/AP Photo

While some Democrats see GOP Congressman-elect Bob Turner’s victory in the New York 9th Congressional District special election yesterday as a canary in a coal mine for President Obama and the Democrats in 2012, the White House pooh-poohed such analyses today.

On Air Force One en route to a North Carolina event, White House press secretary Jay Carney argued that special elections are “unique,” and that the outcomes of special elections don’t say very much about regularly scheduled elections.

“Are Americans in general not happy with Washington?” Carney asked. “The answer is yes.” He said that every member of Congress up for election in November 2012 needs to make sure job creation is his or her principal focus in the coming weeks.

Asked about a Bloomberg poll which found that a majority of Americans do not believe President Obama’s jobs bill will lower the nation’s 9.1 percent unemployment rate, Carney chose to look at the glass as half full.

“I think that means half the American people based on that poll believe it will help create jobs and grow the economy,” Carney said. “The American people want Washington to take action.”

Actually, the poll found 51 percent of Americans don’t think the American Jobs Act will lower unemployment while 40 percent think it will.

So the glass is 4/10ths full.

-Jake Tapper and Mary Bruce