WASHINGTON – The economy’s surprising growth spurt brought smiles to the faces of Republicans throughout the capital, but their joy could be short-lived if it is not followed by an employment increase that makes Americans feel secure in their jobs as the election approaches.

For now, President Bush’s tax cuts, plus spending on the war in Iraq and extremely low interest rates, did what they were expected to do – give the economy a huge dose of stimulus and even cause businesses to start investing again. That means the economic story could be breaking in Bush’s favor, and the president wasted little time taking credit.

“The tax relief we passed is working,” Bush said during a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “We left more money in the hands of the American people, and the American people are moving this economy forward.”

But he added, “We cannot expect economic growth numbers like this every quarter.”

Democrats seized on that point, noting that job growth is still lagging.

“One good quarter does not make an election,” political consultant Dane Strother said.

In fact, despite Thursday’s positive report on the nation’s gross domestic product, several Democratic presidential candidates criticized the economy’s performance under Bush.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said, “We’ve lost 3 million jobs, 3 million people have fallen into poverty, the budget deficit and national debt are growing, and health care and college tuition costs are escalating.”

Another candidate, Howard Dean, said, “President Bush has compiled the worst economic record since the Great Depression, and it is going to take a lot more than one quarter of growth to clean it up.”

Although Republicans are likely to say that Bush’s tax cuts helped the economy grow, analysts said other factors, such as lower interest rates and higher production efficiency, were major contributors. Some of the new efficiency has come at the expense of jobs, as companies have learned to do more with fewer workers – a phenomenon that could work to Bush’s political disadvantage.

In order for Bush to eliminate the economy as an issue that could be used against him in 2004, employment will have to pick up sharply, and the jobless rate, now at 6.1 percent, will have to decline. But creating jobs is not as simple and as automatic as it once was in America, and that is a major challenge for the president.

Now, intense global competition and high productivity are putting a crimp in the job-making machine. It takes higher economic growth to make a major dent in the unemployment rate. Some suggest it may take sustained annual growth of 4 percent or more for a couple of years to do the job.

The 7.2 percent growth in third quarter GDP did nothing to increase employment. In fact, over the quarter, the nation lost 146,000 jobs, a testament to high productivity, said Larry Mishel, economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

White House economic advisers Stephen Friedman and Greg Mankiw hailed the third-quarter increase but did not endorse a prediction by Treasury Secretary John Snow that the economy would add an average of 200,000 jobs a month over the next year.

But if nothing else, the direction of the economy is up smartly, and that’s good news for Bush. In 1992, when his father lost the presidency, the economy was beginning to improve, but only toward the end of the campaign. In the view of many analysts, Bush needs several quarters of above-average growth to make people forget the poor jobs record during his first two years and nine months in office.

Charles Black, who formerly headed the Republican National Committee and is now a prominent GOP lobbyist, said that with the economy growing so fast, “job growth hopefully will not be too far behind.” He added that by next summer, Bush’s re-election campaign could be lifted by brisk economic growth.

In past economic recoveries, growth rates of 6 percent or more for several quarters were not uncommon. But the growth rate in this recovery has been subdued, and the jobless rate has increased. Now, the question is whether the economy has kicked into a higher gear that will drive spending and investment for the next several years.

No one knows for sure, but one pessimist, Gary Shilling, who runs his own economic consulting firm in Springfield, N.J., said, “I think we will see a lot slower growth going ahead.”

He added, “All that stimulus from tax cuts has been masking layoffs and cost-cutting in business. When you take that away, and you see consumers’ salaries and wages decreasing, you could well slide back into recession.”